Hello All Foci.
Excellent posts have arrived in the Art/Tech thread, I choose to
address Andreas Deppner's, but will touch on Magnus, Marco, DLT
and David B. in the passing.
You wrote
> Seeing the Art/Technology split. What Do You think would the world
> look like today if Aristoteles would not have planted his SOM seed
> 2300 years ago ? Writing this I think this is a foolish question, but
> it is my question, and if one feels like it one should go for it
> anyway.
I don't really think that good old Ari was the instigator of subject-
object metaphysics, P calls him the eternal mechanic, but I see
your point. According to many experts some profound change took
place around the mid part of the last millennium BC (see Ken
Clark's "Forum" essay) all over the world. There are many
explanations for this shift, recently I read Karen Armstrong's "A
History of God" which paints the religion picture, but I think that
Pirsig's MOQ and its social-intellectual (collective-individual)
transition is the one that makes most sense. So the answer is that
the world wouldn't be as valuable as it is now. Yet, less good
doesn't mean outright evil.
The above requires that my idea (that the SOM is identical to the
intellectual level) is valid, if so it's not right to wish the SO split to
disappear. It's civilization, and technology is its "handmaiden" (as
DLT rightly calls it). What we must try to achieve, however, is the
removal of the M part of it, i.e. the belief that it is "the way reality
is", and that removal comes naturally if the MOQ takes over.
> My personal truth and an eternal source for doubt regarding
> development towards the better is the volume of our emotional self in
> relation to the thin crust of our selfreflecting intellectual self. It
> is like walking over a frozen lake and one never expects that one
> might break through.
Interesting. I have this other idea (two ideas, not bad!) that
emotions are the social level's "expression". (sensation=biology's
and reason=intellect's). The "thin ice crust" of intellect/reason may
be fragile, but it is constantly growing thicker (in places solid
permafrost). But it does not cover over some evil depths of
emotions, the social/emotional level is intellects necessary
foundation, covering a still worse biological evil if you choose to
view it that way.
> But you
> do, and afterwards, if you survive, yo explain. And the MOQ is good
> for that explaining but how can we use the moq to map the parts of the
> sea where we have not been ?
Sure we do. A human - or any other - society wouldn't survive
without emotions. And in the MOQ it has found a place (I voted for
Ben Scharfer's topic!) therefore it is an excellent map, the first ever
to have no "white spots". But I am a little wary of the map analogy
because it hints to a reality that a metaphysics is a map of,
Pirsig's "projection" analogy is better. MOQ's only draw-back is
that it like a globe is accurate, but cumbersome; no section can
be cut out and made into a flat (SOM) sheet.
An aside: I believe that it is the map/reality fallacy that - for
instance - seemingly makes John Beasly unable to grasp the first
thing about the MOQ, but let that rest for now.
> s the SOM dilemma we are in today probably a result of an oversuccess
> of Aristoteles way of thinking ? - Is the problem we are facing
> coming from the structures we are thinking in or the unreflected
> unforeseeing way we use a very successful system ? Is the problem we
> are facing (fighting the GIANT) solvable with an aware using of SOM ?
> - Aware in the way that we realize our feelings and pay due and gentle
> respect. I think about Pirsig quoting Abraham Lincoln, saying that one
> should go out, using the instruments he has to map the land.
> Question: Do You think that the feeling of boredom coming from
> reading a maintenance instruction is a kind of dark twin brother of
> the feeling one gets from hearing a great piece of music ? Would
> this feeling be different and in which way would it differ if hearing
> music or reading maintenance guides would happen with a proper
> understanding of the MOQ ? Are there any people with a good and direct
> fruitfull and enjoyable connection to technology and art. Where do
> they come from and which PERSONAL, everyday way did they take ?
Yes, I think SOM was (and still is) very successful and what you
call "an aware using of SOM" is what I mean by regarding it as the
STATIC intellectual level stripped of its M quality. But let me finish
this post with a general approach to the art/technology question. I
think (like Marco and Magnus) that it's the eternal DQ/SQ struggle
at work. In our era focussed at the intellectual level, but in their hey-
day all levels had such a "problem", and that this internal strive
eventually spawned a new level. Of course, it was neither "art" nor
"technology" ten thousand years ago when the social level was top
notch, but some feeling of being on a wrong track and the need for
a new direction. The new direction that felt so valuable was to
distinguish between what's objective and what's subjective, i.e. The
intellectual level. The DQ/SQ of the biological level was not
art/technological, not to speak of the inorganic (!), but somehow....
The dissatisfaction with the art/technology split - or awareness of
such a split - is a relatively recent phenomenon. Up to the
beginning of the - now - last century technical innovations were just
great and no-one felt alienated by it, and I don't think it's
technology itself that causes our ills (DLT you are right!). As David
B refers to does quality reside just as comfortably in an electronic
circuit as in a lotus flower. No, it is the intellectual/subject-object
split (as a metaphysics) that eats us. At least it ate me when I - in
my "sturm und drang" period - roamed the libraries in search for
truth and constantly ran into the SOM impassè.
Hope my "maintenance instruction" isn't too boring.
Bo
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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