LS Substance and stuff

From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Sep 26 1999 - 00:14:54 BST


Squaders: The debate on language and the levels has been very
stimulating. I broke a sweat reading the last batch of posts and would
like to see this topic to go on for another month. Getting right to
it...

DENIS wrote, "All we (Roger and I) were saying is that the levels were
located in the Q-Intellect, and that discussing dogs was discussing an
intellectual pattern deduced from Quality." and "All patterns of value
are also intellectual patterns of value."

MANGUS RESPONDED by saying, "You yourself said that 'It is a social
behaviour which carries intellectual patterns. A Dynamic process', and
of course you can include such features in language if you like, but I
think you muddle up the clear borders between the levels if you do. DQ
and SQ is supposed to be the first cut of reality. When SQ is later
divided into four levels, we shouldn't introduce DQ into it again."

THE BONES
I agree with Magnus. He has put his finger on one vital anti-MOQism,
saying we shouldn't muddle up the levels or ignore the static /Dynamic
split. (I'm sure no one WANTS to muddle or ignore anything.) But don't
we all agree that the four levels and the static/Dynamic split are at
the heart of Pirsig's work and that understanding them is essential? I
don't mean to be harsh, but I have to say that Denis and Roger have
mis-interpeted the basic structure of the MOQ by doubting the existence
of the three lowest levels by putting evolution, revolution and Dynamic
change into ordinary consciousness. I think this picture disrespects the
ontological scheme (the levels) and the primary division between DQ and
sQ.

CIRCULARITY AND THE ETERNAL RETURN
The fact that this issue has been raised again under this topic, SOM and
the intellectual level, only demonstrates the fact that little else can
make sense if the MOQ is seen in that light. Its a view that renders the
MOQ mute and useless. The fact that it is a recurring issue only
testifies to its degree of stuckness. As you can see, I don't think I'm
just picking nits. I imagine that Denis and Roger are a little angry by
now, but please don't take my objections and disagreements as an insult.
I've read and re-read your posts. What you've said is thoughtful and
well said, but I think its not correct. I believe everyone here is
sincerely interested in a proper understanding of the MOQ, and thats all
I'm really after here. Honestly. To get a little more specific...

THE GALLERY OF METAPHYSICS
It seems to me that Denis and Roger have used a MOQ brush to paint a SOM
picture. And I don't say that because they use subjects and objects in
their sentences. That kind of thing is unavoidable, unless you want to
re-invent the language everytime we discuss Pirsig's ideas. I've tried
to understand what they've described. And as I understand it, they have
all four of the levels of static Quality "located in the Q-Intellect",
as Denis said or "biological patterns are just cuts of the intellectual
knife", as Roger put it. I don't think it's correct to collapse the
levels in this way. I think putting the whole of reality into the
intellect is a pretty radical kind of Solipsism.

THE BOY IN THE BUBBLE or OOOPS, I THINK YOU MISSED A SPOT
In the picture they paint, the intellect interacts with DQ directly and
CREATES the world of static patterns. This conception of the static
patterns seems a lot like Kant's categories of the mind, but with
magical creative powers. And aside from the solipsism and creative
ability, the epistemolgy of this notion seems very much in line with the
classical empiricists, that is SOM and the mind\body split. As Bo says,
you've got "reality" in one sphere and the intellect in another and
you're rather skeptical about the possibility of connecting the two
spheres. It's kinda Cartesian in that respect. I think that this picture
of the MOQ leaves us in so better shape than before. Its just as lonely,
atomistic, and impenetrable as SOM ever was. In short I think you've
constructed a SOM philosophy using MOQish ideas and Pirsigian
vocabulary. Its a SOM scene painted in MOQ colors, so to speak.

KNOTS
I'd like to try to unravel a couple of threads that have, in my opinion,
led you to a mistaken view. One thread leads from Aristiotle's
"substance" to the modern concepts of matter and objectivity. The other
has to do with language as it relates to the social and intellectual
levels. Together they should make up a coherent description of how
Pirsig treats the objects and subjects, how he handles the problems with
SOM. That's the plan, but I may have bitten off more than I can chew.

WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH MATTER or ...I never meta physics I didn't like.
(Most of these bad puns only work in English.)

GODS AND MONSTERS
One of the main reasons we've inherited an amoral world view is that the
social level was ignored in the pursuit of scientific truth. SOM turned
Aristotle's "substance" into the only thing that is "objectively" real.
Reality became equated with matter. Thus we get scientific materialism.
Thus we get a world where social vaules and morality are merely
"subjective". In an attempt to remove all personal prejudices and
beliefs, science chose to ignore social level values altogether. Its
like we've chopped off our own legs. SOM has become destructive and
dehumanizing. This is the idea behind Shelly's "Frankenstein". We see it
in the myth of the MAD SCIENTIST who is determined to take over the
world and re-make it in his own warped image. As Oppenheimer said at the
first nuclear test, "I am become Shiva destroyer of worlds..."

THE "SUBSTANCE" OF THE MATTER
I believe you've mistaken the nature of Pirsig's problem with
"substance". It certainly doesn't mean that there is no reality outside
of DQ and our conceptualizations of it. It doesn't mean there is no
inorganic reality. Yes, Pirsig objects to the notion that Aristotle's
"substance" is the bedrock of reality. He objects to the notion that the
"mind" arises out of complex "matter", but he doesn't deny the existence
of "substance". In the MOQ its known as inorganic and organic static
Quality. Intellectual static patterns are just as real, but are a
seperate level of reality, a different level of static Quality.
Confusing them collapses the MOQ like a house of cards.

ON SOLID GROUND
I agree with Bodvar here. "Aristotle said that SUBSTANCE is reality,
while the running FORM is transient and illusory." This idea is as basic
as the phrase, "dust to dust". Adam was made of the dust and to the dust
he returned. The phrase is repeated at many grave sites even now. Peter
was the rock upon which the church would be built. And we still use the
metaphor today. Chevy trucks are advertised as "like a rock". Even the
modern laws of physics will tell you that matter and energy can NOT be
created or destroyed, but they can change forms. The idea is a
common-sense notion in our culture. Its in the mythos and the logos, but
I'm getting ahead of myself...

THEY WERE POOR BUT THEY HAD EACH OTHER
Its no accident that we find Aristotle's idea of substance in lots of
places, from the pulpit to the physics lab. His views were effectively
"married" to Christian theology in the age of Scholasticism and together
they formed the basis for a total cosmology. It was the world-view of
Christiandom and Western civilization for at least a thousand years.
We've all inherited a great deal from that world-view and we still cling
to the main features of the pre-Copernican world in many ways. Sunrise
and sunset? We know its not correct, but use the words anyway.

IMAGINE A DIFFERENT COSMOS
Part of what makes this hard to deal with is that Aristotle's
"substance" isn't exactly the same as SOM. I think we could say that the
concept of "substance" has evolved into SOM, which is really a modern
scientific view. SOM proper wasn't really ushered in until the
scientific revolution. The modern idea of cause and effect had not yet
taken shape as we understand it today and you may recall the ancients
had only four "substances". The motions and actions of earth, water, air
and fire were explained as each element finding its proper level. They
had an entirely different idea of "gravity" too. And you can see the
idea of solidity and permanance in Aritotole's belief that the stars
were fixed and eternal because they were embedded in crystaline spheres.
Aristotle's substance was really part of cosmology and metaphysic that
was almost entirely different than our present SOM concepts.

CULTURALLY, WE ALL COME FROM A BROKEN HOME
Its a little ironic that SOM has evolved from Aristotle's physics,
because the scientific revolution was touched off when Copernicus proved
Aristotle was wrong about the stars. The fall of the Holy Roman Empire
wasn't caused by Martin Luther and his ilk so much as the subversive
effects of the telescope. It was a crisis in science that caused the
fall of religion. The theological doubts and disputes started in
reaction to astronomical discoveries, which had undermined the church's
authority in all areas. The Copernican revolution shook the very
foundation or the world, so the speak.

IT WAS DAD'S FAULT, BUT HE GOT THE KIDS ANYWAY
SOM was forged in a climate of radical doubt, profound insecurity,
political repression, the inquistion, book burnings and prolonged,
bloody wars. SOM was born at a time when the effects of bigotry,
superstition, and all kinds of reactionary impulses were felt most
accutely. Its important to understand the circumstances of the rise of
SOM. You can see that this was when the split between faith and reason
occured. The scientific method was born out of this chaos. Even
Descartes' radical skepticism makes sense against this backdrop. He
looked for something solid to stand on in a situation where folks had
just learned that the ground beneath their feet was in motion and was
not at the center of the universe, as they once believed. You know this
old story, but it bears repeating. The modern amoral scientific world
view was born when thinkers trusted nothing. Aristotles cosmos had
collapsed and the irrationality that followed in the wake of that event
distorted the scientific method just as we came to rely on it more than
ever.
 
LOCKED ALL BY MYSELF IN A TACKY LEASED CONDO
As a result Science is no longer at home in society. We are no longer at
home in the universe, nor at its center. We are locked inside a mind
that can only imagine what is "outside" in the real world. Thus we get
the terrible secret lonliness and all kinds of existentail dis-ease. SOM
has created a monster by its willful ignorance of our social and
cultural inheritance. Sure the Inquistition sucked, but they threw the
baby out with the bath water, reducing the entire mythos to nothing more
than ignorance and superstition. THIS IS THE PROBLEM WITH SOM. It's not
the belief in the ontological reality of inorganic nature that matters,
its the exclusion of everything else! Its the assumtion that only
material reality can be considered objectively real. SOM has denegrated
everything that can't be detected by scientific instruments and put it
on a shelf labeled "subjective". This removes things like love, art,
beauty, and religious experience from the world. Its a big problem, to
say the least.

CONCRETE AND BARBED WIRE
The fact that science has been so spectacularly successful in producing
material progress has helped to disguise its ugly and dangerous side.
But you could say we've come to the end of our faith in that kind of
progress. And its interesting to note that Pirsig writes his metaphysics
using a narrator who is a technical writer, a chemist and a bike
mechanic. His books come along just as two superpowers with rival brands
of materialism had come to a stand off over the right to run the whole
world, with thousands of nuclear missles pointed at each other.
(Sometimes it seems the cosmos itself has a sense of humor.) I think its
no accident that cracks in SOM began to appear in the real world, not
just the universities. This was reality telling us that scientific
materialism is not gonna work out. It demonstrates the end of
materialism in a most dramatic and undeniable way. SOM is killing us on
many levels, so to speak. On top of the threat of nuclear extinction,
there is a hole in the ozone, a sickness of the soul and too many ugly
houses. I definately think Pirsig's MOQ is about solving problems in the
real world.

THE CURE FOR BLINDNESS or REVERSE AMPUTATION OF THE LEGS WITHOUT A KNIFE
That's exactly where the levels come in. Matter is radically re-imagined
as inorganic and biologicial static patterns of Quality, and mind exists
in the MOQ as the top two levels. And its not just a matter of
re-organizing "things" into different categories. Pirsig's ontological
scheme does a lot more than just replace "things" with "patterns". The
levels of static Quality replace subjects and objects with a unified
field of evolutionary progress. The MOQ's description of the conflicts
between the levels, and the moral codes that go with it, certainly seems
to defy the idea that they are "just cuts of the intellectual knife".
And even though they are all made of static Quality, the levels are
discrete and represent different values. Putting all the levels into the
intellect ignores those distinctions and makes the moral codes into a
pointless exercise in sorting different kinds of thoughts. (IntPoV)

PIRSIG FOR POPE?
It may seem like a bad idea at first. It might seem like the solution is
to revert to some kind of Theocracy, where church and state are united
again, but that's not what I mean here. The marriage of Christianity and
Aristotleian cosmology may not have been the best couple, but that
world-veiw represented an integration of social and intellecual level
values. That is to say the mythos and the logos fit together in a way
that denied the validity of neither. Both levels were able to "work" in
a total picture of reality. I don't need to remind anyone here about the
huge gulf between science and religion that exists today. Social and
intellectual values are bound to clash, but SOM is a case of split
personality disorder, not just a conflict of values. SOM has created a
rift between the mythos and logos that is just plain crazy. In the MOQ
these two can't be seperated any more that organisms can be seperated
from inorganic Quality. In Pirsig's ontological scheme the existence of
social values is not possible without the biological organisms that
constitute the society. And naturally it follows that the intellectual
level values can not exist outside of the mythos. SOM handles the first
two levels pretty well, but its big mistake is the failure to recognize
its own parent, the failure to properly respect the role of the mythos
in the scientific process. It skips a level. It imagines a society a
created by the intellect, instead of the other way around, which is the
MOQ version. As Pirsig might put it, the intellect doesn't create
society any more than society invents human organisms.

**************** LANGUAGE ON (AT LEAST) TWO LEVELS****************

MINE OVER MADDER
Pirsig's solution is just another piece of evidence that the levels are
real and not just in the intellect. The MOQ insists that the any search
for knowledge, truth or meaning has to include SOCIAL LEVEL MEDIATION.
That is to say, science has to recognize the mythos or it will be
blinded to a wide range of human needs. Pirsig's saying our intellectual
patterns can be repaired if we undo what science did back in those
troubled times. When they rejected the authority of the church they
rejected the mythos along with it. Pirsig is saying that social level
static patterns are not only real, they're essential in the formation of
all our intellectual patterns. Intellectual patterns don't spring
directly out of DQ, they are connected to all the levels of static
quality. Our intellectual patterns of Quality become distorted if they
are not properly mediated through each level. That's the problem with
SOM. Its insane. Its outside the mythos. So now the (amoral scientific)
mothos is insane. This is where the issue of language comes into the
picture. It exists at both levels, so it serves as a bridge and a good
way to get at some distinctions between the levels. This approach also
brings us back to the main topic, the emergence of the intellectual
level and SOM.

WHAT FLEW OUT OF WHERE!?!
It might be tempting to think that just about any human utterence is an
intellectual activity simply because language is symbolic and that its
use implies a certain capacity for abstraction. It even easier to
believe language is primarily intellectual if you happen to spend a lot
of time with intellecutuals in a discussion group. But the fact is even
a chimpanzee can recognize itself in a funhouse mirror. This implies
that he has an abstract concept of himself and that he can compensate
for the distorted reflections. And its pretty well understood that
chimps can learn to use language, and can even invent grammatically
correct sentences, with real world meaning behind. Its no stomping
horse. Certain animals really can use symbols to communicate. But I
think we'd all agree that there is no such thing as an intellectual
monkey.

I'll over state the case for dramatic purposes and say that most human
utterances NOT intellectual at all. Even well constructed sentences with
a impressively sophisticated vocabulary are not genuinely intellectual,
they're just social level values in formal attire. At least most of the
time, our ''ideas" are just common sense in a tuxcedo. I'd say language
is PRIMARILY social. And its a huge part of our overall thought process,
its a huge chunk of our total consciousness and according the the MOQ
that's the way it should be. To live outside the mythos is to be insane.
We are suspended in language. We are suspended in the mythos. It means
the same thing.

The problem is that SOM pretends it isn't so. The lack of social level
mediation in the scientific process, has a similar effect on our
understanding of language. It's no accident that Western Epistemology
ran into a dead end and split into Biology and Linguistics, where they
ran into more dead ends. (Not that we haven't learned alot about
physiology and languages along the way, but they both failed to solve
any of the classic epistemological riddles like the mind body problem.)
In terms of language and culture, this sin of ommission has resulted in
reducing myths and gods to a kind of primitive bad science, it sees
social level patterns as intellectual too. But it sees them as obsolete
antiques, valuable only as a curiosity. But this view fails to see the
difference between two different levels of reality. I can't think of a
better way to describe the difference than with the real life examples
provided in our favorite book

I believe Pirsig uses Hitler as an example to make this point exactly.
The problem with the third Reich wasn't that it was predicated on bad
intellectual patterns, rather it was based on social level values
disguised as real ideas. It was a reaction to bad intellectual patterns.
It's anti-intellectual impulses led to a degeneration into the lower
level. He made the same complaints about the Victorians, pointing out
that the old saying that "the only good Indian is a dead Indian" is a
Victorian sentiment. I'd add so-called Creationists to the list of those
who are most obvious in making this mistake. They pretend a creation
myth is scientific or they really don't understand the difference. The
confusion paints a very weird world. Their Earth is 6,000 years old,
people come back from the dead and virgins bear children. All this is a
symptom of SOM's larger mistake. Its part of the same problem.

. At the end of LILA, Pirsig recomends reading Campbell's "The Masks of
God" as a way learn about our mythos. But I'm sure that's just a good
starting point. Myths aren't just bad science or low quality
intellectual constructs, the are the carriers of social level values.
The myths are totally tied up in our language. Jesus, it would take a
Herculean effort to open that Pandora's box ;-)

The main idea here is that the levels are not only real, they're
essential. Language and Myth and all the other aspects of social values
are a level of reality as much as the biosphere is. The idea of social
level mediation, in this respect, demands that we recognize that
language and myth are loaded with meaning and value. The social level
values are different and less evolved than intellectual ones, but they
are still necessary and Good. We can apply the intellect to our myths in
a way that doesn't seek to over-glorify nor dismiss. We can comprehend
the meaning without stooping to blind faith and literal interpetations.
We can use the intellect to re-discover the meaning of our myths instead
of using it to discredit and debunk.

I'm all out of time, but I hope to work DQ into this picture too. ONE
MORE MONTH! ONE MORE MONTH! DMB

MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org



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