From: Valence (valence10@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Jul 20 2003 - 06:44:53 BST
Hey Johnny and all,
J
> Hi Rick,
> What about 1)?
R
Sheesh :-) Fine. I skipped #1 because I've never been a big fan of the
whole computer analogy thing, but the hey...
J
1. Doesn't the MoQ say that the 4th level patterns exist on top of 3rd level
patterns the way a novel sits on top of a computer? The intellectual level
doesn't sit on top of 2nd level patterns (people)....<snip-see below>Please
address the novel/computer metaphor as it relates to the 3rd and 4th levels.
I think it clarifies the difference between thinking in a biological sense
and thinking in an intellectual sense.
R
I don't think the analogy itself has much to add to the "thinking" debate.
In ch. 12 Pirsig uses the computer as an analogy to the interrelationship of
different levels of static patterns of quality. He is illustrating what he
wrote at the top of pg 173, "This classification of patterns is not very
original, but the MoQ allows an assertion about them that is unusual. It
says they are not continuous. They are discrete. They have very little to
do with one another. Although each higher level is built on a lower one it
is not an extension of that lower level. Quite the contrary. The higher
level can often be seen to be in opposition to the lower level, dominating
it, controlling it where possible for its own purposes." I don't think that
much more can be drawn about the respective natures of the specific levels
from the computer analogy than that (ie. the historic purpose of a 'novel'
wasn't to help word processors survive). So my specific response to your
inquiry would be that in relation to the 3rd and 4th level, the
novel/computer analogy says only that intellect is built on society, but is
not an extension of it. They are each discrete from each other and have very
little to do with one another, other than that their independence may cause
them to conflict.
J
They don't come out of individuals, they come out of society and are about
society. They help a society find food, not an individual find food.An
individual uses biological patterns of intellegence and repeats social
patterns to find food. Is this wrong?
R
Remember that in the MoQ the term "Society" (as in Social Patterns... the
3rd level), isn't defined as contra-individual, it's defined as
contra-biological. To Pirsig, the 3rd level includes both "collective"
social patterns and "individual" social patterns. So to Pirsig, it's not so
much that intellectual patterns don't come out of "individuals", it's that
they don't come out "biological patterns". A "human animal" entirely
dominated by biological patterns would follow his genetic programming to
find food; if dominated by social patterns, he'll just copy and repeat the
behaviors of others in his society which help find food; if dominated by
social patterns that are dominated by intellectual patterns, he'll use
symbols that represent his experiences to find better, more efficient ways
to find food.
> > Now,
> >instead of saying that there are 'intellectual patterns at different
> >levels'
> >we can say there are 'interpretive patterns at different levels'.
Instead
> >of saying that Quality is the 'pre-intellectual' cutting edge of reality,
> >we
> >can say it is the 'pre-interpretive cutting edge'. Instead of speaking
of
> >"pre-intellectual awareness" we can speak of "pre-interpretive
awareness".
> >What do you think?
J
> It does make sense, yes, in terms of what is gong on pre and post
whatever.
> But what did the interpreting? I think the way the whole undifferentiated
> quality is carved up and interpreted is dictated by quality itself it
> contains moral patterns that cause consciousnesses to interpret or carve
it
> up the only way they can.
R
I agree with you that, "the way the whole undifferentiated quality is carved
up and interpreted is dictated by quality itself", but it gets tougher when
we try and get more specific about it (evidently). But since I'm still up,
I thought I might take a quick crack at it:
PIRSIG (from SODV)
In the Metaphysics of Quality the world is composed of three things: mind,
matter, and Quality. Because something is not located in the object does not
mean that it has to be located in your mind. Quality cannot be independently
derived from either mind or matter. But it can be derived from the
relationship of mind and matter with each other. Quality occurs at the point
at which subject and object meet. Quality is not a thing. It is an event. It
is the event at which the subject becomes aware of the object. And because
without objects there can be no subject, quality is the event at which
awareness of both subjects and objects is made possible. Quality is not just
the result of a collision between subject and object. The very existence of
subject and object themselves is deduced from the Quality event. The Quality
event is the cause of the subjects and objects, which are then mistakenly
presumed to be the cause of the Quality!
R
Quality is the one. The undivided. And if Quality is the source (cause) of
subjects and objects, then just as he says, it's not a *collision* between
subject and object (it couldn't be), rather it's a *divergence* into subject
and object. And it's an event. Quality is the event at which subjects and
objects diverge from the whole to an extent sufficient to cause the subject
to 'become aware' of objects. But Pirsig also tells us that subject/object
is just one way that the whole might be carved up. So more generally, we
might say that Quality is the event at which the whole diverges into
patterns of awareness. We (the aware, the interpreters, the subjects) are
created in that event simultaneously with the rest of the world (the
empirical, the interpreted, the objects). Neither comes first; nor is one
contained within, or created by, the other (tat tvam asi). Each "individual
awareness" is just a different divergence, a different face of the whole.
And so why does it do it? Why does the whole diverge and create these rich
and complex patterns of awareness? My only guess is... for the sheer fun of
it.
take care
rick
The very problem of mind and body suggests division; I do not know of
anything so disastrously affected by the habit of division as this
particular theme. In its discussion are reflected the splitting off from
each other of religion, morals and science; the divorce of philosophy from
science and of both from the arts of conduct. The evils which we suffer in
education, in religion, in the materialism of business and the aloofness of
"intellectuals" from life, in the whole separation of knowledge and
practice -- all testify to the necessity of seeing mind-body as an integral
whole. - J. Dewey
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