Hi Mark and everyone
Mark Butler wrote:
>
> Hi Dan and All,
>
> DAN:
> "The embodied metaphor of language cannot be analyzed
> further, for who is it that can step outside of language to
> do the analyzing? Therefore, it would seem any hope of
> uncovering a
> catechism of the MOQ in this intellectual fashion is doomed
> to failure."
>
> MB:
> "I think we can indeed analyze metaphor further, and can do
> so 'inside of language', which was the crux of my own topic
> suggestion for this month."
>
> DAN:
> "Yes we can make the attempt... but:
>
> "...It wasn't that the question wasn't answerable. It was
> answerable but the answer went on and on and you never got
> done." (Lila, paperback page 159)
>
> It would seem that this is what Niels Bohr was describing
> when he talked of "word pictures which may not be analyzed
> further." As soon as a catechism of quality is devised it
> becomes something other than what it professes to be. The
> answer keeps going on and on; formless until encountering
> form then shifting into new forms, spontaneously."
>
> MB:
> "I accept this- and so in theory while one may, through
> linguistic analysis, uncover metaphors' concrete origins,
> the further one delves, the further one abstracts. But this
> type of intellectual practice might be a suitable western
> alternative to koan study. Also, I'm thinking that by
> increasing one's understanding of language in this way, the
> languager might be better equipped to prefer those lexical
> terms which most closely represent the concrete reality
> being intellectualized. ('that choice which is more
> Dynamic...')"
>
> DAN:
> "This seems to be what all of us here are engaged in, yes,
> but there may be a problem with your last sentence in that
> there is no "concrete reality" in the MOQ; there are
> patterns of value. And the more one endeavors to
> intellectually uncover any such notion of a concrete
> reality the further away one is taken until all that is
> left are ghosts."
>
> ***
>
> Hi Dan,
>
> Thanks for taking the time to critique my thinking once
> again. Things are beginning to clarify now. Yes, you're
> right, there is no "concrete reality" in the MOQ. I clearly
> was falling into the SOMist trap! In the MOQ, the static
> value patterns of language are not ABSTRACTED FROM but
> rather BUILT UPON lower level value patterns. Language is
> then of both the social and intellectual levels. At the
> social level, language was/is wholly in the service of
> society as a communication tool: without the concept of
> self, in the sense of an 'I' consciously projecting a
> concrete reality into an imagined mind space. Then, with
> the emergence of the transitional value pattern-
> 'subjective conscious mind', language was carried over into
> the service of this more evolved level.
Hi Mark
You're welcome, and thank you for your comments too. Let's pull a few
quotes together from Lila and see where they take us: Phaedrus states:
"...although the four systems are exhaustive they are not exclusive.
They all operate at the same time and in ways that are almost
independent of each other." (Chap. 12, Lila)
According to the MOQ language operates on all four levels,
simultaneously, and "these patterns have nothing in common except the
historic evolutionary process that created them. ... that process is a
process of value evolution. Therefore the name 'static patterns of
value' applies to all." (Ibid.) So language development is a process of
value evolution with each level using language for its own purposes and
furthermore "a primary occupation of every level of evolution seems to
be offering freedom to lower levels of evolution. But as the higher
level gets more sophisticated it goes off on purposes of its own."
(Ibid.)
Throughout the early part of Lila, Phaedrus uses metaphors of Victorian
values (evolved from European values) contrasted with metaphors of
freedom (Native American values, contrarians, revolutionaries) to
illustrate the historical evolutionary processes going on in our present
day culture. However, Phaedrus recognizes our being trapped in language
and, searching for a means to tie all historical evolutionary processes
together, comes across the ancient Greek notion of aretê, which
transcends named static patterns of value and simply put, means what is
best.
The MOQ seems to state we invent fictitious notions of mind and matter
through the use of metaphor -- "Matter is contained in static
intellectual patterns." (Ibid.) -- for it best describes reality in a
manner which results in agreement from an otherness seemingly separate
from our self: "Mind is contained in static inorganic patterns."
(Ibid.) "There is no scientific connection between mind and matter. ...
Our intellectual description of nature is always culturally derived."
(Ibid.)
In an earlier post Mark brought up "The Origin of Consciousness in the
Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind". I'd like to use Julian Jaynes two
terms 'metaphrand' (thing to be described) and 'metaphier' (thing or
relationship used for elucidation) to examine this last sentence. We see
"intellectual description of nature" as the metaphrand being described
and "culturally derived" as the metaphier, or the relationship used for
elucidation. Jaynes states more complex metaphors contain 'paraphiers'
which project back into the metaphrand and create what he calls
'paraphrands'. By projecting the metaphier "culturally derived" back
into the metaphrand "intellectual description of nature" we may begin to
see how the idea of intellectual smugness arises (the paraphrand).
That's why Phaedrus goes to great pains stating while intellectual
patterns of value are metaphorically the top rung of an ongoing
evolutionary process they are not all there is.
Which brings us back to Jonathan:
"I agree that language is a primary vehicle for intellectual activity
since the dawn of human civilization - long, long before the emergence
of subject-object based philosophy. Where I disagree is your attempts to
limit Intellect to subject-objectivism only. Pirsig's novels and the MOQ
website are strewn with quotes from great intellectuals such as Einstein
and Poincare that attach great importance to the emotional/intuitive
part of intellect." (9/22/00)
But is emotion and intuition part of intellect? Or is it best to state
emotional and intuitive processes are beginning responses to Dynamic
Quality?
Dan
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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