From: Paul Turner (paul@turnerbc.co.uk)
Date: Sun Jul 03 2005 - 13:32:16 BST
Bo,
You said:
--- I asked if you see that LILA presents [the intellectual level] as
science and knowledge
--- and you say generally yes and that's enough
---
--- > And as I said in a recent post, Pirsig wants to *repudiate*, not
--- > endorse, the epistemological use of S/O, whilst keeping the
--- > intellectual value of truth.
---
--- Anyway, when speaking about the intellectual level it's invariably
--- about science and its unjustified claim of being independent of
--- society (what he "wants" I leave to you to fathom) He points to
--- the flaw in the "objective" part of SOM (which is intellect) why not
--- pointing to the "subjective" flaw?
Paul: Because they stand or fall together. If there is nothing useful to
be gained from calling knowledge "objective" then calling knowledge
"subjective" no longer has meaning. Differences in knowledge, in the MOQ,
are simply between more or less valuable patterns in the context of
different purposes.
--- > Paul: Intellect is *not* the epistemological "O", so its
--- > epistemological "S" counterpart is not there either. This Greek
--- > menace is only haunting you.
---
--- Not that again! We have ended up with Greece the intellectual
--- watershed, thus it is SOM that Pirsig addresses when speaking
--- about the intellectual level. How many times have you been
--- forced to admit this, but come again and again with the same
--- statements.
Paul: As many times as you continue to simply beg the question, Bo. I have
given several arguments as to why the (western) intellectual level starting
with the Greeks doesn't provide a definition of it, yet you continue to make
this the premise and conclusion of your argument.
Paul said:
--- > Epistemological objectivity is
--- > redescribed in LILA as the moral attempt to control social and
--- > biological values with respect to the development of intellectual
--- > patterns.
Bo replied:
--- How complicated can you make it?
Paul: Complicated? I'm just paraphrasing LILA - here:
"In the past empiricists have tried to keep science free from values. Values
have been considered a pollution of the rational scientific process. But the
Metaphysics of Quality makes it clear that the pollution is from threats to
science by static lower levels of evolution: static biological values such
as the biological fear that threatened Jenner's smallpox experiment; static
social values such as the religious censorship that threatened Galileo with
the rack. The Metaphysics of Quality says that science's empirical rejection
of biological and social values is not only rationally correct, it is also
morally correct because the intellectual patterns of science are of a higher
evolutionary order than the old biological and social patterns."
--- It's about the the level
--- struggle; the upper trying to liberate itself from the lower, the
--- lower not wanting to let go. In this case intellect claiming
--- independency from society, presenting itself as objectivity while
--- blaming its parent social level for being "superstitious", "ignorant"
--- and everything bad.
Paul: Yes, and, as said, objectivity is redescribed by the MOQ as a once
necessary but no longer fruitful conception of intellect's relationship to
other levels. You could say the social level was the subjective counterpart
to intellect's supposed objectivity.
--- Regarding the MOQ the roles are reversed, even if it (MOQ) is
--- no level it is the system that wants to degrade intellect to a sub-
--- set and intellect doesn't want that.
Paul: The mysterious patternless "system" or "outlook" rears its incoherent
head...
--- > Paul: Idealism is left behind when one considers that ideas are
--- > produced by value -- they are contingent on value.
---
--- Ideas? Is that intellectual patterns? But there aren't any free-
--- floating ideas it's always ideas ABOUT something and intellect is
--- S/O-ideas. They are definitely contingent on value ...on social
--- value.
Paul: Ideas being "about" something necessitates nor depends on neither
epistemological nor metaphysical S/O. As I see it, ideas are sometimes
about experience and are also part of experience. They do not at any time
need to be seen as trying to accurately represent objective reality (or be
the only reality) as you seem to insist is what intellect is solely
concerned with. The sharp metaphysical division (or reduction to one
another) of ideas/what ideas are about is another aspect of your phantom
menace.
And yes, ideas are no more "free-floating" than trees. Ideas are among the
patterns of the world and are no more arbitrary or capricious, no less
shaped by quality, than anything else.
---
--- > In this new context,
--- > one of the most valuable ideas, one of the beliefs that will
--- > simply not allow one to arbitrarily give it up because of its
--- > constantly experienced value, is that there are plenty of patterns
--- > that are causally independent of, and antecedent to one's beliefs.
---
--- Here "beliefs" have become intellectual patterns? But this
--- argument is merely intellect's "subject over object" and ....for the
--- umpteenth time: The MOQ does not have any affinity for this.
Paul: How is this merely "intellect's subject over object"? As I see it,
it is just that some patterns are used to predict the behaviour of others.
--- What if there comes along another belief that believes that the
--- MOQ - level and all - is rubbish?
---
--- > To
--- > repeat a phrase I've said to you before -- objects are cultural
--- > constructs but culture is a value construct.
---
--- If you by "objects" mean the inorganic level and by "cultural"
--- mean the social and intellectual levels I am lost. Where is this to
--- be found?
Paul: From ZMM:
"We invent earth and heavens, trees, stones and oceans, gods, music, arts,
language, philosophy, engineering, civilization and science. We call these
analogues reality. And they are reality. We mesmerize our children in the
name of truth into knowing that they are reality. We throw anyone who does
not accept these analogues into an insane asylum. But that which causes us
to invent the analogues is Quality. Quality is the continuing stimulus
which our environment puts upon us to create the world in which we live.
All of it. Every last bit of it."
The LILA translation of this passage is something like:
"We invent inorganic, biological, social and intellectual patterns. We call
these patterns reality. And they are reality. We mesmerize our children in
the name of truth into knowing that they are reality. We throw anyone who
does not accept these patterns into an insane asylum. But that which causes
us to invent the patterns is Dynamic Quality. Dynamic Quality is the
continuing stimulus which our environment puts upon us to create the static
patterns in which we live. All of them. Every last pattern."
And from LILA:
"It is not until the baby is several months old that he will understand
enough about that enormously complex correlation of sensations and
boundaries and desires called an object to be able to reach for one. This
object will not be a primary experience. It will be a complex pattern of
static values derived from primary experience.
Once the baby has made a complex pattern of values called an object and
found this pattern to work well he quickly develops a skill and speed at
jumping through the chain of deductions that produced it, as though it were
a single jump. Only when an "object" turns out to be an illusion is one
forced to become aware of the deductive process. That is why we think of
subjects and objects as primary. We can't remember that period of our lives
when they were anything else.
In this way static patterns of value become the universe of distinguishable
things. Elementary static distinctions between such entities as "before"
and "after" and between "like" and "unlike" grow into enormously complex
patterns of knowledge that are transmitted from generation to generation as
the mythos, the culture in which we live." [LILA, p137-138]
And from SODV:
"The Metaphysics of Quality agrees with scientific realism that these
inorganic patterns are completely real...but it says that this reality is
ultimately a deduction made in the first months of an infant's life and
supported by the culture in which the infant grows up."
Regards
Paul
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