RISKYBIZ9@aol.com wrote on Sun, 27 Dec 1998
> To : Bodvar, Donny and the Lila Squad (and Walter)
> Rather than continuing to question Bo on "Sotaqi," and Donny on "Intellect
> requiring communication", I followed some investigations into network theories
> of biology, sociology and intellect. I discovered a newer? theory out there
> that some of you may be familiar with. Called The Santiago Theory Of
> Cognition...it reads like a theory written jointly by Pirsig, Donny and
> Bodvar. To be honest, I can find very little in this theory that doesn't read
> like the MOQ as applied science. I read it last night, and was so taken by it
> that I had to post this AM.
Hi Roger and Group ...and Walter if you are receiving this.
Thanks for the comparison :-) Ever since you wrote I have
been jogging my memory about this theory that I know it under the
name of "autopoesis". As far as I know it was a "movement"
founded on it that arranged the 1995 conference where Robert
Pirsig participated.
I came to know it through a book by the Danish science writer Tor
Nörretranders in 1991, the same year that LILA arrived. I had not
fully grasped the MOQ and my understanding of Pirsig's ideas stemmed
mostly from ZMM so I was greatly excited by the Maturana/Varela
approach that at first looked like it could have been written by
Pirsig.
Your summary is correct as far as my knowledge goes, my
objection is not on that, but by the fact that Maturana and
Varela (MV) do not make any metaphysical first step, but merely
start as "scientists". Perhaps they identify the mind-matter
problem..... of course they do: that's what create the problem, but
merely as given - as it is.
There is no lack of scientists that point to the problems (and the
strange theories that is required to "solve" them. "The many worlds"
for the quantum riddle etc) that subject-object thinking leads to
when applied to reality. The oldies will remember Doug Renselle and
his quantum preoccupation, there is a host of respected physicists
who are on that bandwagon. But no one identifies the source:
subject-object logic applied as the final word about reality. AS A
METAPHYSICS!!!.
About the Santiago theory world view Nörretranders writes:
A metaphor that depicts the MV view is that of a
submarine. We perceives the world like a u-boat crew that
has been born on-board and never set foot outside of it.
We manipulate levers and knobs and register the effect of
our operations, but don't have a direct experience of a
world outside of the boat. It can be totally different from
what we believe, the only requirement is that of
consistency with the experience of the crew.
Nörretranders has a great ability to understand (any) theory and
present its essence, and he is even on the verge of anticipating the
Quality idea. He writes:
"There are indications that the very idea of an inside
(subject) and an outside (object) is ripe for a
replacement. From physics and neurophysiology, the same
message comes: perhaps most elegantly expressed by the
physicist John Wheeler: "There is no-one out there."
When reading this I almost hit the roof. I wrote to him and got even
more excited when he told me that he knew about Pirsig and was about
to start reading LILA, but after a year or so when asking what he
thought about it I got no reply. All right Pirsig was invited to the
Einstein meets Magritte conference, but I don't think he got the
Quality idea across; there is no way he COULD get it across. What
would the result be if Pirsig's idea took hold and the weirdness -
like the old Greek paradoxes - went away? The weirdness is a
living for writers like Nörretranders. No, the resistance to the
Quality idea does not stem from ignorance, but from Intellect .... as
SOM.
Please don't think I'm not interested in new ideas that have a
bearing on what we discuss here. The Santiago theory is similar to
the initial stage of Pirsig's when he uncovered the SOM problem, but
the u-boat metaphor sounds like a solipsistic defeat...... while the
MOQ is a release of the crew.
> Per Varela, cognition isn't a "representation of an independently existing
> world, but rather a continual BRINGING FORTH OF A WORLD through the process of
> living." Therefore, each living system builds its own distinctive world.
> "Mind and world arise together." Sounds familiar to our familiar "quality
> event creating the subject and object", doesn't it?
> Varela and Maturana, like Pirsig, don't assert that "nothing exists", instead
> they suggest that "no things exist" independent of the process of cognition.
> "The map making itself brings forth the features of the territory". This
> sounds so much like RMP (and Bodvar), that it is uncanny
Perhaps I am a little unfair. According to your description above it
is so similar to the Quality approach that only a little nudge would
be enough to bring it over. I remember that Hugo Fjelsted Alroe
aired it in the beginning of the Lila Squad discussion .....and that
I refuted it on the grounds mentioned above, so Hugo, if you are
listening, come in please!
Happy New Year
Bodvar
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