Re: MD Partisan Politics, Labels and Distraction (was terrorism)

From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Oct 19 2005 - 14:03:39 BST

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    > [Platt]
    > Scientific methodology is hailed by Peirce as the one right way to think.
    > Pirsig says the methodology has a huge defect -- no provision for morals.
    >
    > [Arlo]
    > Peirce was, indeed, writing within a SOM paradigm. But Pirsig's solution
    > was not to abolish "scientific methodology", but to expand it to provide
    > for morality. This is why Intellect is the highest rung on Pirsig's static
    > MOQ ladder.

    I don't think it's correct to characterize the MOQ has an expanded version
    of SOM if that's what you mean. Rather, it's a completely new metaphysics.

    > If we abolish "scientific methodology" outright, what other means of fixing
    > our beliefs would you suggest?

    Well, we believe in the MOQ don't we?.

    > You've seemed to suggest in the past that
    > "until the MOQ is generally accepted" we cling to select pieces of the
    > Judeo-Christian code. Does this mean you prefer "authority" as the interim
    > basis for fixing of morals?

    I prefer the Judeo-Christian moral code to the humanist code of moral
    relativism which in the West at least seems to be the alternative.
    Sometime I hope you'll outline your moral code based on reason if it's
    other than the MOQ.

    > You seem to want critical thinking to be somehow ipso facto SOMist, so that
    > you can deny its relevance, but Pirsig engaged in a whole lot of critical
    > thinking in ZMM and Lila. And his "reason" was hardly SOMist. My
    > conclusion, it's not the "critical thinking", its the mindset of the person
    > doing it.

    Are you saying critical thinking is NOT SOMist? Perhaps you can explain
    how critical thinking differs from scientific methodology. As far as I
    know, critical thinking relies on reason, i.e., logic.

    Thanks
    Platt

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    as i
    see it, is also static and in no way attempts to
    encapsulate or conceptualise DQ.
    So, DQ creates and reflects on a continuum of sq
    ontological events which oscillate in a cybernetic
    sense around 'It' or itself.
    The cybernetic process is Intellect at work - the
    static repertoire is what the cybernetic process
    creates and works with. Sadly, the static description
    of cybernetic process would become part of a newer
    static repertoire that happens to include it along
    with everything else.

    Scott:
    It looks to me like this secondary ontological layer is just required to
    avoid saying that intellect is DQ. The beginning of epicycles, so to speak.
    Intellect is creative. DQ is creative. What's the big deal? Just say
    intellect is DQ and be done with it. But no, apparently we must instead
    learn to see the creativity of intellect as a "mere seeming" of creativity.
    An appearance/reality distinction manufactured to preserve dogma.

    Scott said:
    A computer (properly programmed) is an example of a
    cybernetic process that manipulates without reflection
    or creativity.

    Mark 19-10-05:
    A computer does not have a biological or social
    aspect, yet? In a sense, a computer which has a
    biological and social aspect is called a Human being.

    Scott:
    The comparison fails once one includes freedom. A human being is free (more
    or less). A computer is determined.

    Scott said:
    I agree, but I would say this is why all levels should
    be thought of as intellectual, that they all involve
    semiosis (the static repertoire *means* something, and
    provides feedback, is valued information, resulting in
    new latches).

    Mark 19-10-05:
    Now look here, drop the term 'information,' change
    valued to 'value' and you have just said: "the static
    repertoire *means* something, and provides feedback,
    is value, resulting in new latches"
    This does away with your contention that all levels
    are intellect and replaces it with value; all levels
    are value which is precisely what the MOQ says.
    Intellect is simply a very sophisticated matrix of
    preferences or values.

    Scott:
    Why should I drop the word 'information'? Just to be faithful to the MOQ?
    Using that word is what I am arguing for. Where there is value there is
    intellect. Where there is preference there is choice, and handling choices
    is intellect (drawing out consequences, comparing them, choosing). In the
    absence of comparing and choosing there is no preference, and no value. Just
    automaticity.

    Scott said:
    This does require, though, that we find a way to
    distinguish human intellect from non-human, though
    perhaps that is all we need: human/non-human.

    Mark 19-10-05:
    I feel sure this distinction would be, to some extent,
    blurred by their interaction? Humans would interact
    with other intelligences in ways which would change
    both.

    Scott:
    Who says they aren't interacting? In this materialist age we have lost touch
    with the intellect in nature, but it is there, and I hope we are evolving to
    be reacquainted (to final participation, to use Barfield's phrase).

    Scott said:
    This does not imply that a rock is or has intellect.

    Mark 19-10-05:
    This does not comply with your earlier suggestion
    that: "intellect is DQ". DQ evolved Inorganic and
    Biological events before the Intellectual level
    evolved at all. Therefore, rocks would have primitive
    intellects.

    Scott:
    Intellect localized in human individuals (making them individuals in a
    sense) fairly recently. But the idea that intellect did not exist at all
    until then is a remnant of materialist thinking, which for some reason the
    MOQ keeps around. Another point on which it needs correcting. (And I would
    not say that rocks have primitive intellects. Rocks are bits of the
    manifestation of SQ, the expression of intellect.)

    Mark said:
    Actually, it think you're conflating consciousness
    with intellect, because values or patterns of
    preferences are awareness or consciousness of the
    environment.

    Scott:
    Actually, I'm conflating consciousness, intellect and value. They are all
    three concepts which we need to talk about the one (non-)thing. No one of
    them can do the job on its own, but each of them implies the other two.

    Scott said:
    It does suggest that rocks are analogous to letters or
    words that make up statements.

    Mark 19-10-05:
    This analogy is messy and unhelpful. It may all shewn
    away if we simply replace values as the primitive
    ontological events of experience.
    Rocks are then not analogs, but actual value patterns
    of a very low order compared to intellectual value
    patterns which are of a very high order.
    I would recommend another dip into Lila.

    Scott:
    Why is that you and DMB assume that if one fully understands the MOQ there
    can be no disagreeing with it?

    I agree that rocks are actual value patterns. I am pointing that that makes
    them part of (non-human) intellectual patterns as well.

    - Scott

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