LS Re: Explain the Dynamic/Static split


Theo Schramm (theoschramm@hotmail.com)
Sun, 7 Jun 1998 17:13:15 +0100


Greetings,

JONATHAN:
“IMHO this independent (D)Q of Theo and Bo is one of the horns of
Pirsig's dilemma in ZAMM. First, he rejected the subjective horn
-Quality is in the mind of the subject (just what you like). There's no
problem with that - not in the Lila Squad. But Pirsig also rejects the
objective horn. Quality is not an inherent property of the object
-sitting out there waiting to be discovered. DQ is prime reality, so
Boand Theo give it the highest honour - absolute objectivity! This seems
to me like sacrificing animals to a vegetarian god.”

You answered this in an earlier reply to me, and I quote, “Only if you
look at things in the framework that Pirsig rejects.” Objectivity in a
philosophical sense means ‘external to the mind’ which already places
you in a position of thinking in subject and object terms. My point that
“Quality and value existed billions of years before any intelligent
observer” only seems to mean that Quality is objective if you think in
these terms. I was merely pointing out that the world (and hence
Quality) existed before intelligence evolved. Unless you want to claim
that rocks are intelligent and that one rock can ‘recognise’ or
‘evaluate’ another, or alternatively unless you want to deny the
existence of quality before intelligence, then I suggest this is an
unavoidable conclusion.

KEN:
“By extension I believe he intended Quality as having been in existence
from the beginning. Maybe it was even the spark that triggered the
universe. It would be difficult to deny that he speaks of Quality as
being in operation before sentience burst upon the scene. If it is
indeed the case that Quality is responsible for the existence of the
inorganic static level and is also responsible for the biological static
level, the bulk of which occurred before sentience appeared, then it
seems to me that we mustdifferentiate between non-sentient Quality and
sentient Quality.”

Precisely. In the first few billions of years there were no intelligent
observers and yet Quality MUST have been in operation working at the
inorganic then organic levels. In an earlier post you admit your
thinking thus:

JONATHAN:
“I suggested that Dynamic Quality is what causes
an event to be noticed and registered as information or data. The
ongoing evaluation process is what distils, compresses and summarizes
the information to conform to patterns understood by "intelligent"
observers i.e. turns information into meaning. Our perception of reality
is not an awareness of raw information, but based on our patterns which
summarize that information. This takes us right back to a variant of
SOM where the OBJECT is the world of events (possible information) and
the SUBJECTs are the pattern matching algorithms, or intelligent
consciousness that evaluate and summarize.”

And you are, by your own admission, proposing a variant of SOM. You are
relying upon an observer and an observed for Quality (meaning as you
see it) to exist. But SOM isn’t MOQ. Quality IS prior to subjects and
objects - that's why its a metaphysics in its own right and not a branch
of SOM.

Theo

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

 



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu May 13 1999 - 16:43:21 CEST