From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Sat Nov 09 2002 - 10:42:23 GMT
Dear Steve,
You wrote 7/11 20:56 -0500:
'I've heard from Magnus, but I haven't gotten any other feedback. ...
Basically I'm arguing that we should stop talking about types of patterns
because they can't be categorized. Instead we should talk about ways of
valuing or types of awareness of patterns.'
I'm sorry I didn't make my feedback of 7/11 8:16 +0100 explicit enough.
I know how to categorize patterns of values: by the way they are
maintained/latched.
(inorganic: unequal probability distributions in the quantum behavior of
subatomic particles; biological: DNA stabilized by protein structures around
it; social: unconscious copying of behavior; intellectual: conscious
motivation/justification of actions in a way that is acceptable to others).
I can categorize values indirectly by interpreting them as the value of
maintaining a pattern of values of one of these types (i.e. as static
quality) or as the value of changing a pattern of values away from
disintegration (i.e. as Dynamic Quality).
Unless you can clarify to me HOW exactly you think you can categorize values
DIRECTLY, for me it is 'Down with Types of Value, Up with Types of Patterns'
and not the other way round.
You wrote 7/11 11:56 -0500:
'Pirsig extended the definition of what is real by defining reality in terms
of patterns of Value rather than matter and energy to include such "ghosts"
as the laws of science, which have no matter or energy, among the real.'
According to me the MoQ radically revises the definition of what is real
rather than just extending it. 'Matter' and 'energy' understood as 'patterns
of values' are something quite different from 'matter' and 'energy'
understood as 'objects'.
I wrote about experiences of 'materialishness', 'life',
'culture/tradition/habit' and 'truth/meaning/reality' at the 4 different
levels.
You replied 7/11 11:56 -0500:
'These "experiences of" sound like levels of awareness to me. My point is
that we can have all four kinds of awareness of the same pattern of value.
We can value a particular pattern in four ways (at least). In fact, the
experience itself is defined by awareness of Value.'
They only sound thus if you interpret what I wrote from a Subject Object
Metaphysics perspective. Then the 'experience' like the 'awareness' fall on
the subjective side and the values or patterns of values on the objective
side of the divide. According to the MoQ the 'experience' and -if you want-
the 'awareness' are identical with the (patterns of) values. Reality does
not consist of a 'we' that can choose to 'value' some thing (a pattern of
values) in one or more out of 4 'ways of valuing'. That idea (that reality
consists of subjects and objects) is itself an intellectual pattern of
values and not the highest quality one available.
'Awareness of (patterns of) values' evokes a wholly different type of
'value' than the value that Pirsig equates with Quality, which resides
neither in objects nor in subjects, but creates them. In my account of the
MoQ the maintenance or continued existence of a pattern in my experience IS
a static value and its change (rather than its discontinuity) IS a dynamic
value.
The analysis you propose 7/11 20:56 -0500 is fine and of very high quality
... in a SOM context. You are interpreting 'patterns of values' as 'things'
(objects) that we (subjects) can 'value' or 'be aware if' in different ways.
Pirsig tried (obviously with only partial success) to clarify to his readers
the possibility of going beyond that.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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