Magnus Berg (MagnusB@DataVis.se)
Sun, 12 Jul 1998 05:04:31 +0100
Hi Jonathan and Squad
You wrote:
> I think that I may be causing problems by using the word "intellect"
> in
> the way I do. I'm talking about something akin to "mind", but not
> exactly in the sense of mind vs. matter.
> I think that it will make things much clearer if I simply omit using
> the
> word "intellectual" altogether. The key word in my discussion with
> Magnus is the word "pattern". I think that Magnus sees pattern as
> something entirely objective,
>
Watch it, Anthony might get an outburst if he sees you use 'objective'.
:-)
I see patterns, i.e. intellectual patterns, as expressions in a
language,
any language. Quality Events are needed to use, or access, intellectual
patterns, and since Quality Events are dynamic, no intellectual pattern
comes out the same every time. That goes for other levels of patterns
too.
However, I do think that a totally static world, devoid of DQ, could be
called objective. Quality Events of all four kinds would still occur but
they would be completely predictable and as such, dead. Such a
world could of course never become, because that requires DQ.
All patterns are patterns in themselves, not only as intellectual
shadows.
I assure you, every single animal 10 million years ago valued the
quality of living and loving just as much as they do now, without
scientists being there to observe and record their every move.
> while I claim that patterns are constructs
> of mind created to summarize and understand experience. The reality we
> know is the summation of all those patterns.
>
So who created mind?
> Not exactly. Morality is a guiding force in how the patterns are
> created
> and
> arranged.
> It is not unconnected to reality, but a part of the reality we know.
>
Who or what is arranging the patterns with the guiding help of morality?
Pirsig? We? Reality?
> >
> >I also think your definition means, as you said in your
> >original post, "it brings back the mind-matter split in full
> >force". It seems to imply that all that matters is the
> >intellectual patterns of other patterns, and that sounds
> >much like idealism to me.
>
>
> As I noted earlier in this post, I do see patterns as constructs of
> mind. But I also see matter as a pattern,
>
But not SQ, right?
> That implies that DQ and SQ are fundamentally the same, or share a
> dimension. SQ isn't just capsulated DQ. Science cannot consume DQ.
> However, it can open our eyes to DQ by recognising new phenomena.
>
Yes, they share the Quality Event, reality itself. The results of a QE
is
dependent on probabilities. The closer this probability gets to 50/50,
the
more DQ is involved and the harder it gets to understand.
> I'll repeat, SQ is description.
>
This is where we disagree. Have a look at the SQ diagram in the SODV
paper.
It states that SQ is all four kinds of patterns, not only descriptions.
Not that I
claim that everything Pirsig writes is true, I'm just running out of
arguments.
> Actually, you may have noticed that I stopped short of endorsing the
> SQ=matter idea. I completely agree that matter and energy as physical
> concepts are patterns that Pirsig would call inorganic. What's
> interesting though is that all physical units for energy are somehow
> related to matter. We have no other understanding of the energy
> concept.
>
I really don't think we have a better understanding of what matter is.
It's
just a metaphysical assumption that we take for granted. Had energy
been the assumption, the situation would have been reversed.
> Magnus, is anything clarified?
>
We're getting there.
Magnus
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