From: Paul Turner (paulj.turner@ntlworld.com)
Date: Thu Sep 04 2003 - 15:16:06 BST
Continued...
Scott:
Now, in other reading, which makes sense to me, I find that while it is
acknowledged that the S/O divide is of high value -- giving us science,
notably -- it also brings suffering. Redefining the S/O divide as a
static
intellectual pattern is a (failing) attempt to treat the symptom, but
does
not cure the disease.
Paul:
I'm not sure if that's all the MOQ has to say about curing the
"disease", it's all in the relationship between Dynamic Quality and
static quality...
"The difference between a good mechanic and a bad one, like the
difference between a good mathematician and a bad one, is precisely this
ability to select the good facts from the bad ones on the basis of
quality. He has to care! This is an ability about which formal
traditional scientific method has nothing to say. It's long past time to
take a closer look at this qualitative preselection of facts which has
seemed so scrupulously ignored by those who make so much of these facts
after they are "observed." I think that it will be found that a formal
acknowledgment of the role of Quality in the scientific process doesn't
destroy the empirical vision at all. It expands it, strengthens it and
brings it far closer to actual scientific practice.
I think the basic fault that underlies the problem of stuckness is
traditional rationality's insistence upon "objectivity," a doctrine that
there is a divided reality of subject and object. For true science to
take place these must be rigidly separate from each other. "You are the
mechanic. There is the motorcycle. You are forever apart from one
another. You do this to it. You do that to it. These will be the
results."
This eternally dualistic subject-object way of approaching the
motorcycle sounds right to us because we're used to it. But it's not
right. It's always been an artificial interpretation superimposed on
reality. It's never been reality itself. When this duality is completely
accepted a certain nondivided relationship between the mechanic and
motorcycle, a craftsmanlike feeling for the work, is destroyed. When
traditional rationality divides the world into subjects and objects it
shuts out Quality, and when you're really stuck it's Quality, not any
subjects or objects, that tells you where you ought to go.
By returning our attention to Quality it is hoped that we can get
technological work out of the noncaring subject-object dualism and back
into craftsmanlike self-involved reality again, which will reveal to us
the facts we need when we are stuck." [ZMM Ch.24]
The closer you get to the Dynamic Quality, the less divided subject and
object are, the more experience will open up with inspiration,
creativity and excellence. That's it really. We miss it because we are
always doing things to achieve a specific result so that our mind is
focussed on what we already expect. I think this is what Zen Buddhism
aims to break through, koans with no solutions, "just sitting", because
what they want to transmit is not at the target but at the very centre
of the purposeless tension of the Zen archer.
Scott:
For that we need to examine the S/O divide more
deeply. The first thing to notice is that I, a self, a subject, do not
feel
static. The S/O form of experience is dynamic, so it doesn't make much
sense
to call the S/O divide a static anything.
Paul:
Are you really saying that the S/O form of experience is dynamic in the
Pirsigian sense of undifferentiated, undefined and unknowable?
Scott:
(Strictly speaking, Pirsig calls
SOM a static pattern of intellectual quality, but since he doesn't
explicitly distinguish SOM from S/O thinking, and because of his
definition
of 'subjective' and 'objective', one concludes, like Squonk, that "there
are
no subjects and objects in the MOQ".)
Paul:
As explained above, "subjects" and "objects" are symbols which aggregate
two different types of experience into general terms. Subject-object
metaphysics would be a pattern which takes the symbols as a starting
point to construct a conceptual model of reality. The MOQ does not take
those symbols as a starting point to construct a model of reality, it
takes value as a starting point and categorises the same experience but
in a different way [and, crucially, refers to a previously ignored
pre-intellectual element of experience]. As such, the experience
symbolically aggregated into subjects and objects by SOM is symbolically
aggregated into four static levels by Pirsig. Therefore you can choose
to refer to patterns of value as subjects and objects or subjective and
objective but it is not necessary.
Scott:
Furthermore, in analyzing subjects and objects, one finds something
curious...
b) Whenever we attempt to analyze mental operations, we run into what I
call
(following Nishida) the logic of contradictory identity. For example
(one
I've used before), we are aware of time as a succession of events, and
of
time as duration. These two awarenesses are mutually contradictory, but
also
mutually constituting: awareness of succession requires the awareness of
duration, and vice versa. This logic also applies to the DQ/SQ split,
though
Pirsig does not go into this.
Paul:
Please explain further. I don't quite see this.
Scott:
So rather than multiply entities, I propose
that the S/O divide be seen as a case of the DQ/SQ split.
Paul:
Does that not make the MOQ another subject-object based metaphysics?
Scott:
Awareness creates
subject and object, thinking creates thinker and thought, and so on.
Normal
mental activity is DQ/SQ tension, which we know as subject/object
tension.
In applying the logic of contradictory identity to subjects and objects
we
accomplish two things: we deconstruct the self (and objects) without
destroying it (and them), and we gain insight into the DQ/SQ split.
Paul:
I don't see what this achieves that the MOQ doesn't. But I don't really
understand the proposal yet.
In summary, the main problem you have with the MOQ is that its claims
about the pre-intellectual empirical reality of value don't agree with
your experience, which you feel is entirely that of a subject
experiencing objects, is that fair?
Cheers
Paul
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