Hi everybody,
a burst of replies....
-------------------------------------------
Andrew Bowen and the hieroglyphs
(wouldn't it be a great name for a Rock-Blues Band? :-)
> At an early date in civilisation, the Egyptian civilisation to whom
> these hieroglyphs belong to wanted to not only communicate their
> intellectual ideas but wanted to record them, preserve them for future
> generations of Egyptians. It was by this means that a civilisations was
able
> to preserve elements of their culture (static patterns of value) and then
> build upon them (dynamic patterns of value). However it the word value
that
> should be emphasised here.
[...]
> The hieroglyphs would have no intellectual value to anyone without an
> intellectual level of some sort.
Yes. You probably noted how I de-composed the intellectual level. At the
time of Athens I found the decisive emergence of the intellectual
environment, as public opinion. But the birth of intellectual patterns, as
coded and shareable explanations of reality, is of course more ancient. When
a culture reach the stage to preserve the shared social values transcending
the pure biological relationships, and codes these values, the intellectual
leap emerges. This leap is due to the effort to explain something to someone
who is not here now, so every biological connection is necessarily
impossible. After that moment, the intellectual patterns are in some way
active even without a supporting q-biology.
> If the preceding social level loses its static base then the Intellectual
> level will collapse. This has happened with Egypt, the Roman Empire
> (i hope its loosely correct Marco) and Post communist Russia.
Absolutely!
The (social) end of the Roman empire coincided also with the end of Roman
theologies, philosophies, language, arts, technology.... an end that is also
a rebirth in new forms.
[...]
> When the social level does not understand or agree with intellectual level
> direction then the conflict occurs. Genetics, pollution, ecological social
> degradation. The intellectual level will only prevail over the social
level
> if it is for the good of all levels. Otherwise conflict occurs.
And vice versa. I would substitute the terms "understand" and
"agree" with ..... "cooperate". It has to work like a symbiosis: a mutual
help in the name of respective interests. A balance of goals. IMO intellect
has the must to reach the balance: it is the newcomer.
Ka Kite
(Bo is interested to my Italian, just like I'm interested to your Maori!)
-------------------------------------------
Roger and the patterns:
Your post has been the best one for my emotional level. I'm glad you're
still with us.... I'm sure your mini-book will be a maxi-quality book.
I hope you will find just 30 seconds, Roger, to answer to this question.
You wrote:
> I will say that I think there is still a ton of confusion among various
> members on REALITY -- which is pure Quality -- and patterns of REALITY --
> which are simplified, sliced and diced subjective and objective
intellectual
> divisions of the undifferentiated seamless continuum.
In your famous "stand and be counted" message you asked:
> 1) Are all patterns of value also intellectual patterns?
and of course your answer (and mine) was YES.
That "ALSO intellectual" was there to mean that patterns are " ALSO not
intellectual", or ...?
Your latest words " patterns of REALITY [...] are simplified, sliced and
diced subjective and objective intellectual divisions of the
undifferentiated seamless continuum", seems to deny that any static patterns
of reality are there outside.
For the same question I asked also 3Wdave:
>How can you explain this strange property of cats to generate
>always and only cats? Never a dog, a shell, a tree? Evidently there's
>an aggregation of static biological patterns there outside, which
>conditions the properties of every biological individuals we call "cats".
My "evidently" seems to match the Pirsig's point:
<<Among these patterns is the intellectual pattern that says
"there is an external world of things out there which are
independent of intellectual patterns". >>
Next point is about that.
------------------------------------------------
Robert Pirsig and the gravity
I try my own interpretation on the "Gravity" thread.
I, and you all, must apologize David B. After all, he was right that there
was something wrong in the quotes. And he never talked about a conspiracy.
However....
> The section in chapter 3 (in ZMM) about gravity points out
> that the body of knowledge we call science is in fact
> subjective. The law of gravity exists only in the minds of
> modern-day people, who can change this law any time new
> information shows that a higher quality law of gravity can
> be constructed. Einstein did so very recently. Other
> changes may come. The sentence, "There are no things in
> themselves outside experience" is true but the MOQ sees
> experience differently from subject-object metaphysics.
> Experience in a SOM is an action of the object upon the
> subject. In the MOQ, experience is pure Quality which
> gives rise to the creation of intellectual patterns which
> in turn produce a division between subjects and objects.
I see the apple falling.
"gravity" = non-scientific explanation of the phenomenon
(Look! the apple is falling!)
"law of gravity" = scientific explanation of the phenomenon.
(Anciently: all solid things fall down)
(After Newton: Earth and the apple are attracting each other)
> Among these patterns is the intellectual pattern that says
> "there is an external world of things out there which are
> independent of intellectual patterns".
This is the SOL stage. Here the logic says that if I perceive the apple
falling, it's evident that something happens. And if everyone agrees that
apples do fall, well, evidently this "gravity" is related to an existing
(external out there) gravity.
> That is one of the highest quality intellectual patterns
> there is. And in this highest quality intellectual
> pattern, external objects appear historically before
> intellectual patterns...
This "high quality intellectual pattern" is the main reason for science to
exist. If there's an external world of things, then I'm curious.
The materialist viewpoint is that there's an external world that comes
before intellect. By this position, intellect is active historically after
senses, which are driven by an "external objective reality".
> But this highest quality intellectual pattern itself comes
> before the external world, not after, as is commonly
> presumed by the materialists.
But that materialistic viewpoint is appearance. Pirsig's point is that
external objects APPEAR historically before, but, at the contrary, they come
after.
JoVo:
> Do you think it is correct to see 'comes before' in terms of hirarchy,
> rather than in terms of history?
Nein. Pirsig says it's an HISTORICAL before, not a logical or an ontological
before. In this occurrence, trying to avoid materialism, he would fall in
the idealistic/solipsistic trap.
This HISTORICAL before doesn't means that this intellectual pattern creates
reality. The MOQ stage is that when we elaborate the perception we ALREADY
KNOW, intellectually, that "there is an external world of things out there".
At the SOL stage the problem is that this pattern is my assumption, but I'm
not really aware of it and of its consequences on my intellectual activity.
So I can only see my role as a passive "perceiver" and "interpreter" of
reality.
At the MOQ stage I can see the SOL limit. And being aware of the SOL
assumption, I'm also aware of the huge consequences on my intellectual
activity. I understand that I "ALREADY KNOW" thanks to an intellectual
pattern (coded and shareable) that I've learnt during my infancy. An infant
is not conscious, for example, of the risk to walk through the street. He
really can't understand that "there is an external world of CARS out there".
He need a long intellectual training to assume this intellectual pattern as
necessary tool to intellectually face reality and walk through the street
safely.
Oops. I'm just falling in the Bo's trap: this is seemingly like to say
that intellect can work only when it is able to divide itself from an
objective world!
Not at all!
Please re-read these words again, very slowly:
very
slowly
> That is one of the highest quality intellectual patterns
> there is. And in this highest quality intellectual
> pattern, external objects appear historically before
> intellectual patterns...
this SOL materialistic intellectual pattern is "one of the highest quality
intellectual patterns there is", not "the highest", not "the only".
> But this highest quality intellectual pattern itself comes
> before the external world, not after, as is commonly
> presumed by the materialists.
this final INTELLECTUAL sentence is even highest! AND THIS IS MOQ! When we
accept the limit of the SOL assumption "there is an external world of things
out there which are independent of intellectual patterns", we enter the
Quality
stage.
The former four lines say: Subject Object Logic is the awareness of the
external reality".
The latter three lines say:
MOQ IS THE AWARENESS OF SUBJECT OBJECT LOGIC
Bo, why don't you accept that also the latter three lines are an
intellectual pattern? This is our disagreement.
Nota Bene: MOQ does not say that the SOL assumption is not true. Of course
it's true that there is an external world of things out there but this TRUTH
IS NOT REALITY itself. This truth is a good assumption for a scientific
worldview. In fact....
> ....both the "law of gravity" and "gravity" are
> intellectual static patterns, but gravity (when you take
> the quotation marks off) is said, in a very high quality
> interpretation of experience, to be an external reality."
>
"gravity" and "law of gravity" are of course intellectual patterns. Gravity
is, in a very high quality MOQ interpretation, an inorganic pattern.
----------------------------------------------------------
Mark Butler, the SOLAQI follower.
Again two excellent posts, Mark, about Bloom and Piaget.
then....
> In my slowly unfolding view I begin to see the MOQ as
> not just another intellectual pattern, but more of a
> 'meta-intellectual' tool for constructing first that
> high quality intellectual pattern which says "there is
> an external world of things out there which are
> independent of intellectual patterns," and then for
> realizing that "this highest quality intellectual
> pattern itself comes before the external world, not
> after."
> I now see how the MOQ can serve as Ďa
> 'machine code' for something beyond Intellect" (Bo)- a
> consolidation of all 4 levels into ultimate reality.
This is purely Norwegian MOQism.
We partly agree, I guess, if you have read my previous point. But can you
explain me why the only fact that MOQ can explain the SOL necessarily leads
to a new level?
(more in the final "take a stand" point)
---------------------------------------
Jonathan and the planning
> Another theme I want to return to is the one of INTELLECT AS PLANNING.
[...]
> the short
> timespan of recorded history reveals a new process whereby man learned
> to harness his powers of extrapolation to PLAN things.
Hmmm... The same intellectual planning you use to explain :
> the emergence of town
> planning, transport policy, health management, public education etc.
isn't the planning the Nazis used for the Holocaust?
I could plan to write a book, and then I can write a big rubbish. In many
towns, in these days they are destroying a lot of monster buildings, planned
in the sixties and obsolete after only 30-40 years. And wasn't the communism
a huge intellectual planning? A moral attempt, with a dead end result.
Planning is surely an intellectual activity (not the only, I guess), but it
reminds me the ancient Aristotelian concept of Potential and Actual.
Evolution is just a movement from potential to actual. Where is the
difference between evolution and intellectual planning?
> IMHO, most of human development occurred historically by a process of
> evolution. Incremental changes in behaviors and institutions appeared
> randomly, and the favourable ones were selected. However,
You seem to say that evolution (not only for Bio patterns) is a random
process of favorable changes, while. at the intellectual level, planning is
the new force that makes possible to regulate the development. Do you
mean that the difference is the consciousness?
As I wrote above, a lot of intellectual realizations are not very good, even
if planned. So this process of "favorable changes" is quite the same
intellectually, socially, biologically, inorganically. "Planning" is the
intellectual side of evolution. A lot of planned "things" are not very good
and don't last. In this case you can say that the plan or the realization
were not good. Of course. Just like dinosaurs.
-------------------------------
Bo, the SOLAQI evangelist.
Divide et impera! This Latin sentence (divide and rule) is a perfect
metaphor both of how we define and control reality through the intellectual
knife, and how Bo is trying to divide his attendance to sustain his 5th
level assumption.
> ... Well, I spot a general
> dividing line through this group, between the mind-intellectuals and
> the SOL-intellectuals.
I contest the method, Bo. You can't start exposing the possible resulting
categories. All tests must suggest the questions, and show only in the end
the result.
However I understand your criticizing Jonathan and 3WDave. And I think I'm
almost on your side, with some difference. They are clever and tough, so
they will defend themselves :-).
Let's see what are you saying about me.... finally you attacked!
> MARCO is a bordercase regarding the SOL-intellect. He
> understands it but fears the "struggle" I speak of above. That the
> Intellect-Biology axis that Pirsig speaks about in LILA will repeat
> itself in a 5th.level-Society plot against intellect.
Actually, my "fear" was just about some terrible lines you wrote last month
about how this society is good, while intellect is a quasi - monster. But I
think your position was not a 5th.level-Society plot against intellect: just
a poor anti-intellectual position. You well know that I don't believe in
your 5th level, so I can't fear it.
> let me not claim Marco as a
> SOList
SOList? I thought I were a Sophist! :-)
> because he wrote:
> > I will continue my last post, trying to show that SOM is not the
> > only possible expression of q-intellect, yet predominant.
> > The only difference seems to be the term "human" (but who else
> > is experiencing? ) and in fact I had bracketed that term. You
> >write "q-nerves" to mean your "human" reaction to my words. My
> >fault is maybe that I'm not so used to put a "q-" before every
> >word... Is it better if I write: " levels of q-human experience", or do
> >you prefer "levels of q-human q-experience" ? :-)
> I become a little wary every time the "human" term is used in what
> I take to be a mind sense.You bracketed it and I possibly just
> looked for something to pick on, but now you use the ..."who else
> is experiencing" (in brackets) and IT indicate the same everything-
> in-the-human-mind notion which grates my Q-nerves just as much.
>
Not at all! I start with a SOMish proposition, and go on opening my starting
point to explain my non-SOMish viewpoint:
> >Here I call "static filters" the same static patterns the q-human
> >being is composed by. I don't agree with your " 'Human' in
> >moqian at most indicates Q-intellect": what is after all this q-
> >human being, who is able to experience reality and create
> >intellectual static patterns to explain and communicate this
> >experience?
> >Just a sum of static patterns: my black eyes sensing reality have been
> >modeled on the same biological pattern on which have been modeled my
> >mother's black eyes; my cultural lenses filtering my sensations are
modeled > >according to many cultural static patterns I inherited from my
parents, my
> >teachers, my friends, my readings; the language I use to code and
> >communicate my interpretations of reality is a social static pattern that
is
> >part of this "Me".
> > In conclusion I mean that it's not so bad to talk about a
> > "subjective" experience if it's clear that this subject is not a
> > lonely awareness in a world of objects, at the contrary it's a
> > stratified complexity of the same static qualities that are
> > compounding at the same time all "q-subjects" and "q-objects".
This process is the same that you find in the Pirsig's gravity post. Start
by a classic scientific SOMish point, show its limitations, and explain the
force of the MOQ. Our language is modeled according to our SOMish past, so
it's not easy to talk in MOQian terms without a SOMish starting point. How
can you talk about the "Q-human" if not starting with the SOMish "human",
and then explaining the added value of that "Q-"?
> Right. Here you make Q-sense. No, it's not bad at all to use the
> SOL-intellect. It is an advanced value stage if one has the higher
> MOQ view about it in mind (!).
EXACTLY! Just like it's not so bad to say that the sun is arising if you
well know that it's an imperfect explanation of reality. You also write the
"higher MOQ view is IN MIND". How can you tell it diversely?
> However, your previous "human"
> statements very much indicates the lonely "aware" mind.
Why? The problem with the term "human" is yours. When I write "human" I
don't talk about any lone awareness. I already told you at least 100 times.
Instead of running to an impossible fifth level, don't you think that what
we only miss is a new advanced MOQ language?
Going back to your classification attempt:
> MARCO is a bordercase regarding the SOL-intellect.
Great! If I'm the border line, you can't divide me, and consequently you
will never rule over me :-)
I think we can go on discussing for centuries and we will forever on our
respective positions. Maybe there's no time this month, but I'm almost sure
this is not the last time we are going to talk about SOLAQI. So I ask Mark
Butler (seemingly he is interested and close to your position), or everyone
else interested by SOLAQI, to enter the discussion with some questions
about SOL, MOQ and this possible fifth level. I'm not saying that he will be
the judge, but it would be nice to have an impartial voice to provoke our
explanations.
If Mark B agrees, I just ask him (and you, Bo) to read my "Pirsig and the
Gravity" point; and to consider that I reject your fifth level idea not for
any fear, as you wrote, but mainly because: "The tests of truth are logical
consistency, agreement with experience, and economy of explanation." , and
your SOLAQI idea is IMHO a great step in a wrong direction, especially as I
don't see much agreement with experience and economy of explanation.
---------------------
It's a wonderful summer night. 30 Celsius degrees, no clouds in the sky
today. I can't understand why "Blue" is, for English people, the color of
sadness. Here "Grey" is sad, while Blue is the summer sky, the deep sea;
it's the color of wondering.
DQ bless you all.
Marco.
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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