Greetings,
Magnus:
"Perhaps not, but isn't that because he refuses to go near the pit? Also, I'm
a bit uncertain about the term "pre-observation Quality" you used. It sounds like you equate
pre-observation Quality with the quantum function and that would be a shame since Quality
then would lose all connection with morality."
Precisely, he does refuse to go near the pit, you are quite right. Or at the very least he is
totally ambiguous about it. You are also correct that I don't equate Quality to morality (in an all
encompassing or precise sense). I think Pirsig is wrong on this matter for reasons that I have been
into before and am sure will surface again. Not a very PC thing to say in this forum I know, but
there it is.
"I don't think there's an opposition, but I can't make the connection without the MoQ. Aren't you
using the MoQ to save Complementary? Disregarding the MoQ for a moment, it means that first, there
were only existence. Then something, or someone, suddenly started knowing things!? How did that
happen? Did Bohr provide an explanation for that?"
No he didn't. Again he was pretty apathetic to such questions. I am not using the MoQ to save
Complementarity at all. In fact I don't subscribe to Complementarity, preferring instead the Bohmian
'hidden variables' interpretation. If Complementarity is nonsense then so be it. My point was
presented in my first reply to Jonathan where I said, "Whatever the merits and demerits of
Complementarity (and I make no judgement here), it doesn't say what Schrodinger's Cat, Einstein or
Pirsig claim it does and so can get along fine without having the MoQ foisted onto it."
My own explanation of your question would be that anything that exists may gradually come to know
things. There is no 'suddenly' about it, just a smooth progression from existing to knowing. I see
no problem with that.
Magnus:
"(The recursion depth of your average sentence approaches that of my old
German teacher. :)"
To be fair it wasn't an average sentence, but it was a trifle ugly so point taken. :-)
Magnus:
"No, existence requires a Quality Event, and a Quality Event requires both SQ and DQ. I guess what
you're getting at is SQ, it is thanks to SQ that the moon looks pretty
much the same each time you look at it. But I repeat, SQ isn't enough for anything to exist. Quality
is reality (is morality, there it popped up again :), and Quality is made of SQ and DQ."
I suspect we shall have to disagree here. I don't see SQ and DQ as discrete constituents of Quality.
I see them as intellectual constructs used to define emphasis in the same thing. This being the case
I'm quite relaxed about seeing the requirement for both as of peripheral concern.
Magnus:
"Struan, give up the Descarte loop of "I think, therefore I am"! The realness of you knowing isn't
superior to the realness of the meteor's up-close observation of the moon. They're just two kinds of
value patterns, your intellectual knowing is more moral than the inorganic reaction of the meteor,
but not more real. All kinds of value patterns can
be on the subject side of a Quality Event, not just intellectual ones."
Agreed, (apart from the morality bit). That is why I said you were correct. Your inclusion of
'intellectual ones' means that, in a very important sense, I am too. Give up the Cartesian
accusations BTW. They don't fit the target and you know it.
Magnus:
"Only if you consider the Quality Event to be a result of the moon and meteor, subject and object.
Not if subjects and objects are the results of the Quality Event."
I still think this is a linguistic problem. I see no contradiction in seeing it both ways, although
Quality itself comes first. Back to the SQ/DQ disagreement above I suppose. It seems to me that the
central planks of our disagreement are the meaning of the term 'morality' and the
continuous/discrete levels and DQ/SQ argument. I suspect that this quantum physics/ontological stuff
will never be resolved before they are.
Struan
------------------------------------------
Struan Hellier
< mailto:struan@shellier.freeserve.co.uk>
"All our best activities involve desires which are disciplined and
purified in the process."
(Iris Murdoch)
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