From: SQUONKSTAIL@aol.com
Date: Thu Aug 07 2003 - 14:22:25 BST
Hi Steve
On 5 Aug. you declared:
> Are you suggesting that people generally don't choose between a bunch
> of available metaphysics? I agree.
Good!
squonk: Actually they do have a choice. That they do not choose is a matter
of not being given the opportunity.
> SOM is part of the Western
> worldview. It isn't explicitly chosen and it doesn't need to be
> specifically taught.
Even better!!
squonk: Western world view is dominated by social patterns of value. Subjects
and Objects in the social level of values is largely a value of beating the
opposition. Thus, subjects and objects are not intellectual in their origin.
> But if its isn't an intellectual pattern, then
> what could it be?
It is intellect itself. All of it.
squonk: The intellectual assertion of a dualistic supersensible world and
observable reality is not limited to subjects and objects. In such a scheme the
supersensible world may be more fundamental to both subjects and objects. Thus,
the assertion that subjects and objects are more real than Quality is a
creation of intellect - an artistic creation.
> According to the MOQ our only choices for what it is are static
> inorganic, biological, social, and intellectual patterns, DQ, or a
> forest of static patterns. You want to say that the S/O divide is the
> intellectual level itself rather than being contained in the
> intellectual level
Oh, you knew my opinion? Good ;-).
squonk: Opinions can lead to most unfortunate and disastrous consequences -
for those who hold them, and those who find them valuable.
> but everything but DQ is supposed to be patterns
> of value. So again, what is the S/O divide if not a static
> intellectual pattern keeping the available choices in mind?
All things and phenomena covered by the static sequence ...except
what is dynamic. Sure! And the S/O divide is the value of the static
intellectual level, in the same sense that "commonalty" is that of the
social level and "living" (platitudinous!) of the biological level. What am
I missing?
squonk: Phenomena are Post DQ. Intellect is not based upon static patterns.
Intellect is in a relationship with static patterns. Not all static patterns
are sequential - as anyone who is aware of having been inspired will attest -
artists, musicians, scientists, engineers. Many scientific advances have come
from dreams, daydreams, flashes of insight and other stirrings of the event
stream.
> I don't know of anything else called a "metaphysics of ______" or
> "______ metaphysics", yet I if I did some research I'm sure that I
> could provide a very long list of isms that include an explicit
> metaphysical position, e.g. objectivism, materialism, realism,
> idealism. Pirsig's term SOM is a category for all these isms in
> contrast to an MOQ.
Steve, you really understand!
squonk: You could go back to Aristotelian Hylomorphism, which divides
experience into form and matter, and has no less than four causal relationships. Form
and matter can describe people, societies and systems of thought, and is not
restricted to the sense of matter that we are used to today. For example, the
form of a sentence, argument, government are all material in Aristotle's
Hylomorphic sense, with a formal counterpart.
In this metaphysics, subjects and objects break down - there is no strict
demarcation line between categories - that categories became more static is not
due to intellect, rather it became a static intellectual pattern which hindered
science for two thousand years.
Ironically, quantum mechanics is now beginning to sound more like two of the
four original causes that Aristotle used (there is a teleological component
which is rather similar to quantum events 'knowing' how to turn out). So, if
intellect is the S/O divide, why has this divide been absent for 80 years in
quantum mechanics, and why was it not there in the first place? Answer: Because
intellect creates subjects and objects and not the other way around.
> In place of "concept" read "pattern of experience." The SOMist infers
> patterns based on a certain set of assumptions that he doesn't realize
> that he makes. The MOQist consciously postulates that reality is
> value and works from there inferring patterns of value.
That's right
> You want to say that this divide is not a pattern of value but rather
> that it is Q-intellect itself
Correct, the S/O divide is not ONE intellectual pattern but the value
itself, but you must not make an issue of this sounding as a label with
the patterns inside it (that's intellect's eternal S/O-divide again)
squonk: Subjects and objects are manifold in their patterns and are static.
They are artistic creations of the intellect. We don't need them, and science
doesn't want them. They are a genetic fault.
> (a term that Pirsig never used as far as
> I know),
That's right. In Lila's Child he first defines Q-intellect as "thinking" and
then thinking as "manipulation of concepts ...etc.". Some other place
as "..an exact equivalent to mind", but it makes no sense to introduce
the mind half of SOM after having rejected it.
squonk: The term Q-intellect is not used by Mr. Pirsig.
The terms, substance, man, New York and thermodynamics can all be used with
reference to the MoQ when it is remembered that these terms now have new
explanations.
> while Pirsig says that everything is either a static pattern
> of value or DQ. What type of pattern, then, is Q-intellect and its
> 'language (concepts)/real world divide '?
...what am I missing in your reasoning???? Q-intellect is the the
VALUE of the S/O divide! Because its a great value, let there be no
doubt about it.
squonk: There are no subjects and objects in the MoQ. There are no subjects
and objects as such in quantum mechanics. Many readers of Lila have never
valued the definition of intellect described here as Q-intellect.
Intellect produces many wonderful artistic creations, and one has been
subjects and objects - which have social and biological roots. Intellect has created
a myth of a supersensible reality called truth, which science values, but
such a myth involves no subjects or objects.
> (Also, I don't know that you can speak for "the true MOQist" as your
> MOQ differs from Pirsig's.
Yes, I know, but I see this "bug" in the MOQ and want to weed it out.
squonk: I can see a bug too, but its not in the MoQ. (Hey! That rhymes!)
> That's okay, Pirsig suggested that many
> MOQ's are possible and that his would not be the final word.
Wise words. In the beginning there was one Doug Renselle (him of
the Quantonics site) who made all sorts of weird tables of levels below
the inorganic (at that time the inorganic level was a great issue, while
we have shifted to the other extreme). In a letter Pirsig said that if one
had a different view of the MOQ one should call it something different.
But, I afraid Pirsig has released a Genie from a bottle and has lost
control of it. Except as the copyright holder ;-)
squonk: One man holding opinions no one else agrees with is hardly worthy of
such rhetoric.
> What is
> important in any MOQ is that we see value as primary reality. I'm
> glad to discuss Bo's MOQ with you and glad that you are willing to
> consider my ideas.)
My pleasure, always.
Sincerely
Bo
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