Jaap and Wim & Foci (Wim see PS)
I am away on a summer holiday trip, but smuggled along my
portable and have sneaked away from my dear wife and found a
telephone plug to send this "secret" message :-)
OK joking aside. I voted for your topic Jaap because it was even
better that my own, covering the same basic tenets of the Quality
Metaphysics (QM for a change). You wrote in your opening
message:
> Since I suggested this month's topic I felt the need to open this
> discussion by giving a more complete oversight of my problems. It
> became a little long, but I can't treat such complex problems shortly.
> The topic is three fold:
The Quality approach is supposed to be understood by a child, it's
our tendency to double-bend the somish content into a quality-
sounding language frame that makes for complexity. This just a
general observation.
> My first thought was that if the static-dynamic split is an other way
> to split the same group fenomena befor classified with the
> subject-object split, then (according to geometrical intuition) these
> "lines" should cut each other ((assuming they are independent)). Thus
> I feel that both SOM elements, the object and the subject, should
> cross the static-dynamic split and consist of both a dynamic and a
> static part. Do you, foci, agree on this assumption or are there for
> instance objects that are entirely static, or subjects that are
> entirely dynamic ? (Please don't say there aren't subjects or objects
> at all - the point is to reach MOQ from SOM.)
In my debate with Magnus I was advised to drop dynamism in a
dicussion about static levels and I agree to an extent. The static
patterns are "standing waves" in a dynamic sea so they are
dynamic deep down, but their static aspect is what interests here.
I won't say that there are no subjects or objects, but Quality's
subjectivity/objectivity isn't SOM's. To introduce such an equality is
to smuggle the SOM in through the back door.
In an effort to demonstrate how the MoQ contains the SOM Pirsig
says that inorganic+biological conforms to objects while social+
intellectual conforms to subjects. I have introduced my SOLAQI
idea (where the Intellectual level is the S/O split itself) because it
avoids the inevitable comparing of intellect with mind.
> > - Describe 'object' in terms of MOQ; which are its static parts, and
> > which are its dynamic parts ?
As said any dynamic/static "proportioning" is impossible in my
understanding of the MoQ, there is dynamics at the core of ALL
patterns, but no more to subjects than to objects
> One problem for me is that when Pirsig unfolds the four levels, he
> seems to think of the levels in relation only to the human subjects.
> But what would you say about for instance a stone, a pattern of the
> anorganic level. Its static part looks obvious: its fysical
> continuation in space and time and its reproduction of the laws of
> fysics. But what about the dynamic part, going from the anorganic
> level in the dynamical direction you end up at the biological level -
> but the stone is not a organism, for it is a anorganic pattern, right
> foci ? So where does its DQ come from ? For simplicities sake I asume
> that the static-dynamic spectrum is one-dimensional, you go either up
> or down and going up you stumble on the biological level. On the other
> hand regarding the stone as nothing more but a pattern of the
> anorganic level, you treat it like an object; SOM sneaking in the back
> door, you just redefine the status of objects, namely a pattern of the
> anorganic level. On the other hand you can say that every level is
> already a mixture of SQ and DQ, but the only insight gained by that is
> that the fysical laws allowe for some Dynamic influence, but no SOM
> scientist will denie that.
> (Note the inconsistency: first I think of an absolute
> static-dynamic split (like the SOM subject-object split), but then it
> appears to be a gradual spectrum of levels climbing from less dynamic
> to more dynamic level.)
Stop to take a breath Jaap :-)! The dynamics of a stone? When
existence was all inorganic ....read the part about the carbon atom
in LILA (page149) and we must discard the SOM imagery of any
spirit force invading dead matter. DQ works at the - at any time -
uppermost level. Right now it's Intellect, but it's stability (the view of
reality as SOM) is solid as a stone ......more so it looks ;-)
> > - Describe 'subject' in terms of MOQ; which are its static parts,
> > and which are its dynamic parts ?
> The Dynamic and static parts of the subject seem to be more obvious,
> for on one hand you have the patterns at several levels, building a
> consistent and continu individual, and on the other hand you have DQ,
> randomly chanching the patterns and protecting against determinism.
This is biology and gene shuffling and it follows the basic biological
rules. No degree of shuffling will produce NEW life - no living clouds
or whatever SciFi writers has dreamed about.It's good old carbon
atom strings braided into more complex patterns ...but of a known
kind.
> But then again, according to SOM philosofy, the subject doesn't
> strictly need a fysical body; the subject is more some random
> collection of feelings and intellect.
Feelings and Intellect!?. Yes, if you mean by feelings mean
EMOTIONS and and by intellect mean REASON I agree (see my
"Emotions Revisited" thread over at the MD)
> In short, the subject is nothing
> more than the observing mind. Of this mind I would propose the
> identity as a basic static part, folowing MOQ you can argue that this
> identity is rooted in a social level (for most people true, according
> to sociology), the social level in turn rooted in a biologic level
> etc. . As Dynamic part I propose things like fantasy, inspiration etc.
> . This I can work with without much problems - but note that this is a
> MOQ approach crossing the borders of the SOM subject.
This is so foreign to my understanding that I don't know where to
start or where to end. "Nothing more than an obseving mind". All
right let's assume your subject-mind-observing-object-matter notion
for a moment. What is NOT of/in this observing mind? It's child¨'s
play to prove that there is no world "out there" whatsoever, this
Berkeley and Hobbes did three centuries ago. Kant tried to save
objectivity, but made the subject/object wall even more impervious,
and since then philosophy has see-sawed between the materialist
and the idealist position. It's this impossibility that the MoQ makes
away with.
This is more than enough. .
Bo
I see that Wim have delivered a recent post, from the little peek I
had he seems to have got the gist of it. I'll address his entry in a
later message.
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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