ELEPHANT and all Foci
Elephant:
> BO WROTE: I have a feeling when you speak about "we see the
> world....coming to mind" that you see everything as mind in a SOM
> idealist sense. In other words that the intellectual level is THINKING
> and that the SOM is one thinking-pattern and that the QM is another -
> both different outlooks from the homunculus MIND inside our heads.
> This is not (my idea) of the Q-intellect.
> ELEPHANT: I'm sorry if I've given the impression of being an SOM
> idealist, and it's something I know I need to be aware of. I'd guess
> that my intellectual development is a bit eccentric for a MOQer, as
> I've come to Prisgian radical empiricism from something more like the
> idealist SOM direction, not the empiricist SOM direction (although
> actually this entire process took place while reading Plato, not
> Prisig, who I read after). So there might be something in what you
> say - need to be kept on my toes. Still, to be honest though, I can't
> see what exactly turns on such a careless mistake about 'mind' (that
> is if I am actually making it, about which I'm not sure) in the
> context of what is after all merely a turn of phrase: 'what comes to
> mind'. I suppose the stonger part of your accusation that I am
> departing from Q-intellect is that I seem (with a bit of careful
> quoting) to speak of the mind reviewing the world, as if 'world'
> denoted a separate substance. If I really did mean that their
> separation here is one of substance, then, yes, that would be a severe
> offence! But that isn't what I meant at all. In 'thinking about the
> world' I meant, I think, something really quite innocent of the
> ontological flavour you give it. I just meant that we have experiences
> of value, both static patterns and the dynamic aesthetic continuum,
> and that it is possible to direct ones attention at these things.
> That is what Prisig is doing, isn't it? The only sense I'm giving to
> 'world' here is the MOQ sense.
Thanks Elephant for your balanced response to my somewhat
uncalled for comments - particularly the one about the phrase
"coming to mind". I winced upon seeing it in print.
> Now, as to space and time. "Are height, breath etc anything in
> themselves? Does it make sense re. the 'nature' of the levels?"
> There's actually a lot of argument about whether space and time are
> something in themselves. Given that, in modern physics, they can be
> 'streched' and 'bent' in physical interaction with mass and energy,
> this does rather imply that they are substantial entities. Putting
> that to one side, this whole area of the substantial reality or
> unreality of space and time is something that has obsessed the
> hellenic philosophers and is also a presocratic topic. OK, so you
> didn't ask for this: you only wanted to use space and time as a
> metaphor....
Interesting (thanks for not sic-ing my "breath". Breadth it is:-). Time
and space can be contorted according to Relativity, but the
dimension nevertheless are immutable ...as I understand it. I was
such a Relativity freak once, but have grown a little rusty on the
subject.
> Well, I guess that if you think of space and time the way Einstein
> thought of them, then yes, they are an exceptionally good metaphor for
> the levels, in that, in support of what I have been saying, they are
> absolutely *not* imutable measures which are nothing in themselves.
> You want, as your metaphor, the changeless euclidian/newtonian grid -
> but that doesn't really fit to well, does it? There's rather more to
> the idea "intellectual" than a line on a graph, isn't there? Likewise
> organic, social, etc. At a guess, I'd say, if you tried to
> definitively explain what all the levels really meant, you'd have to
> write quite a long book, like Lila, maybe longer.... maybe even a
> never-ending internet discussion..... with everyone disagreeing about
> words.... and no perfect final check-mate....
I believe the Einsteinian interpretation is my choice. I have called
Quality Metaphysics the "mother of all relativity" by which I mean
that it relates to SOM in the same way that General Relativity
relates to Newtonian physics. The latter can be tucked inside the
former, but Relativity can in no way come in under the Newtonian
fold. Pirsig's own recipe (that the objective side of SOM conforms
to the Inorg.& Bio levels and Socio.& Intell. to the Subjective) is
helpful ...to a point, but already the "everything-is-value" statement
burns all bridges: SOM can't "cover" all the MOQ. I have suggested
another transformation that likens the Relativity/Newtonian variant
in it the S/O-division conforms with Quality's Intellectual level; the
VALUE of dividing experience that way. It makes the MOQ
impervious but a little esoteric.
About an exact definition of the levels and what goes where, yes,
that would become quite a tome. The never-ending internet
discussion we are in the process of creating ...it seems
Thanks for reading.
Bo
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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