From: Steve Peterson (peterson.steve@verizon.net)
Date: Sun Aug 10 2003 - 17:09:36 BST
Hi Bo, DMB, all,
(DMB, I will explain what I mean by pattern of value below, which you asked
me to do earlier.)
Steve:
>> According to the MOQ our only choices for what [the S/O divide] is are static
>> inorganic, biological, social, and intellectual patterns, DQ, or a
>> forest of static patterns. You want to say that the S/O divide is the
>> intellectual level itself rather than being contained in the
>> intellectual level
>
Bo:
> Oh, you knew my opinion? Good ;-).
>
Steve:
>> but everything but DQ is supposed to be patterns
>> of value. So again, what is the S/O divide if not a static
>> intellectual pattern keeping the available choices in mind?
>
Bo:
> All things and phenomena covered by the static sequence ...except
> what is dynamic. Sure! And the S/O divide is the value of the static
> intellectual level, in the same sense that "commonalty" is that of the
> social level and "living" (platitudinous!) of the biological level. What am
> I missing?
>
>> You want to say that this divide is not a pattern of value but rather
>> that it is Q-intellect itself
>
> Correct, the S/O divide is not ONE intellectual pattern but the value
> itself, but you must not make an issue of this sounding as a label with
> the patterns inside it (that's intellect's eternal S/O-divide again)
>
>> while Pirsig says that everything is either a static pattern
>> of value or DQ. What type of pattern, then, is Q-intellect and its
>> 'language (concepts)/real world divide '?
>
> ...what am I missing in your reasoning???? Q-intellect is the the
> VALUE of the S/O divide! Because its a great value, let there be no
> doubt about it.
Steve:
If intellect is the value of dividing experience into subjects and objects
then it seems to me that you are making intellect itself a pattern of value
rather than a type of pattern of value.
I don't think you can have "the value of the S/O divide" as a definition of
a type of pattern of value, because I don't think there are different kinds
of value, only different types of patterns of value.
Are you implying that intellectual patterns are patterns of intellectual
value (patterns of the S/O divide)? You seemed to say that above and also
that social patterns of value are patterns of the value of commonality and
biological patterns are patterns of the value of life. I disagree. We
have biological patterns of value, not patterns of biological value.
Whenever we say "the value of ____" we are really talking about a pattern of
value since we are making an inference from experience (i.e. inferring a
pattern).
There aren't different kinds of Quality, there is only Quality undivided.
There aren't multiple types of Quality in the MOQ. Divisions such as
static/dynamic (patterned/unpatterned) and the different types of patterns
are inferences from experience or Quality.
What would a pattern be without an intellect to recognize/create it? The
word "pattern" itself implies the observer-observed (S/O divide)
relationship, so even in our MOQ talk about patterns of value we have not
escaped S/O completely. To do so we would need a new language. Some say we
have such a language already in mathematics, but it is nearly impossible to
apply it in every day life as any of my high school students will tell you.
Different types of patterns can be distinguished by the way they are
maintained or 'latched' (for they must be maintained in order to be called
static). Biological patterns are then those that are maintained through DNA
encoding. Social patterns are distinguishable from biological patterns
because they are not genetically based. Rather, social patterns are
maintained by being passed on from person to person.
I already know that we disagree that they are passed on through unconscious
copying of behavior, but if you watch a child play and "pretend" and
consider how social roles are passed on without being explicitly taught or
explained with a reasoned argument, you'll see my point (really Wim's) about
unconsciously copied behavior. The forces that hold a family together and
a nation together are the same type of patterns that drive a child to desire
playing with a toy as soon as his sister picks it up and the same kind of
pattern that makes a child behave more violently after watching a violent TV
show and makes a son or daughter imitate their father or mother. Our
mimetic "monkey see, monkey do" nature is biologically based, but the
patterns of behavior that are passed on through this sort of learning are
not to be found encoded in genes, and therefore, constitute a distinctly
different type of pattern of value.
Intellectual patterns are maintained by people copying one another's
rationales for behavior. I see a clear and important distinction between
unconsciously copying and reasoning and explanations of experience that I'd
like you to try to appreciate. I think that in arguments such as is
language or democracy, etc social or intellectual, phrasing the argument in
terms of either behavior patterns or patterns of thought will make the
distinction obvious though both of these terms (and many many more that I'm
sure Jonathan will dig up) are Platypi in the MOQ taxonomy and will remain
so if we don't get more specific by what we mean by, say, democracy as a
pattern of value.
Intellectual patterns describe the forces that hold an idea together as
social patterns are those that hold societies together and biological
patterns hold a living being together and inorganic patterns describe the
forces that hold matter together.
These are distinctly different patterns, but there is actually only one
"force," and that is Quality. The value that makes you jump off of a hot
stove is the same value that moves you when reading good literature though
we can infer different types of patterns of quality.
So, again, I can't see "the value of the S/O divide" as a type of value or a
type of pattern of value. It is itself an intellectual pattern of value.
Those who are not philosophically inclined are not able to infer any
intellectual patterns of value at all though they still participate in
copying patterns of thought and passing them on to others. Lila is one of
these people. Those philosophically minded folks that do "think about
thinking" by definition do recognize intellectual patterns of value, though
they tend to be SOMists which means that they are as blind to the
intellectual pattern of dividing experience into subjects and objects as is
the Lila character.
I also don't think it makes sense to think of the MOQ as a new species of
value (the value of _?_) since there is only one Quality and different types
of patterns of value that are inferred from experience. In fact "inferring
from experience" or pattern making itself is another way of describing the
highest static level. Since the MOQ is a way of "making sense" of reality,
it fits perfectly as an intellectual pattern of value which in my book
includes all such patterns of thought.
Thanks,
Steve
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