Hi Bo, 3WD and all,
> JONATHAN wrote:
>
> > And yet, Pirsig himself says that DQ = preintellectual reality and
> > SQ = intellectualised reality.
BO
> > I guess this is from ZAMM and the problem starts when one mixes
> > its pre-moq formulations with the post-moq LILA ones. ...
Actually Bo, I quoted from Lila too, and will now do so again:
"Any person of any philosophic persuasion who sits on a hot stove will
verify without any intellectual argument whatsoever that he is in an
undeniably low-quality situation... [snip] ...[the low quality] is the
primary empirical reality from which such things as stoves and heat and
oaths and self are later intellectually constructed." (Lila, towards the
end of Chapter 5).
I also looked for further support from Pirsig's Brussels paper (SODV) -
written after both ZAMM and Lila. Here he equates DQ with the
"conceptually unknown", different words, but according to my
understanding, it makes little difference whether you "intellectualize"
or "conceptualize" SQ patterns from DQ.
Both Bo and 3rdWavedave both reacted favorably to my "intellect as
planning" suggestion, but I do feel that there is a danger of the idea
getting twisted out of recognition.
BO
> I have no reservations about intellect as planning, but it merely
> reaches a new high at the intellectual level. When a dog buries a
> bone it "plans" at the biological level - unless one resorts to the
> arch-SOM "instinct" nonsense
I think that this confuses the issue. Instinct means inherent tendency,
though our obsession with causation tends to regard it as the
"hard-wiring" of behaviour. Pirsig is very helpful on this with his
discussion of the free-will vs. determination discussion (Ch. 12 of
Lila). I don't know that a dog *plans* to recover its buried bone, but I
do know that dogs have an inherent tendency to bury bones and dig them
up later. I assume that this behaviour evolved incrementally, becoming
"latched" because it offered some selective advantage.
Bo's argument becomes even less convincing when the biology example is
stretched to other organisms: Do potatoes store starch in tubers because
they *plan* to use it for growth the following year? These "behaviours"
I assume to have evolved by small individually directionless changes
(see Pirsig's comments on evolution - Lila, Ch. 12 or alternatively, try
my Causality essay on the MoQ web site).
I must stress that intelligent planning is conceptually quite different,
and make great leaps to anticipated goals, while evolution is blind to
those goals (and thus goal-less) .
BO
> Planning continues through the
> social level, but at the intellectual level it gets an added (subject)
> /objective quality; seeing the future as reality. So that supports
> the SOL-intellect just as much.
>
Now, the planning I was talking about is something that appears ONLY
with intellect (not social), and I think that Dave is on the same
wavelength.
3rdWAVEDAVE
<<<Guess I could retitle it INTELLECT BY DESIGN.
Possibly my design experience makes it easier to understand this
difference between REALITY and
patterns of REALITY. >>>
Dave goes on with some valuable discussion on the philosophy of design
and the relevance of Pirsig's ideas.
The key word I like to bring up in the design discussion is REALIZE.
That's part of a trinity:
INTELLECTUALIZE - CONCEPTUALIZE - REALIZE
What I like most about the word realize is its apparent ambiguity. IMHO,
this ambiguity is only superficial, as well illustrated by considering
design. Planning/design is involved in making REALITY out of POTENTIAL.
As soon as you REALIZE (conceive) that there is potential, you can then
REALIZE (make real) that potential.
In scientific terms, design is a mechanism. I've previously talked a lot
about how the 2nd law of thermodynamics establishes the direction in
which there is a potential to change. However, these potentials are only
realized if there is a suitable mechanism. Paper has a potential to
oxidize, but this potential is only realized when you put a match to it.
Plutonium has a potential for wiping out cities by violent fission
reactions, but to realize that potential you have to bring it to a
critical mass/surface-area ratio just after you drop the bomb!
3rdWAVEDAVE
> > So Dynamic Quality is always the cutting edge of the PRESENT
> >and in the wake of this cutting edge, the PAST, are all these
> >static patterns of value. As one participates in the design our
> >reality (which I believe we do) we are forever bound to treat as
> >real, these STATIC PATTERNS OF QUALITY, intellectual
> >qualities, which exist in the PAST, so that we can specify ways
> >in which FORESEEN things can be made to exist in the
> >imagined FUTURE.
>
Well said!
BO
> You seem to mean that first a mental space is created and
> then slowly filled with intellectual patterns that fight for
> "lebensraum" within this vessel. Finally there appears a high
> pattern (SOM) that sees the lower levels as an external world and
> itself as mind? Yes, but this high pattern ALONE is the Q-intellect!
Bo, if you are saying Intellect=Mind, then I agree. I never did like
Pirsig's 2 mind-matter formulation, and prefer the 1 formulation
that you also appear to prefer. IMHO Pirsig's Inorg., Biol., and Social
levels all describe the behaviour of "matter" at various levels of
complexity, while Intellect is an abstraction.
I'd like to agree with you on this one Bo, but you make it very
difficult by contradicting yourself:
> Unless one equalize mind and intellect
> and gets all the confusion and impossibilities of SOM back in
> force.
I'm confused - maybe my mind short-circuited or my intellect isn't up to
it ;-)
BO
> The SOL-intellect rids us of all these mind-boggling effects.
I'm now pretty sure that this SOL=intellect idea will not pan out. I now
see that SO isn't a system of logic at all, but an ontology - what is
"objective" is real, what is "subjective" is not real. This is the
ontology of academia, the ontology of our age. The logic of our age is
the dialectic. Together, they are formidable, providing the glasses
through which we see the world. However, they are not foolproof (fools
are much too clever). Pirsig has cleverly pointed out a blind spot. That
does NOT mean we should throw away the glasses. Not at all! We need to
understand about that blind spot so that we can use those glasses with
confidence.
Jonathan Marder
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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