ROGER AGAIN REPEATS THAT DQ
IS THE BASE OF REALITY AND THAT
SQ IS CONCEPTS DERIVED FROM
THIS EXPERIENCE
Hi David! Let me try again......
My old quotes are >'d.....
ROGER :
>Here Pirsig gives the 4 groupings of conceptual patterns. This world
>of words and concepts and subjects and objects is not the flux of
>reality known as DQ. It is often confused with the reality it attempts
>to describe though.
DAVID:
I don't understand why you insist that the
MOQ's 4 levels are "4 groupings of conceptual patterns".
ROGER:
This is getting to be one of those discussions where we need to separate what
beliefs are our own and which are the MOQ's. I have given you repeated
direct quotes by Pirsig and McWatt that say exactly what you disagree with
above. I can provide more. Please respond to these. I have put some of the
best ones at the bottom of this post for your convenience.
DAVID:
And I'm still
convinced that this is the source of our disagreement. I'll agree that
the levels are not the "flux of reality known as DQ", because we're
talking about the levels of STATIC Quality. And even when we are talking
about static Quality it is important to understand the difference
between the static patterns themselves and our ideas and concepts about
those static patterns. I think that's where Pirsig's many truths
provisionality comes into play. There's the map and then there's the
road, and seems that you are saying that our map-making intellect is
also responsible for road construction.
ROGER:
No. DQ is responsible for road construction. Below is another McWatt quote
that Pirsig agreed with: "...this means it is possible to describe the
universe in terms of of an ordering function that need not have itself
evolved yet. We are in the advantageous position of sophisticated viewers
using hindsight to re-interpret the universe by utilising concepts that came
into being later than the activities these concepts are used to describe."
DAVID:
But the main point here is that the MOQ is a conceptual model, an
intellectual map that more closely resembles the actual road than does
SOM's scientific objectivity, but that ought not be construed to mean
that static patterns of value in themselves are nothing more than
intellecutal constructs.
ROGER:
You are confusing concepts for reality. I have given you the key quotes on
pages 417 and 418. Please address these.
DAVID:
PAGE 155 "The mind-matter paradoxes seem to exist because the connecting
links between these two levels of value patterns have been disregarded .Two
terms are missing: biology and society. Mental patterns do not originate out
of inorganic nature. They originate out of society, Which originates out of
biology which originates out of inorganic nature And, as anthropologists know
so well, what a mind thinks is as dominated By social patterns as social
patterns are dominated by biological Patterns and as biological patterns are
dominated by inorganic patterns. There Is no direct scientific connection
between mind and matter. As the Atomic physicist, Niels Bohr said, "We are
suspended in language." Our intellectual description of nature is always
culturally derived."
>ROGER:
>The conceptual model is intertwined as such. Again, don't confuse
>this with REALITY though.
DAVID:
What? Intertwined with what? Just when it was
getting good you went and got all fuzzy.
ROGER:
The levels are intertwined. The inorganic is contained in the intellectual
and vice versa. (P178)
DAVID:
The following ideas were expressed by Pirsig in his lecture SODV. I
re-read it with our debate in mind. I was looking for specific answers
about...well, about reality and observation. I'm just going to put the
out there as way to ask you about the one disagreement I can't seem to
let go of. Hopefully you've noticed the main idea I've been trying to
get across, even if you don't agree with it or understand exactly.
These
quotes get at the issue pretty directly. You know, the intellect is
mediated through all the previous levels and so percieves reality
indirectly, as opposed to mystical experience or DQ.
>ROGER:
>...... the "dynamic
>edge' of thinking is a form of pure experience. To quote RMP': "The
>ongoing Dynamic edge of all experience, both positive and negative, even
>the dynamic edge of thought itself."
DAVID:
Um, excuse me, but this Pirsig quote is not a
sentence. Something got chopped off and made the utterance impotent.
There's no predicate there. I'm gonna start calling you "fuzzy". Just
Kidding.
ROGER:
See P134 for the full quote. My point is that thinking is a form of
experience. The quote clearly shows that Pirsig agrees. This is a central
theme of Radical Empiricism as espoused by James. Do you agree or disagree,
or do you want to nitpick my lack of quoting skills?
DAVID:
These quotes get at the issue pretty directly..... It gets at this
issue of what static patterns are; conceptualizations and abstractions
or are they the world? This is where we disagree. The first cut is the
deepest and all that.
"We no longer need to claim that we ourselves alter scientific reality
when we look at it and know about it - a claim that Einstein regarded
As part of a "shaky game"."
"The MOQ says objects are composed of "Substance" but it says that
this substance can be defined more precisely as "stable inorganic
patterns of value". The objects look and smell and feel the same
either way. The MOQ agrees with scientific realism that these
inorganic patterns are completely real, but it says that this reality
is ultimatley a deduction made in the first months of an infant's life
and supported by culture in which the infant grows up
ROGER:
This reality is a deduction ...supported by culture. Exactly. The static
levels are intellectual constructs. (Please note that the base of reality,
DQ, is never called an intellectual construct.)
>ROGER:
>Allow me to quote Dr. Heisenberg:
>"For the smallest units of matter are, in fact, not physical objects
>in the ordinary sense of the word; they are forms, structures or -- in
Plato's >sense -- Ideas." They are mental constructs, and even as such are
>inadequate explanations of even the shadows of true REALITY without
complementary definitions.
DAVID:
Now I don't disagree with Heisenberg, but I
think you've misunderstood him here. The forms and structures he refers
to are analogies that bear a striking resemblence to Pirsig's
"patterns", and that is pretty interesting. But you've construed Plato's
"Ideas" as mental constructs or conceptualizations, but that's not at
all the meaning of a Platonic Ideal. Instead it is along the same lines
as forms, structures, and patterns and fits perfectly well into
Heisenberg's main point when seen that way. Plato's "Ideas" were
imagined as a kind of perfect archetype, an pre-existing ideal form. It
was thought that everthing in "material" reality was a lesser imitation
or imperfect representation of the original "Idea". I guess one could
imagine it as a "concept" held by god, but it certainly ought not be
confused with thoughts and mental constructs in the normal sense of
those words.
ROGER:
I interpret Heisenberg the same as you. My point was that these constructs
are inadequate explanations of the base of reality. If "God's concepts" are
inadequate explanations, where does that put ours?
DAVID(on my Eddington and Schroedinger quotes):
Again, I don't think you've interpeted this
quote correctly because those quasi-solipsistic goggels are welded to
your head. (No offense, I'm just trying to keep it light with humor.)
Eddington is commenting on the limits of science, but I can't imagine
how it supports your position........
Holy cannoli, you've missed it here too. The
cat man's "we do not belong to this material world" is a reference to
the alienation and loneliness that's been created by what Pirsig calls
"amoral scientific objectivity". He's not denying the existence of
inorganic patterns of value, he's complaining about the de-humanizing
aspects of what Pirsig calls SOM. Its a great quote, but it simply does
not support your position. Instead you've used it like a Rorschak test
and projected you view onto it. T'was the same with the Plato thing.
ROGER:
My point is that we should not confuse reality with concepts of reality. All
three say the same. You don't see that patterns of value are themselves
concepts.
>ROGER:
>Yes, intellectual patterns emerge out of social patterns, etc. But
>the entire concept of patterns is an intellectual construction itself.
DAVID:
Again, I think there are two things. Social
patterns themselves and intellectual constructions about them. How could
maps of non-existent roads even be possible? And even if we could map
nothing but maps, what use would it be?
ROGER:
Who said the roads are non existant? The maps and the roads are "concepts
derived from something more fundamental which (James) described as the
immediate flux of life".(P417)
DAVID:
I think you've gotten yourself
into a paralyzing and impossible situation. The 5 moral codes and the 4
levels of static patterns are rendered useless by that approch
ROGER:
"Truth is a static intellectual pattern WITHIN a larger entity called
Quality" (P416) The levels and codes are invaluable intellectual patterns.
>ROGER:
>To quote RMP, "the intellectual pattern that says
>"there is an external world of things out there which are
>independent of intellectual patterns".
>That is one of the highest quality intellectual patterns
>there is. And in this highest quality intellectual
>pattern, external objects appear historically before
>intellectual patterns...
>But this highest quality intellectual pattern itself comes
>before the external world, not after, as is commonly
>presumed by the materialists."
DAVID:
Something has been chopped off here too... And
it not only seems to contradict itself, it contradicts all the quotes
I've been digging up. I don't mean to pick nits needlessly, but really,
the way you've been handling quotes is dubious at best. There's way too
much chopping, sliceing, and projecting.
ROGER:
You have seen this quote a dozen times, and you have the entire document from
which it was taken. I quoted it more fully a few days ago. Quit focusing on
my quotesmanship, and address the "Fluxing" quote. ;-) (Also included below)
DAVID:
It seems that your position resembles
Idealism, subjectivity and even Solipsism. It has you trapped in a
Cartesian doubt that has you denying any reality outside of thoughts and
concepts. It must be lonely in there. : -) But seriously, I think
you've taken a position that Pirsig was trying to discredit with his
MOQ.
ROGER:
I am not denying reality. How can you say this after all these discussions? I
am agreeing with Pirsig that there is a "discrepancy between concepts and
reality." (and please no more nit picking that reality includes the concepts,
this is Pirsig's words, so if you want clarity, send a letter to his
publicist.)
DAVID:
Subjectivity and Objectivity are equally attacked by Pirsig. You've
certainly managed to avoid anything like objectivity, but you've fallen
into some pretty radical idealism and have been gored on the other horn
of the dilemma.
ROGER:
Well at least you aren't implicating me with Auschwitz! As above, your
"idealistic" summary of my position is absurd.
DAVID:
And none of this post even begins to address the issue of the
mystical experience and mystical reality. We're just talking about
static patterns here. I'll save that issue for another post, but it has
some relevance to the static patterns debate and so I should mention a
few thoughts about Dynamic Quality.
ROGER:
I have been talking about DQ the whole time. It is, to quote you know who,
"the base of reality."(P428)
DAVID:
I think you've confuses DQ with static patterns that are
exciting, energetic and fresh. And by extension you see static patterns
as stale, old and boring memories. But I think all intellectual concepts
are static patterns and the difference between fresh and stale is only a
difference in their relative quality. DQ isn't just fresh and exciting
in the normal sense of those words. It is way beyond that. DQ isn't a
high quality set of circumstances, but high quality situations can open
a person up to DQ, but then again so can a natural disaster or a medical
Emergency.
ROGER (in his best DeNiro voice):
Are u lookin' at me? U lookin' at me?
I have absolutely no idea why you are saying this. I have indeed accused you
and Glove of this very sin, but nothing could be further from my opinion. I
agree with your above paragraph except where you express what my opinions are.
DAVID:
I'd agree that DQ is every day, that is
to say, all the time, infinite and eternal, but I wouldn't say DQ is
everyday, as in commonplace, ordinary or inauspicious. This may seem
contradictory, but its really only a paradox of epistemology. I mean
that even though DQ is ever present and always at work in the cosmic
dance of creation, it is hidden from our indirect perceptions.
ROGER:
Yes!!!!!
DAVID:
So, I think direct
experience, immediate awareness of DQ, or the mystical experience are
different names for the same thing. And even though this trip is
available to everyone, I think it is quite out of the ordinary and
represents a temporary radical shift in consciousness. It is very far
away from "everyday" consciousness.
ROGER:
YES!!!!!
**********************************
Key Pirsig quotes I would like you to address:
"Subjects and objects
are secondary. They are concepts derived from something more fundamental
which he (James) described as "the immediate flux of life which furnishes the
material to our later reflection with its conceptual categories." In this
basic flux of experience, the distinctions of reflective thought, such as
those between consciousness and content, subject and object, mind and matter,
have not yet emerged in the forms which we make them."(P417)
" There must always be a
discrepancy between concepts and reality, because the former are static and
discontinuous while the latter is dynamic and flowing." (P418)
A "dim perception of he knows not what" gets him off dynamically. Later he
generates static patterns of thought to explain the situation. (133-4)
This object will not be a primary experience. It will be a complex pattern
of static values derived from primary experience....... In this way static
patterns of value become the universe of distinguishable things. (137-8)
The real train of knowledge isn't a static entity that can be stopped and
subdivided.........Traditional knowledge is only a collective memory of where
that leading edge has been.........The leading edge is where absolutely all
the action is. The leading edge contains all the infinite possibilities of
the future. It contains all the history of the past....reality is, in its
essential nature, not static but dynamic.(ZMM 254-5-- granted this is a real
cut'n paste, but feel free to write the whole thing out)
"Experience in a SOM is an action of the object upon the
subject. In the MOQ, experience is pure Quality which
gives rise to the creation of intellectual patterns which
in turn produce a division between subjects and objects.
Among these patterns is the intellectual pattern that says
"there is an external world of things out there which are
independent of intellectual patterns".
That is one of the highest quality intellectual patterns
there is. And in this highest quality intellectual
pattern, external objects appear historically before
intellectual patterns...
But this highest quality intellectual pattern itself comes
before the external world, not after, as is commonly
presumed by the materialists." (Pirsig correspondence)
"When we speak of an external world guided by evolution it's normal to assume
that it is really there, is independent of us and is the cause of us. The
MOQ goes along with this assumption because experience has shown it to be an
extremely high quality belief for our time. But unlike materialist
metaphysics, the MOQ does not forget that it is still just a belief." [ie an
intellectual construct]. (Pirsig correspondence)
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