Note:
This was written a few days back in response to the "Pirsig's
Present" thread, but it took me some time to get subscribed. Hope
it's not too outdated
BO MAKES A GUEST APPEARANCE (GHOST APPARITION PERHAPS).
Greetings LilaSquad. Old and new.
Remember me? I have been unsubscribed for a while due to an acute
illness. During this period I have just looked into the archives
sporadically so there may have been threads more significant that
this, but what caught my eye was Roger's reply to Rich Pretti about
unicorns and William James' philosophy as well as the Autopoesis
idea.
I liked Roger's introduction about the full impact of the MOQ not
hawing sunk in...etc, and also his rendition of how James'
ideas parallels Pirsig's about quality=reality. The interpretation of
the Autopoesis idea was also right on as far as my knowledge
goes....but I want to make the Q-idea even stronger than the
Santiago theory, and maintain that it sets itself apart from anything
hitherto forwarded.
Note that in the Capra quotation there is a vestige of
subject-objectivism or at least .... worlds created by organisms
...etc. This is similar to Phaedrus' (of ZMM) insight about an
amoeba's world, but in LILA he goes even further: There is no
mind/matter division at all. No subjective creation of worlds by
amoebas or man ...... only by Value!
It may sound as if I am arguing against Pirsig himself because he is
not very explicit at this point, but IMHO, if one is to follow the
Q-idea to its natural conclusion it says that subject-objectivism is
no metaphysics to be thrown to the dogs, but a part of the MOQ and my
assertion is that it is nothing less but the Intellectual level
itself.
[As everyone knows does LILA say that the two lower levels are
"objective" and the two upper are "subjective", and this may well be
the same thing. After all it's Intellect that makes those
distinctions].
So, there's a reality outside of the subjective (mind), but it's
outside of the objective (matter) as well. This may be what the
Santiago theory tries to say, but it sounds a little different to
me. According to the MOQ final reality/Dynamic Quality is
what challenges the last static level to spawn a new static
level. Once upon time inorganic matter was all there was, but with
life's arrival a new dimension was added, as it was with the Social
dimension. With the introduction of Intellect reality has grown to
its present four-dimensional size.
Rich asked about WHO does the experiencing and it sounds like a blow
to the MOQ if it requires an entity outside of experience to perceive
experience, but I insist: this is Intellect demanding itself to be
perceived as all of reality. Remember, at any time the top level is
refusing to recognize the value of its parent level.Life does not see
matter as anything except food, to Society the individual life is of
no significance except as defenders of the "hive", and Intellect
grandly overlooks social values. It only keeps harping on the S-O as
the only way to perceive things.
IMHO it requires no onlooker to experience. Matter "knows" how to
INTERACT without imposing a mind on to it. Biology SENSES on its own
accord and social beings FEEL (the expectations from other) perfectly.
It is the immensely strong Intellect that coerces everything into its
own mold. But if the MOQ tenets holds, reality never stops increasing
and what we are part of are the first gropings of a new reality level
searching for foothold beyond Intellect.
Also according to the MOQ the lower level no loving parent exactly,
but does its best to smother the child. No wonder Intellect mocks the
Q-idea and won't lend it any support. But note that Intellect is no
academicals gang plotting, but rather our own critical, sceptical
selves.
The oldsters will have heard this before from me ;-), but I'll
repeat: By applying the SOLAQI idea (SO-logic as Quality's
Intellect) one gives "...unto Caesar what is Caesar's". Intellect is
an extremely valuable dimension that has given us our human world.
But it allows us not to be fooled by it either ... for example
despair over seemingly contradictions in the the Q-idea.
See you all.
Bodvar
MOQ Online - http://www.moq.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Thu Jan 17 2002 - 13:08:44 GMT