Hello David B., Roger, Bo, Rick, Marco and other Focs,
DAVID B.
<<<Roger and all: Thanks for the, er, whole quote. The effort is
appreciated
and this version is much easier for me to swallow. I think a person can
rightly interpet it without any danger of lapsing into Solipsism. As in
"I
invented the world" or "Reality is a construct of my mind", which I
think is
a very UN-MOQ view. [snip]
Seems like the quote is a litttle different and a bit larger each time I
see
it, but Roger's fix makes it much, much better. Whew! ( I'm still al
little
suspicious about what may be missing... Or maybe Pirsig really does end
some
sentences with three periods.. )>>>
I think it might be safer to stick with the published texts we all have
access to. Here is a relevant quote from ZAMM (Ch. 3) - (italics in
original rendered here as upper case):
"Laws of nature are human INVENTIONS, like ghosts. Laws of logic, or
mathematics are also human invention, including the idea that it ISN'T a
human invention. The world has no existence whatsoever outside the human
imagination. It's all a ghost, and in antiquity was so recognized as a
ghost, the whole blessed world we live in. It's run by ghosts. [cut]"
If one reads that it isolation, there is a very real danger of lapsing
into solipsism, but this is an invalid conclusion in the context of
Pirsig's two novels.
ROGER:
<<<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. You are right Bo,
the
Intellectual level is the great divider.>>>
Absolutely! The sliced up patterns we know (SQ) are the product of
"INTELLECTUALIZATION - CONCEPTUALIZATION - REALIZATION" (my trinity).
They come about not out of nothing, but a "potential" (DQ) revealed to
us as a result of empirical forces (experience).
MARCO:
> [Roger's] 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.
That's the point Marco. The static patterns aren't "there outside" as
static patterns. We don't know what is "outside" until we can bring some
of it "inside", and then it isn't outside anymore. "IT" could be given
any number of names, and I think that "DQ" as described by Pirsig is as
good a name as any. DQ is how we avoid the empty pit of solipsism.
DQ is preintellectual, SQ is intellectualized.
Intellect *IS* the great divider (thanks Roger, Bo).
The other two words of my trinity provide additional shades of meaning:
The REALITY we know is REALIZED (I've already said this many times).DQ
"exists" but is not REAL - it is PRE-REAL. It comes BEFORE the
metaphysical division between the real and the unreal.
Conceptualization, or even better CONCEPTION, brings in the association
with creation and birth - I like it.
****"Reality is created in an act of conception."**** (not bad for a
scientists,eh?).
MARCO:
> 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".
>
ROGER (quoting Pirsig):
> > But this highest quality intellectual pattern itself comes
> > before the external world, not after, as is commonly
> > presumed by the materialists.
MARCO
> But that materialistic viewpoint is appearance. Pirsig's point is that
> external objects APPEAR historically before, but, at the contrary,
they come
> after.
>
The point is that DQ comes before, SQ after.
Intellectualization-Realization-Conception as a PROCESS comes in the
middle ("the great divider").
As a pattern (concept) it comes much later. (Obviously, you have to have
consciousness before you can have self concsciousness).
---------------------------------------->
MARCO (on INTELLECT AS PLANNING).
> 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?
>
Marco, I think it *IS* the same sort of planning. The difference is in
the ends towards the planning process was applied. Because of health and
education planning, I have 4 healthy children in school (actually not
quite true today - one has chickenpox!). Because of the Nazi's, my wife
never knew any of her grandparents, aunts or uncles.
The tools of intellect can be highly dangerous when used amorally (HAL
in 2001), and plain evil when used to serve an evil ethic (the Nazis).
>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 towards a goal doesn't necessarily work. Sometimes, the plans
go wrong (Apollo 13), sometimes society moves the goal-posts (nuclear
power).
MARCO
> 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?
The difference is in directionality. Planning starts off with a definite
objective, and moves off in that direction. Evolution moves off
aimlessly in every direction, then chooses the most successful
(selection) and rejects the failures (extinction). Pirsig explains this
in Ch. 11, but then doesn't realize that he has done so.
PIRSIG: Phaedrus wrote on one of his slips, "It seems clear than no
mechanistic pattern exists toward which life is heading, but has the
question been taken up of whether life is heading away from mechanistic
patterns?"
The point is that life is always heading away (by mutation) from the
status quo. This was Darwin's great insight. We don't know where life is
heading *TO* , but we do know where it is heading *FROM*.
MARCO
> 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?
I suppose so. The difference may be one of perception, and the
self-referencing of consciousness. As a scientists, I cannot accept that
humans do things differently from other organisms (and even
non-organisms) in any "mechanistic" way. Thus the whole difference
between evolution and planning is in our own perception, but that's no
different from any other categorization of the world we perceive.
> 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.
That's a human viewpoint. I have no way of knowing whether or not the
dinosaurs achieved "their objective". The answer is MU.
> 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.
[snip]
> However I understand [Bo] criticizing Jonathan and 3WDave. And I
think I'm
> almost on [his] side, with some difference. They are clever and tough,
so
> they will defend themselves :-).
Thanks Marco;-)
> 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.
Did Bo really say that? I think that I agree (see my comment above about
the Nazis).
This is getting most confusing. I'm not sure who is on whose side
anymore, so I'll just try and stay on the right side of quality.
RICK:
<<<Without commenting on the SOL= Intellect idea I'd like to suggest
that
[Jonathan's] summary of S/O seems a bit misleading.... that is,
depending on what
you meant by "real". Subjective phenomena are quite real. Blue is
REALLY my
favorite color I REALLY don't care for brown, I REALLY like the taste of
bacon and I REALLY don't like ham, I REALLY like the Beatles and I
REALLY
dislike the New Kids on the Block, etc... these feelings are quite real,
I'm
not lying about them, I REALLY feel them.
I think the "subjective/objective" Ontology that you are getting at
would be
better represented by the terms "Quantitative/Qualitative" rather than
"real/not real".. Objective things are quantitative (measurable),
Subjective things are Qualitative (not measuable)....>>>
Our argument on this is mostly semantic, but I'm glad that we agree that
>"This is the ontology of academia, the ontology of our age."
RICK:
<<<"dialectic" is not logic. I
suggest you consult Aristotle's Organon for deatails on this
distinction---
Dialectical/Rhetorical reasoning (which relates to the probable) is the
counterpart of Formal Logic (which related to the certain).>>>
Rick, you may be right on the semantics. Thanks for the reference.
My point was that we are getting confused between the ontology and the
logic. It seems that our predominant
logic is not subject-object at all, but OBJECT-Object. We may
"logically" and scientifically study the interaction between object A
and object B, but we'd better make sure that *I* (the subject studying A
vs. B) doesn't get in the way - that would be ... Subjective! The whole
SO thing comes as an ontology before the logic, and tells us which
things are valid "objects" for study.
RICK
<<<I think the problem these days is the deadly combination of Formal
Logic and
Debate---- Formal logic makes people feel "certain" about what they
think
they know, Debate allows them to partisanly defend this "knowledge". It
creates a uncomfortable atmosphere in which everyone thinks they know
best
and argues to defend... rather than a dialectic in which we all bring
what
we know to the table and try to honestly sort out the BEST answers...>>>
Add to that the effect of amplification - a tiny error at the beginning
can extrapolate to a massive screw up later.
The "subjective", "emotional" judgment may be the safety mechanism that
keeps things in check, allowing us to "smell" when things are going off.
Jonathan
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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