Hi Roger, Platt, David, and LilaQs
Refs:
ROGER (8 Jan)
http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/9901/0043.html
PLATT (8 Jan)
http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/9901/0045.html
DAVID (9 Jan)
http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/9901/0051.html
ROGER
<<<Chapter 12 and 13 of
Lila are the chapters where RMP describes his breakthrough that 'what
we
change' (Jonathan's term), is not an 'independent primary reality'
(Pirsig's
term). He says that they need to be viewed as 'collections of
patterns'.
And he shows how patterns are each evaluated on their appropriate
levels.
The question he finally answers is 'Does Lila have quality?'
His answer, of course, is that it depends on the level. His solution
was to
evaluate her based on each level's 'moral codes' or 'rules', or
'forces'
(all his terms).>>>
I agree on all you write about "collections of patterns", but when we
get down to the question about Lila, Pirsig seems to miss the mark. Not
only is Phaedrus unable to answer Rigel, but Pirsig's final answer
sounds like waffle to me.
Guess who wrote this?
<<<Actually, I much prefer the term MEANING to
Pirsig's use of the word QUALITY.
"Does Lila have quality?"
The question should be "Does Lila have meaning?"
The answer is obvious. She means something to Phaedrus. She registers -
she causes him to change, to do things differently.>>>
That was in my very first post to the Lila Squad on 15th May 1998. I
should have added that Rigel proves by his actions that Lila means
something to him too! I wish Pirsig had kept it that simple!
Roger, I could go on analysing your post and the Pirsig quotes, but I
think this is ground covered before (mostly during August). I still find
Pirsig's scheme too self-contradictory to accept literally without
modification. I know that criticising Pirsig is not favoured in this
discussion, but to put him above criticism is to elevate "celebrity"
over rational dialogue.
PLATT<<<
Thus we see all manner of changes being proposed to the MoQ in order
to bring it more in line with the scientific worldview, even going so
far as to eliminating the intellectual level and reintroducing the
mind-matter bugaboo.>>>
Platt, please reread what I wrote about the intellect. You will see that
my views of what intellect is, and how it functions, have not been
controversial in the group. More controversial is my next step - to say
that this view of intellect means it is not necessarily useful to regard
it as a level. No-one "reintroduced" the mind-matter split. Pirsig tried
to sweep it under the carpet by mostly refusing to use the terminology,
or only to use it in a particularly limited and disparaging way.
DAVID, I've generally admired your excellent analytical contributions,
yet if...
> At least one person even denied the existence of the
>intellect. Yikes!
... is supposed to refer to me, may I ask you to reread my posts on the
subject.
I never denied the existence of intellect. All I did was questioned the
utility of placing Intellect AS A LEVEL.
[snip]
DAVID
>The mythos is the underlying structure of society. ...
>The logos is the intellect. The intellect divides and analyzes the
>mythos.
Surely intellect is more than logic. Logic divides and analyses
everything, but is a tool for testing the structure, not for building
it. There is a part of intellect (imagination, inspiration) which throws
up the subjects to be tested.
>...The intellect is embedded in the
>inescapable mythos, yet presumes to stand apart and observe the ground
>of its being. It can not exist outside the mythos, but is seperate from
>it. The logos, the intellect, has altered the mythos only in the same
>way that the intellect can forge metal or cross-breed farm animals.
>These manipulations are superficial and basically are just exploiting
>their inherent properties (value patterns) for a specific purpose.
Yes, but by exploiting certain inherent tendencies, alternative
tendencies are denied. Breeding selects some possibilities and
eliminates others. That's why breeders go back to nature to look for new
genetic material.
>The
>intellect doesn't really ever change the mythos by itself. The mythos
>evolves Dynamically just like everything else in the universe, and it
>doesn't matter if the intellect realizes or not.
But the intellect assesses the changes, and sometimes selects the ones
to keep! Furthermore, Intellect sometimes does a "virtual" thought
experiment and tests potential changes in the abstract. This is the
basis of what I referred to previously as planning.
>The mythos remains, but intellectualizations about
>can change quickly. (See Thomas Kuhn's "The structure of scientific
>revolutions". Every cosomology that's come and gone was within our
>mythos, but not all of them included a subject/object metaphysics.
I think that all depends on what you mean by mythos.
Furthermore, how do you go about testing the change of the mythos
through history? You can never know how people thought - at best you can
reconstruct by guesswork. I suspect that a person thrown forward a few
centuries would have a terrible time adjusting to the contemporary
mythos.
[snip]
>In short, the same intellectual patterns can exist many different
>individual throughout a society and that makes them seem like social
>level patterns. Widely held intellectual patterns (logos) are not to be
>confused with social patterns (mythos).
IMO that confusion is inevitable once you consider intellect a "level".
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