From: ian glendinning (psybertron@gmail.com)
Date: Mon Aug 15 2005 - 14:20:43 BST
Sam,
(This is the same response I sent you intially off-line, with a few
minor edits, so that others can join in.)
I'll reply to this by inserts marked [IG] below, but I think our
agreement is so total, it would not be worth another round of this.
A few posts ago you baulked at a post of mine that suggested you and I
were playing word games - as if I'd suggested you were "merely"
playing word games. Far from it - I'm suggesting our only disagreement
is the words we use, and the definitions assumed behind the choice of
words. (Both words and games are a very important part of nature BTW.)
When I posted the Self Evident MoQ Truths thread, I was trying to lay
out some clarifiers. I'd like us to debate each of the points
(carefully, without "political" noise) to arrive at some working
definitions "a supporter of MoQ would agree as reasonable". (In fact
I'm going to recap and re-start a thread with the same intent, soon.)
The biggest problem you all have understanding me, is "nature".
Nature IS physics IS MoQ IS good quality science IS the best
explanation of anything; There is nothing else. MoQ highlights (and
almost solves) things missing from "current" (SOMist) physics and
science. As a "science" physics is by definition always expanding and
updating itself. Looking at the most philosophical of modern
scientists, and the most scientific of modern philosophers, everyone
seems to recognise the SAME explanatory gaps, and the proposals for
plugging them look remarkably similar to me from the MoQ perspective.
A perspective which no modern philosophers and scientists seem to
have, despite the fact that physics learned almost a century ago that
SOMist objectivity is for the birds. Look at my posts on scientists
not adopting their own best explanations as everyday common sense -
after Deutsch.
Anyway, specific responses below [IG].
On 8/15/05, Sam Norton <elizaphanian@kohath.wanadoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Hi Ian, all,
>
> > Belatedly, I've given Sam's paper a pretty thorough read.
> >
> > I agree with his concerns and analysis of the "Intellectual" level.
> > My conclusions about what we should do about it MoQ-wise are not quite the
> > same.
> >
> > http://www.psybertron.org/?p=1052
> >
> > We need a good definition of MoQ-Intellect.
> > (Better than Pirsig's so far.)
> > But let's not throw baby out with the bathwater.
> >
>
>
> Thanks for taking the time, I'm pleased you agree with much of my analysis.
> I suspect we could quite rapidly get to an agreement on most things, but not
> all... Detailed comments below (I've copied in the full text of your
> comments, even though I don't comment on all of it)
>
> Ian:
> Paper from April 2003 by Sam Norton, concerning an alternative
> interpretation of the "intellectual level" in Pirsig's MoQ. I only skim-read
> it previously, and because I didn't "get it" I've been unable to participate
> in some of Sam's debates. So here goes . (this is a long one) .
> The standard model ...
>
> Sam interjects:
> The beginning of the paper is an attempt to outline what I think the
> 'received' view of the MoQ is, in order to show what I'm criticising. I
> don't agree with all of it.
[IG] I recognise this, and sometimes I'm doing the same, and for this
reason we each sometimes miss what the other is positively asserting.
Hence why I fancied starting with a blank sheet - "this is what I
believe the MoQ says" - no contrasting with other views, no
justification of what you believe or why, no pre-empting objections -
just straight from the hip.
>
> Ian continues:
> The standard model ...- Sam describes the standard view of the MoQ in his
> own words. Only a couple of quibbles. Inorganic Level - Sam admits to being
> no physicist, so let's not worry about errors of popular science detail
>
> Sam: thankyou :o) but I'd be interested to pursue the details at some point
>
> Ian:
> - let's just agree to call it the "Physical" level (the level where only
> physics prevails - in its widest sense). Similarly the Biological Level - a
> few quibbles on where physics and chemistry become biology and life. Let's
> agree to think of this as the "Living" level, where life prevails over mere
> physics.
> First actual disagreement. Sam says this is the layer where "natural
> selection" occurs. No, I say that exists in all the levels and is one of the
> major mechanisms of evolution throughout the MoQ.
>
> Sam: OK, fair point. Although I wouldn't want to call it 'natural selection'
> then (ie it's not selecting from 'nature').
[IG] - What else is there but nature ? (See preamble) I also responded
to Scott on this point "selection" as a process applies to all levels
"Living" and above, if we agree that as the definition of "Living".
>
> Ian:
> Second actual disagreement. Sam says only humans participate in the "Social
> Level". Not sure why we need to make such a constraint. Clearly a lot of
> social patterns in other animals may be purely biological evolved
> instinctual social behaviours, but I have no doubt other intelligent species
> can and do use inter-individual communication - language of sorts - in their
> own lifetimes to organise social patterns too. (But "inteligence" is part of
> the subject under discussion here, so let's hang fire.)
>
> Sam: here I am reflecting RMP's view. I agree with you, not him.
[IG] Scott also pointed this out - I guess I was aware, but this is
just a matter of defining social here as "human society". In the grand
scheme I don't believe it will prove a necessary condition though.
>
> Ian:
> In the Social Level Sam also talks, as does Pirsig, about the celebrity
> principle, setting and spreading cultural standards. My only quibble would
> be to update this with the concept of "memes".
>
> Sam: I'm not clear how 'memes' help, except as a figure of speech. See my
> reference to Mary Midgley on your blog.
[IG] I'll have to come back to this sometime - but just allow me to
use the word as shorthand for the spread of ideas, and some of the
"selection" mechanisms that go on in culture (including intellectual
level). It's just a word.
>
> Ian:
> In the Intellectual Level, Sam re-iterates Pirsig's idea that this is
> distinguished by "symbolic manipulation of information" and by the idea of
> "truth over opinion" and quickly goes on to point out what he sees as
> failings with the intelectual level, the subject of the essay.
> OK - just to put my stake in the ground - I see the intellectual level as
> the advent of "formalised reason" - "scientific thought" - this is the
> lowest layer of the top level. The start of the whole problem.
[IG] - Don't miss the last statement. Yes - this kind of "reason" IS
SOM - "the whole problem" before MoQ came along. That is my main
thesis. Science is with a gnat's whisker of learning this for itself.
> The idea of
> truth and right being derivable from concepts and axioms, as distinct from
> what social and below had just been "better" for those involved. So what I'm
> looking out for is the meta-problem. Is Sam saying the world model for
> "reason" is wrong or that the MoQ statement of it is not a good one ? If the
> former - I'm right with him, as is Pirsig's MoQ of course, that's its point.
>
> Sam: OK, several points here.
> 1. I would like to know how you distinguish 'formalised reason' from SOM.
> I'm not saying it's impossible, I'd just like to know how you do it.
[IG] - I can only distinguish it by defining a better kind of reason -
a quality of explantion that overcomes the explanatory gap.
> 2. The point about my banging on recently about 'only the holy can see
> truly' - on which I think I made some progress in persuading people - is
> that 'truth' isn't simply derivable from an axiom or a concept. It's
> dependent on the character of the individual perceiving it. That's pretty
> much a core element of 'eudaimonia' as I understand it.
[IG] - Absolutely - Axioms are for the birds. (I keep reciting
"Cornflowers") A quality explanation needs MoQ's "Quality"
> 3. What's at issue is the scale of values, what, to use a sailing image,
> might be considered the prevailing wind at each level. The prevailing wind
> at the social level is the interest of the social pattern. I think the
> prevailing wind at the fourth level is the 'Quality' of the individual, and
> that 'truth' etc is a product or fruit of the virtues of the perceiver. So
> it is the virtues which are primary. I would specifically want to let go of
> any notion of "objective" truth - which is why I want to know what you mean
> by 'formalised reason'.
[IG] - SOMist reason, Aristotelian logic. The root of the problem. I
said the "lowest" layer of the intellectual level - we still seem to
be stuck on it.
> 4. I'm saying that the analysis of the world model of reason changes over
> from ZMM to Lila, and that in Lila RMP retreats from some of the positions
> he took in ZMM. I think he chooses dialectic not rhetoric.
[IG] Absolutely again. He almost had to play the traditional reasoning
game to "justify" MoQ to a conventional "serious" audience. In that
sense he risked undermining the value of MoQ somewhat - by resorting
to dialectic - it was the only "game" in town. But rhetoric is not the
whole answer either unless we redifine rhetoric as MoQ. (Game theory
is a very important part of evolution BTW)
> I have absolutely
> no disagreements with anything in ZMM (that I can remember). I do have
> disagreements with the dialectical elements of Lila. If the MoQ as portrayed
> in Lila is reconciled with the notion of Quality in ZMM then we're almost
> home. This is the main burden of the essay, of course.
>
> Ian:
> A second stake in the ground - I've never actually seen the Intellectual as
> totally distinct from the Social. I see a socio-politico-intellecto-cultural
> continuum, with many different static latches, not just one clear social vs
> intellectual demarcation. The definition of "intellect" is a cultural issue.
> I prefer one Cultural level. There is a level at which the formal
> intellectual gets added to the social, but it never displaces it, just adds
> to it. I think we're going to be debating which kinds of reason are higher
> quality - "intellect" is a crude approximation. The intellectual Quality
> level is going to need a definition that involves "Quality" as part of it,
> or else it is going to get hooked on the very defintions of "reason" it aims
> to supplant. This is Godel. This is the meta-problem. The "top" level in any
> MoQ may always have to have this cosmic bootstrap problem.
>
> Sam: I'm interested in the language of the meta-problem, which I think is
> useful (and I think I agree that we need to have 'Quality' in the
> definition, even if it's circular). I also agree with there being one level
> of 'culture' (pretty much). Trouble is, there is still a big disagreement
> about what 'intellect' is here, but we'll come to that.
>
> Ian:
> Reading on.
> Sam expresses concerns 1 to 5. Clearly I share something like them. (Let's
> just ignore further popular science quibbles about biological life,
> evolution and DNA, being irrelevant to the point.) Basically the
> Intellectual Level is badly defined - either absolutely or distinct from the
> social - intellectual is certainly not the best word for it
> So Sam "Eudaimonia" is your alternative to "Intellect" as the fourth level ?
> Sam suggests "The autonomous individual" as the esence of the fourth level.
> No, that's not it. Though Sam re-defines autonomous.
>
> Sam: not sure I do 'redefine' autonomous, I just point out it's literal
> meaning, ie making it's own law. As the social level is the level of public
> law, when an individual makes their own law, they are by definition not
> acting at the social level.
[IG] Fair enough.
>
> Ian:
> Not just free to act but free to rationlise / reason how to act. This is
> looking promising. Its the communicable formalisation of reason - beggining
> to look like memes to me.
>
> Sam: Hmm. I suspect that the fourth level is _precisely_ incommunicable, as
> language is social level. It's the realm of fingers pointing at the moon. It
> can be shown with a life, but it can't be articulated. Which is where I
> think koans fit in. At some point the individual 'gets it', and they are on
> to the path of enlightenment. (Born again)
[IG] - I guess I kind of agree - it's not that language can't be used
to communicate at these higher levels, it's just that common language
is just not good enough yet. We need to extend language (hence my
positive allegience to memes BTW)
>
> Ian:
> Sam says "My society says that this is good, but is my society right to say
> so? - in other words, there is a questioning of social values." Spot on. In
> the social level value are right because they are social, in the
> intellectual (or whatever) they are right because the reason can be
> formalised independent of the social acceptance. Super-social-reason.
>
> Sam: disagree here. They're not right because of the possibility of
> formalisation. They are right because the virtuous (ie dharma- driven)
> individual perceives them to be of high Quality "independent of the social
> acceptance". So it is still super-social, but whether the perceptions can be
> formalised or not is, to my mind, a second order question. That is, I would
> say that the formalised systems of reasoning are social level products of
> fourth level intelligences, or something like that.
[IG] - Our disagreement here is you disagree with "reason" - I'm
mentally extending it to include what it should be - the softer Zen
stuff in the MoQ as well as the dialectic stuff.
>
> Ian:
> The middle third of the essay is a pre-and post-Socratic history of the of
> judgement of individuals independent from their social roles. So what are
> those units of judging, units of choosing ? (Interestingly the Chalmers
> stuff I'm still reading, has a big play on "judgement" in terms of what can
> be known - but I digress.)
> Aha, it's happiness - Sam says Eudaimonia is human flourishing or happiness.
> I say, or Satori or Quality. This is beginning to crystallise - the top
> level of the MoQ is highet level of quality itself, where quality is defined
> by the MoQ, dynamic quality. MoQ is its own grandpa. This strange-loopy
> recursiveness is very attractive (to me). Maximising happiness is also very
> "pragmatic".
>
> Sam: one of the things I've been musing about is how the fourth level is
> 'open' to DQ in a way that the other levels aren't, ie that the other
> levels, now, get 'most' exposed to DQ via the higher levels. What I think
> I'm describing is the open-ness to DQ, so I agree strongly with the
> redescription of eudaimonia with satori and Quality etc (that's why the
> quote from ZMM you include below is so crucial).
[IG] So we agree we're agreeing :-)
>
> Ian:
> Sam goes on to highlight artistic, aethetic quality that is not amenable to
> "logical" analysis. This is not new or contentious.
> Sam says "I consider intellect (in the Western sense) to be something of an
> anti-DQ death-force, precisely because it seeks a 'closed' and formal
> understanding." I say I wish I'd written that first. Spot on. This is Godel
> / Hofstadter again.
>
> Sam grins, and says: I only got about a third of the way into GEB when I
> bought it many years ago. It's still on my shelf, so I'll pick it up again.
>
> Ian:
> Sam concludes (before pre-loading ammunition for his critics)
> [Quote] Again, I think this is something that Pirsig himself articulates in
> ZMM, not least when he discovers the Sophists properly, and their teaching
> that 'man is the measure of all things', and Pirsig writes, "Quality!
> Virtue! Dharma! That is what the Sophists were teaching! not ethical
> relativism. Not pristine 'virtue'. But arete. Excellence. Dharma! Before the
> Church of Reason. Before substance. Before form. Before mind and matter.
> Before dialectic itself. Quality had been absolute. Those first teachers of
> the Western world were teaching Quality, and the medium they had chosen was
> that of rhetoric. He has been doing it right all along." Rhetoric - the
> development of the capacity to discern quality - is the pre-eminent
> technique for developing autonomous individuals. It seems fitting for this
> to be the most notable characteristic of the fourth level. [Unquote]
> Sam, I think I agree.
>
> Sam opens champagne.
>
> Ian:
> Not sure re-naming the fourth level Eudaimonia helps enlighten.
>
> Sam: the aim was to bring out more starkly the differences from SOM, which
> is what, under dialectic, 'intellect' gets reduced to, not least in the
> dialectical arena of this forum. I still think that - given the history of
> Western philosophy - 'intellect' is prone to mislead.
[IG] - But we are now just talking about a word and its definition
(and the reality of its memetic usage out there in culture) I think we
agree what "it" should be.
>
> Ian:
> We should just re-label it with any existing name for the highest quality -
> you list plenty. Quality or Dynamic Quality or MoQ itself, and damn the
> recursion.
> Alternatively, let's just maintain the "Intellectual" label for the fourth
> level, but make sure we have a clear definition that this is what MoQ means
> by intellectual. Least resistance line to the right conclusion, no ? MoQ is
> the highest intellectual pattern. (So much ongoing discussion misses this
> meta-problem of discussing the MoQ within the MoQ - this would expose that
> beautifully.)
>
> Sam: fine, I'm happy to run with the project of redefining 'intellect' so
> that it overcomes all these objections. I'm sure it can be done.
[IG] - Me too. I said as much to Scott.
[IG] - Cheers. The end.
>
> Ian:
> Wot, still no god ? <grin>
>
> Sam: I'll never advocate the god of your unbelief :o) - so help me God.
>
> Thanks again
> Sam
>
>
>
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