Calling all Foci!
Jonathan wrote:
> I hope you enjoyed the "break". I'm pleased to see you return to the
> discussion replenished.
Thanks Jonathan, I did enjoy it, but am not sure if I am all restored.
We'll see.
> >This month's topic hasn't exactly turned people
> >on and after reading Jonathan's latest I believed that he had
> >succeeded in leading everyone astray, but there are a few who
> >understand.
> Bodvar, I won't pretend that your comment isn't hurtful. Where did
> that come from? I can't even properly rebut it, because you don't
> specify what it is that I said that you object to.
Sorry but it's impossible to bring the discussion back on track
without a little rudeness. It's not a personal thing, trust me. Also, it
is hard to specify, but look to the opening message of yours this
month:
> Maybe I'm being dense here, but I don't see how something
> abstract can be anything other than metaphorical. Abstract
> patterns don't have any "material" existence of their own, and
> thus have to be represented by substitute material patterns e.g.
> written symbols, sound bytes, magnetic bits etc.
>
> By this way of thinking, the whole of the MoQ or any other idea
> is nothing but metaphor.
Until your letter only Wavedave and Mark had delivered anything
and none of them claimed that the MOQ is a methaphor or an
abstraction, you were the first who make that point.
Abstract in contrast to concrete is arch-SOMish and by making
that the opening move, the scene was rigged.
Your next message opens this way:
> Both Mark and Dan seem to agree with my suggestion that the MoQ is
> nothing but metaphor. The MoQ even has its own special name for
> metaphors - they are called "Static Patterns of Value". Note that
> here I depart with Dan's statement that A metaphor is an
> intellectual pattern of value in Robert Pirsig's MOQ.
Dan's and Mark's agreement with you I doubt, but this reminds me
of P's sigh about having to resolve a metaphysical dispute at the
end of each sentence. It seems to be our fate even after three
years of discussing Pirsig's ideas.
After the first postulate of the MOQ that the World is Value
(convincingly or unconvincingly demonstrated is not a point for
those who have accepted it) the subject-object division does not
apply in its former role any longer. In the SOM metaphors are
language and as language is ABSTRACT (in contrast to
CONCRETE). Ipso facto: Another dee-dum subject/object offshoot.
In my opinion language was/is the ultimate social instrument that
Intellect used as a vehicle for its own purpose which is subject-
objectivism itself. That is the only definition of the Intellectual level
that I find tenable.
You continued:
After all this time in the Lila Squad/MF/MD, I still don't fully get
the difference between "pattern" and "INTELLECTUAL pattern".
regard the word "intellectual" as arrogant and superfluous, and I
say therefore that ALL patterns are metaphors
If Intellect is regarded as the abstract realm it's inevitable. Nothing
wrong with your logic!
> Bodvar, it should be quite clear that I agree with you that Pirsig's
> treatment of the Intellectual level cause certain problems. In the
> quote provided by Dan, Pirsig says: "MOQ treats 'mind' as the exact
> equivalent of 'static intellectual patterns'" Elsewhere in Lila, (Ch
> 12, p177 in my edition), Pirsig says that the word 'mind' in the
> conventional SOM sense is equivalent to the MoQ's social-intellectual
> patterns. In the following paragraph, Pirsig applies the term
> "subjective" to these patterns.
At Pirsig's depth of understanding that way - for the MOQ to
"contain" the SOM - works, and I am not questioning his way. Yet,
for me the SOL (intellect= the whole S/O aggeregate) works better.
> Bodvar says:
> >I think Pirsig is a bit defensive here and should have taken it all
> >out ....to prevent confusion.To treat "mind" as the exact equivalent
> >of Q- Intellect and otherwise avoid it is next to impossible. Hamish
> >Muirhead has presented an alternative static sequence with no
> >Intellectual level, and I agree whole-heartedly. If Intellect is
> >equalized with SOM's "mind" there is no such level at all.. . .
>
> I completely agree.
> Can I please have a pointer to Hamish's proposal - I can't
> it. How does it differ from what I suggested on 7th Dec 1988?
> Ref:
> http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/9812/0049.html
> >JONATHAN FLOATS A TRIAL BALLOON
> >SUGGESTING REMOVING INTELLECT AS A LEVEL
Hamish showed it to me in a private letter. I don't know if it is
"copyrighted" That you also have such a proposal is new to me (I'll
look into it), but by this month's exchange it sounds like you waver
between ...nothing BUT intellect, or NO intellect. Exactly as in the
subject/object metaphysics where everything is mind or nothing is.
> However, I don't understand what Bodvar means by the following:
> >The Q-intellect is out of Q-Society and no subjective mindish realm.
A MOQ tenet is that all static levels are out of the parent level. Life
is matter with an added value layer, Society is Life ...etc, and
Intellect is supposed to have society at its bottom something
Pirsig shows very convincingly in LILA, but if SOM's mind is
supposed to be
> .....the exact equivalent of 'static intellectual patterns'
the opposite must apply: Intellect is the exact equivalent of 'mind',
and I don't find the social "nucleus" here.
> >Regarding metaphors they fall - along with language as such - on the
> >subjective side of SOM. Words are symbols, descriptions of something
> >at the objective side; [snip] And, according to Jonathan, as the MOQ
> >is presented by language it is metaphorical, ie. subjective.
>
> IMO, Bodvar misrepresents my point entirely. This is because of his
> assumption that metaphors are intrinsically subjective. I made no such
> assumption when I wrote (13th Sept 2000): >According to the MoQ,
> patterns of substance are just a subset of >patterns of value, i.e. a
> special sort of metaphor greatly valued by >scientists.
Maybe I am blind to some understanding on your part, or that you
already have created a metaphysics of metaphors, but Pirsig
chose the term QUALITY to build his new metaphysics because it
has an ambivalence like the carbon atom that life used as its
vehicle.
> Bodvar, your apology is very welcome ;-)
Good! Jonathan, I give you the credit of sticking to the crux of the
MOQ .... and for being a nice guy.
Another PS for Andreas who asked:
> What are You trying to tell me in Your p.s. ?
That metaphors - as "sinnbild" are in the mind and thus subjective.
However, in the "meaning" sense, the term can be used for another
metaphysics, but why reinvent the gunpowder.
> there are several value patterns related to the word 'sinn'. Yours is
> right too. I'd say that metaphor /'Sinnbild' is a mental picture which
> helps to remember, what it relates to, by touching your head and your
> heart. One can walk over bridges with all of her senses.
> All:
> What I found in this month discussion is that we are chasing ghosts
> which are winds of ideas already defined and taken care of. (as f. e.
> in Rich Pettis article in moq.org which answers the question: What is
> the metaphysics of quality) Suddenly I found that I could write about
> everything - and nothing. That is when one can say that the complete
> book is a metaphor.
By methaphors (as abstractions) a million "bridges" can be
crossed until you are completely lost in the high country. As said
you can write (about) everything - anything goes for a fertile mind.
But the MOQ changes this .....if you buy my idea that it is a
budding new level that have started to put limitations upon the
intellectual level (regarded as S/O).
To act my own critic that makes the MOQ a level of its own
making, but Gödels theorem can't be cheated - no system can
prove itself.
Bo
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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