From: skutvik@online.no
Date: Thu Jun 16 2005 - 19:40:45 BST
Hi Platt.
15 June Platt Holden wrote:
> Ever since Bo, one of the original MD'ers, rose like Phoenix from the
> ashes with an essay in the Forum and began debating again in the MD,
> there's been a lot of thinking about thinking going on.
Better not mention our long carreers, that is social and very bad
according to the new kid on the block.
> So as I thinking about all this thinking about thinking, I suddenly
> had a thought. The MOQ, a pillar of thinking if there ever was one, is
> not about thinking. It's about what occurs before thought, namely,
> valuing.
Agree, but this original insight is obscured by Paul and DMB who
maintains that the thought pattern called "common sense" comes
first.
> All talk about the intellect and the intellectual level amounts to
> nothing more than an attempt to tell others, "Here's what I think
> about that." Likewise in ZMM, Lila, Lila's Child, the SODV paper and
> elsewhere, Pirsig tells us, "Here's what I think about reality."
> So what does the great Author think about thinking?
> "I don't think the subject-object level is identical with intellect.
> Intellect is simply thinking, and one can think without involving the
> subject-object relationship. Computer language is no primarily
> structured into subjects and objects. Algebra has no subjects and
> objects." (LC, note 95)
> There you have it. "Intellect is simply thinking." It includes
> subject- object thinking, logical thinking, scientific thinking,
> computer language thinking, mathematical thinking, oriental thinking,
> imaginative thinking, experimental thinking, metaphysical thinking,
> and all other forms of thinking. But thinking is not the essence of
> reality.
> According to the MOQ, thinking is a Johnny-come-lately-aspect of
> reality. Before thinking, before society, before microbes, before
> atomic particles there was Quality, i.e., value, morality.
Complete agreement! And may I repeat what I said to Allen:
The resistance to the SOL is SOM's firm grip and this
rests with with the inner dialogue we all keep going with
ourselves or with imaginary opponents. This makes us
believe that there is an inner forum where all this takes
place. In SOM this forum is called MIND and the dialogue
is called THOUGHTS . If one transfers this directly to the
MOQ the said forum becomes INTELLECT and the
dialogue becomes intellectual PATTERNS.
> Pirsig tells us that Quality is a creative force, an energy. Like
> physical energy that science thinks is the source of all things,
> Pirsig thinks the Quality force is the source of all things, an energy
> that has left in it's wake all that we have come to think of as our
> world.
> Static patterns of value are manifestations of the Quality force, not
> manifestations of intellect except indirectly, after the fact.
> Thoughts themselves are static value patterns. But, as we learned in
> Semantics 101, thoughts are not the same as reality.
> Reality is our direct, unadulterated, pure, prior-to-any-thought
> experience of the Quality force. Any creative thoughts (ideas) are
> responses to that force. Normal, everyday thinking such as experienced
> on this site is static, i.e., manipulating symbols to tell others our
> less- than-world-shaking thoughts (including this post, of course).
> Here we are imprisoned in the intellectual level, taking our everyday
> experience of Quality pretty much for granted. At least that's better
> than being stuck in the social level or biological levels as so many
> people are.
Yes, except that social value can also be conveyed by
manipulating symbols (thinking and/or language)
> What's new in MOQ is the thought that before thought, before a word is
> spoken, before language, before symbol-making and symbol manipulation
> (semiotics) there stands a reality that cannot be defined but is known
> even by a new born baby, a reality of value.
> Shakespeare may have thrown us off by his aphorism, "Nothing is good
> or bad, but thinking makes it so," agreed to by a panoply of
> psychologists who for decades have preached that happiness depends on
> what you think. Tell that to Nick Berg as he was being decapitated by
> Arab terrorists, or to a victim of Saddam's tyranny as he was being
> thrown into a wood chipper. No, our thoughts may influence our
> behavior, but before everything comes the value of the present moment,
> good, bad or indifferent -- the cutting edge of Quality.
Agree!
But what are thoughts? Above I refer to the inner dialogue called
thoughts, held in a realm called mind. Thoughts or loud thoughts
(spoken language) is the social pattern that DQ rode to intellect.
After that intellect looked back through its S/O glasses and saw
that language was S/O-divided (symbols/what is symbolized).
Later in history intellect had divided existence completely and
Shakespeare "discovered" that values was (determined by)
thoughts.
> I think we think thinking is paramount because we depend on it
for
> survival and can no more stop thinking than we can stop breathing
> except in deep meditative moments that few of us practice or during
> deep sleep. We are also give thinking top billing because we're
> unaware of our value reaction to experience that precedes our
> thoughts. Our value reaction is hidden by the nearly simultaneous
> emergence of thought in response to Quality. But, Bo has pointed out
> an experiment by Benjamin Libet demonstrated that our nervous system
> reacts to values a half second or so before the value registers as a
> thought. Only Pirsig's metaphysics accounts for this phenomena.
> So yes, thinking is part of reality, a static pattern of symbol
> manipulation following assumptions and grammatical rules of the
> language one is using whether verbal, mathematical, oriental or
> whatever.
I don't know if you agree with my "thinking as silent language",
nor am I sure what static level you see thoughts belonging to, but
I for one see the division "thoughts/what thoughts are about" as
intellect, but thinking as (silent) language is a social pattern. I
can't but kick Paul and David again. They are latter-day
Shakespeareans postulating intellect's subjective half as primary.
> In the West, the subject-object assumption dominates verbal
> thinking.
YES!! To the degree of building a S/O metaphysics on this
foundation.
> But, Pirsig has demonstrated (conclusively to my way of
> thinking) that the core of reality from which everything else comes
> into being, including thought, is Quality - the creative force, the
> primary, pure experience of value that's right in front of our noses,
> every waking moment.
Agree again. Quality has built the Static Level Universe of which
the inorganic (not SOM's matter) is the first manifestation.
Thanks for a most thoughtful post Platt
Bo
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu Jun 16 2005 - 19:51:08 BST