From: Steve Peterson (speterson@fast.net)
Date: Wed Jan 29 2003 - 21:33:35 GMT
Matt, Rick, Matt, Platt,
> Matt:
> I've been glancing in the direction of these posts for a while, but you've
> brought up something important in the way of interpretation:
>
> What is a 'pattern of value'? What does the valuing?
>
> As I see the lines being drawn, Rick is saying that the "patterns of value"
> do the valuing and Steve and Matt seem to say that "the pattern is the
> relationship of value *between* A and B."
Steve:
I actually said that the pattern of value is the *sort* of relationship
between A and B, though I know I didn't do a good job distinguishing what I
mean and what you inferred. I'll try to do better below.
Perhaps some of the disagreement lies in what A and B actually represent.
Since A and B are just symbols for who knows what, no one can be right or
wrong about equating 'A loves B' with 'A causes B' and 'A values B' or 'B
values precondition A.'
But the original issue was about a person loving another person. Here we
have a subject loving an object. Love is used as a verb in this case, not a
noun like Quality (Pirsig's 'Good is a noun'). The subject-object
distinction defines this love relationship rather than the subjects and
objects being deduced from the Love, so I see it as an SOM interpretation of
love.
"What does the valuing?" seems like the wrong question to be asking. In
Pirsig's 'is the Quality in the subject or the object?' do you put it in
one or the other, both, or neither? In the MOQ, Value is existence itself.
There is no 'what' or 'who' to do the valuing nor 'thing' to be valued or
possess value. At least this was true in ZAMM. In Lila, Pirsig seems to
say, despite it being a degenerate activity, let's manipulate patterns of
value as objects. But we still have to keep subjects out of the game or
we're back to SOM.
> Matt: As I see it, I have to side with
> Rick. The reason is because I have to ask myself, "If a 'pattern of value'
> is the relationship between A and B, then what's A and B?" Rick and I can
> give an answer, "Its a pattern of value." I don't know what the answer
> would be for Steve and Matt. It seems to me that if A and B are not
> _patterns_ of value (and value is all there is according to the standard
> interpretation of Pirsig), then they must be some sort of "value-atom,"
> resurrecting the spectare of substance.
To me A and B, thought of as independent entities, are abstractions. They
are not substantial in a metaphysical sense in the MOQ. There are no 'real'
independent objects in the MOQ. The world doesn't provide individual
objects. Brains define where the tree stops and the dirt begins.
You are coming closer to reintroducing substance by thinking of A and B as
substantial instead of as mental constructs.
A metaphor that I'm playing with is that subjects and objects like A and B
occur as 'nodes' created by intersecting 'waves' of value. They are not
individual patterns themselves.
I also think of how 'Lila has Quality' was rejected in favor of 'Quality has
Lila.'
Steve
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