John B, Denis and MOQFocus.
John Beasley wrote
. We would recognise any fifth level that emerged because of
its quality, directly experienced, and because its moral
imperatives clashed at some fundamental level with the
imperatives of the intellectual level.
This is assuming that Pirsig's structure is sound, of course.
Agreed to!
(Or perhaps this could be phrased differently as stating that the
highest level of the good is true.)
Agreed to even more! My version of it is that each level (when it
was all there were) was its era's "mythos" or "metaphysics" or
TRUTH.
What Pirsig has done that transforms this, though, is
make the intellectual trusubservient to the experience of the
good, from which through a convoluted process our concepts
of the good have actually emerged, with a lot of input from
the mythos. So there is a moderating effect on the truth as
explored by the intellect: it can always be negated by the
experience of dynamic quality.
Ultimate agreement! As said, the static levels had their heyday of
being THE TRUTH, but were superseded by the next development,
but behind it all were DQ - or "experience of the good" in your
words.
While Pirsig has set up SOM as the enemy of quality, it is not
clear to me that the corrosion of human values that marks this
century is only about the loss of values. It is also about the
loss of truth......etc.
Hmmmm. This is a most sobering view. I wonder if you are saying
exactly the same as Maggie Hettinger did in her message of 4
Oct.about "irrationality". If - as above - truth now is in Intellect's
possession, what you (and Maggie) describe as a "corrosion of
human values" or "loss of truth" can also be seen as an "attempt
on Intellect". In a somish view this looks very ominous, but the
MOQ provides us with a different vista.
Let me expand. As described in LILA a(ny) level is invulnerable to
attempts from the lower level. Social value is made for suppressing
Biological license and did its job until Intellect grew up and
"ambushed" it. (This happened to Biology in its time, but let that
rest now). This is now repeating itself re Intellect. Its value is
custom made for suppressing Social tyranny, but is defenseless
from the rear - "above" is perhaps the best metaphor. It fences off
traditional social/religious attacks, but staggers from the scientific
arguments. And yet, Blackmore and the like of her aren't truly from
"beyond" in a moqish sense. Only MOQ is.
Are we then undercover agents, scheming against the present
order? Like you John I have had doubts about this development. I
once said that I am scared of the genie that Pirsig has released
from the bottle. What will a culture that gives up the notion of truth
be like? But I have come to see the MOQ as the savior of truth, in
the way that it provides a new metaphysics that put things into a
new context: A NEW TRUTH!!!!
A convoluted process!? Yes. To see the quality idea as a new level
(a new truth) of its own system often makes my head spin. It bears
an uncanny similarity to Quantum Physics: a self-sufficient,
closed system that can't be understood, yet provides the most
accurate analysis/predictions.
.................................................................................................
Denis Poisson wrote:
First, the MOQ law of evolution specifically says that the fifth level
(if there is ever one) will emerge from Intellect. As Bodvar puts it :
What is important here is another MOQ axiom: A level grows
from its parent and is indistinguishable from it in its embryonic
stage. Consequently, an X level will be Intellectual for all
appearances, but its purpose will eventually deviate from it in a
most profound way. But - again - an X level idea must have
some implications for the way we regard Intellect: it can't be
the mind/mental (different from the matter/concrete we so
easily bring over from the SO notion) where different
"metaphysics" viefor dominance.
I'll answer Bodvar about his mind/mental state, which he wants to
differentiate from Intellect. Good news, I've decided I like this idea
too. So I'll draw my line across mind, too see what's intellect and >what's not.
Since last month is full about what I think is Intellect, let me state
what isn't. Cognitive, deductive and reasoning abilities are not >Intellect.
Hehe ! I bet that must raise a few hairs by now !... :-)
Not in protest, but a lot of gooseflesh in agreement!
These functions are used by animals, animals aren't
"reasonable animals", so ergo, the functions aren't Intellectual.
Intellect is about the symbolic world, the world of meaning.
Deducing how to get a few more cookies from an intelligence-
testing machine is something many animals can do. Using
symbols is something only humans do. After a while,
"intelligent" animals get to know how to escape from their
cages (orangutans are supposedly best at this, in one case
they even used a piece of wire they had hidden under their
upper lip), but I still haven't found an example of an
orangutan telling his friends about this, describing the
situation and giving them the trick. They can show the trick,
but not describe it "out of context".
Agree!
Was it Koko I saw in a TV program about a very skilled ape that
impressed me greatly? When confronted with tasks she couldn't
manage she became so frustrated that it looked like "crying". It
was quite uncanny. She obviously was aware of the expectations
from the experimenters and deeply disappointed with herself which
means an acute social sense. As Denis says, the higher primates
are on the verge, but not quite on the Intellectual level. I can't wait
to see where Denis' thought experiment will land him.
I wonder if not these animal skills - something that Marco
suggested could be called "intelligence" as not to confuse it with
MOQ's Intellectual level - has some deep implications for what we
call Artificial Intelligence. We see in
John Ellis Leighton's
message the traditional (sorry John E) SOM position that Intellect
can be freed from its dependence of the biological level. This
intellect/intelligence confusion is what haunts AI research and
hampers its progress. The Q-intellectual level is NOT
from/dependent upon the Q-biological, its dependence is upon the
Q-social level. Leighton and AI research expects a machine to
"wake up to awareness" (Ah I am a computer!) that can be kept in
a vat disconnected from everything. Intellect can't be isolated from
the Q-sequence, but "intelligence" can. It is merely the neural
complexity that makes an earthworm look completely hardwired, a
dog able to learn a few trick, a chimp to act almost human; a
human to be completely unpredictable and a future computer to be
MORE intelligent than a human without the arch SOM "Ah I am .."
(which is "Cogito ergo sum" transcribed ) idea to cross its "mind".
Thanks for your time.
Bo
PS
May Day!
Anyone familiar with "Pegasus Mail"? I downloaded the last 3.12a
version and the hitherto splendid program went ape. When opening
from the Queu Manager it messes up the usually well edited >>
(quoted from other people's messages). I try identions, but also
that is garbled.
What setting can fix it?????
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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