LS Solaqi or not Solaqi: that's the problem?

From: Marco (mbona@tiscalinet.it)
Date: Tue Sep 21 1999 - 18:34:17 BST


Denis, David B. , Bo and SQUAD

it seems that this is a never ending month: the topic is "alive", and
growing everyday: that's good, don't you think?

Denis:
Re-reading my last post about your language idea I started smiling: surely
I've been exaggerated in my adulation, but I wrote it in a complete
"enthousiasmos" state of mind... However, I want to remind you I only
"defined" you as a Genius... you know what I mean ... you have been a Genius
just for me and just in that time (this is to push your Ego a little
down!)

I thank you for your rectifications:

> Two rectifications : first, my belief (but I could be wrong) is that the
> ACCIDENTAL birth of a dynamic language allowed human societies to become
> more competitive. The reason why language became dynamic may be that its
> support switched from DNA-encoded "instinct" to memory. It might also be
> a strange change in the memory process (derived from a genetic
> mutation), making it more flexible.

and...

> You might have noticed it, but my last post didn't talk much about the
> social level. Re-reading the above part about memory, you can see that a
> biological change seems to be the root of language's dynamicism : so
> where is the social level ?

It's very difficult to say how language became dynamic in human beeings..
every theory can be good and bad at the same time. You can find in that
process the act of GOD (if you are religious), or the act of random (if you
are atheist), or the act of Quality (if you are Pirsigian), or the act of
some interstellar superior intelligence (if you liked Kubrik's 2001 space
odissey) ... However you can "only" find a good working theory.

I wrote " If I understand ... the birth of intellectual level was EVOKED by
societies". I used "evoked" and not "caused" trying to say that it was a
choice among
many chances : that's my "definition" of evolution (my English is how I can,
so maybe "evoke" was not the right word?).

I think that the possibility of a Dynamic Language was already stored in
human DNA, and only when men begun to develop social patterns they found in
themselves this opportunity, and it was ... good (if you don't live within a
society, how can you need a language?). Maybe that "birth of intellectual
level" is not correct... I had to say "birth of intellect... ".
Finally I think this has been the process: Social>Language>Intellect>Int.
Level;
the "emergence" of Language was the first small step of Intellect.

(Maybe also that we have many other hidden possibilities, and we are not
still able to find them ?)

Your second rectification is more interesting to me.

> My second rectification isn't really one. It's about art. Art doesn't
> seems to equate with any one of the levels. It's not biological, surely
> not inorganic, to say it is social looks like insulting art to me, and
> intellectual ?... well, my definition of Q-Intellect doesn't seem to
> have much place for art. Q-Intellect is about defining, and defining
> art... well, we know what Pirsig thinks about *that*, don't we ? (Avid,
> Roger and David B. had a argument about that in the moq_discuss forum)
> Remember, Pirsig said there were 5 codes of Morality, the last one being
> the Code of Quality, or Code of Art. Art is the trace that a Dynamic
> Event (one might say : a mystic event) leaves in our perception. It is a
> rendering of this experience, and as such must be left out of the
> levels. It transcends them, IMHO.

I wrote that language " evolved to words, opinions, philosophies... and to
cave pictures, arts, science, technology... in one word: Intellect."
I found two branches of language evolution: The first words, opinions,
philosophies...seems to be well accepted; I try to explain the second.

Firstly we must accord about Art: it's Art (RT!) the maintenaince of a
motorcycle; as well as rhetoric, theatre, sculpture, painting...
Let's talk about this last kind of Art.

The primal form of painting seems to be the cave paintings. Usually that
works show hunt scenes or some ritual activity. Maybe (I say maybe!)
the purpose of that paintings were just to show what happened during
hunting games, or to teach young generation how to perform the tribe
rituals. (That seems to me like the slides we use everyday when we want to
support our language with imagines). In this case, that kind of art was
mainly a form of language (we
must remeber that for children it's easier to paint than to write, when they
want to communicate something). However that art is a language, as it
communicates us something about life of cave men.

The Art we know evolved by that simple activities. There are two sides in
Art, I think: technique and meaning. Technique seems to be the static
aspect... you need a good technique if you want to be an artist, and you can
learn technique... Meaning is the Dynamic aspect; if you have nothing to say
you are only a good craftsman. Pirsig equals quality and art? So I do, by
distinguishing his dynamic and static aspect!.
When I look at the Picasso's Guernica, I learn about the Spanish War, and
about the artist's state of mind, more than reading a book (or at least
something different).
In his last great post, Riskybiz Roger writes: "But the reality of this
Quality is infinitely richer and more dynamic than our static concepts can
ever capture". No Spanish War comes out from that picture. When you say
"Art is the trace that a Dynamic Event (one might say : a mystic event)
leaves in our perception" I answer that you are right, but it's not all:
where is the difference between an artist and a mystic? The mystic remains
with his dynamic, mystic perception, while the artist try to communicate it
to the rest of the world, by using a technique. The result is a SPECIAL FORM
OF LANGUAGE: ART.

Plato disliked art as imitation (mimesis) of reality. He was right, in part.
But he tried to use philosophy to reach reality, and of course he failed.
Both philosophy and art are human; reality, (quality) is not reachable.
You say: "Q-Intellect is about defining, and defining art.." . I'm not
really defining art, i'm saying that an artist tries to define reality by
the use of Art; just like Pirsig tries to define reality by the use of MOQ.

Saying that art is a form of language (the high form of language!) I
don't despise art, at the contrary I give language a high level of value.

A big problem is for me technology... Pirsig in ZAMM argues it's a form of
art... so I understand it evolved by art.. but I think there's something
strange in this statement. Maybe one month we will discuss it?

David B:

> I think the verse in John's Gospel goes something like, "In the
> beginning was the word. (Logos) And the word was God. The same was in
> the beginning that was with God...." This reminds me of Pirsig's, "..but
> the intellectual patterns come before the inorganic..."
> I'm not sure we can talk about evolution very well if the intellect
> comes before all the history we've discussed. That's where I'm stumped.

I wrote: " LanGuage, LoGos: maybe the meaning is just that Language was
the beginning of ... Intellectual level?" I want to mean that a possible
interpretation is that the history of man really begins with his language,
the birth of which ("the word was GOD" = a quality event), distinguish man
by nature...
However that "before" can be seen not in evolution terms.. intellect comes
before in
the scale of values, but comes after in the process of evolution. I think
there is not contradiction.

SOLAQI or not SOLAQI: that's the problem?

Bo, maybe I don't understand (and Denis too, I guess) what you really mean
by S/O Logic.

I ask you : Is MOQ within Intellect? If YES, is MOQ within S/O Logic? If
NO, Where is?

Your last words:
>
> My thesis is still that Intellect is SOM, but your "..judged by
> quality.." bit may bridge the gap between us. SOM-as-Q-Intellect
> immediately strips it of its METAPHYSICAL status. The division, be it
> idea/shadow, substance/form, words/reality, mind/matter ..whatever,
> is seen as the highest STATIC realm, but no longer as how existence
> is constructed. For us MOQ followers the present construct is the
> DQ/SQ split and that is not remotely related with those.
>

sound not so "extremistic". I understand: Intellect needs a split. Our is
DQ/SQ.

So I dare answer to my questions above: Yes; and Yes, if we change S/O
Logic with a simple "Division" logic.

In fact we can only know something by a definition, i.e. a division between
the object and ... the rest of universe. That's the KOAN of MOQ: Quality is
undefinable; but we MUST define it, so we divide it. And, doing it, we are
immoral.

Aristotle used the division between substance and form... You wrote:

> I am - as said - convinced that Aristotle said that SUBSTANCE
> is reality while the running FORM is transient and illusory.

I don't agree. Effectively Aristotle said that Reality is a "synolos" (a
synthetic unity) of substance and form. His division was an attempt to
define reality, analogue to Pirsig's attempt (Reality as a synolos of DQ and
SQ). Aristotle said also that form can't be without substance and vice
versa. This sentence was a great step beyond, and it was a great attempt to
unify the Plato dichotomy Idea/Shadow (Plato did not feel the urge to unify
reality). The problem is that it was a good step in a wrong direction... He
tried to unify reality under the banner of Truth.
Another bad split (S/O split) was not created by Aristotle himself: but it
was under the same banner, and it was only able to add problems.
Today MOQ tries to de-construct all that and build something else: so Pirsig
goes back to the Sophists, and begins a new way, under the banner of Good.

The result is a new map of reality. What is that map? Only a form of art:
created by a human mind trying to communicate a dynamic experience using
techniques like chautauqua or rhetorics.

DQ bless you.

Marco.

MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org



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