Tor, Todd and Group
For Tor who wrote:
> Todd, Bo and MF.
> Todd's post about "descriptions of opposition" hits something
> important, and Bo's reply and my new-growing understanding of SOLAQI
> are all mixing together to this:
> First my understanding of SOLAQI:
> SOM-intellect is based on objectivity and a "single" truth that is
> it's main "RULE" so MoQ opposes this and can't be contained in that
> level. So MoQ's intellectual level is only SOM-thinking, anything
> above that can't fit in there, and this leaves the intellectual level
> very simple with clear objectives/limits. SOM is huge, it's a complete
> system that's been extremely useful, but it's stuck in a dimension of
> Subject/Object and can't go anywhere further. Keeping it in a level
> with MoQ makes a mess of contradictions/opposing ideas. if I got it
> right I think I'm going to like SOLAQI...
Yes, that's the SO intellect! Exactly! I am convinced that this is the intellect
that Pirsig visualized and that it really don't contradict his often cited letter
about him regarding intellect as what we usually call "mind". See my reply to
Keith where I try to trace where it got its its "internal" mind-like
quality. (Mon. 24 Oct.). About the MOQ that opposes this and thus
can't be part of the Q-intellect, you are right.I have been a little
reluctant about saying something definite about a fifth level, but I
see it as something like "quality logic".
To say that L5 is the MOQ itself sounds a little self-stoking
because the level system is part of the MOQ. But very testingly:
Each Q level (when it was top notch) was its era's "metaphysics":
All there was! Only at the - human - social level did it get a meta-
quality in the form of a orally transmitted tradition. Our nordic
ancestors metaphysics was the one of the myth. The Valhall
inhabitants were "all there was". That Q level was replaced by the
intellectual one and slowly the myth reality was replaced by the
objective reality (in the Nordic and possibly in many cases the
history books present it as if it was Christianity that took over, but
that was merely a transient period of one myth replacing another,
the intellect even took over Cristianity and became the SO-M
metaphysics as we know it. Now my point. A fifth level must also
attain a metaphysical "all there is" quality: Everything must be
seen in its light so in that sense the Quality Metaphysics will fill
the role.
This is of course an enormity and at times I shudder over what is
proposed and what genie Pirsig has released from its bottle.
OK, onto Todds "descriptions of opposition": This reminded me of the
> main revelation I got when understanding MoQ: It vaporized my hated
> "Binarchies" (Binary Hierachies): In the SOM world, everything has to
> fit into a binary state: Subject/Object, Classic/Romantic and Todd's
> Love-Hate, Sadness-Joy, Contempt-Compassion, Anger-Mercy,
> Attraction-Repulsion etc. Any conclusion is a series of true/false
> decisions arriving at a "leaf" in a "tree". I'm using the term binary
> here even though there's often more than two choices, but the binary
> spits seem to be the most prominent, and any higher split can be
> reduced to a number of binary splits
I may as well put a few remarks to Todd in here. I didn't notice your
reservations about the "transcend" term, but accept its unsuitable
connotations. Also do I endorse the "Value of opposition" definition of
a L5 if I can add one thing. Intellect values what is objective and
independent of social opinion (subjective). This true/false opposition
and its many offshoots L5 hardly values (see above). But hate-love,
sadness-joy, contempt-compassion ...etc are emotions and - IMO - as
such social expressions, and these will be highly valued by a level above
intellect.Yet more to spite intellect than any true social affinity, much in
the same sense that intellect "flirts" with biology (Lila's chapter...). L5's
true business will be to reconciliate intellect's "binaries" (see Tor's
considerations below).
> A 5th level way of thinking does away with the linear binary decision
> process, and realizes that Quality creates the subject and object that
> create a opposition/binary division, and that it is undefinable, and
> thus there is not necessarily one true/false path to a given answer,
> and thus not necessarily one answer either. The fact that quality
> governs HOW these splits are made in the first place is also
> essential.
> 5th level reasoning (with SO-Logic as 4th level intellect) will have
> to: * Adjust how binary divisions are made all the way up a decision
> branch to
> reach a highest quality conclusion.
> * Work up all possible true/false branching if the undefinedness of
> Quality might make true and false possible.
> * Realise that on of a true/false decision at a given branch might
> have high
> quality locally, but if the end result doesn't have high quality, a
> "wrong" local decision might have high quality after all.
>
> What I'm driving at here is that Dynamic Quality can "Create" many
> good rules, but their isn't always a way to use these rules linearly
> to get to a high Quality result, Quality has to "Create" the entire
> route all at once, or at least in an iterative process.
>
> It's as if SOM thinking reduces everything into n little equations
> with one unknown, whereas the problem really is an nth degree
> equation.
The above is just right on. Splendid
> PS: Join me on my hammer-wielding crusade to get rid of the split
> between lightning and thunder by calling them lightning and
> lightning-noise. (or a more visually neutral name). It's all SOM's
> fault! :-)
<grin> But really, here we have THE problem. Intellect's effort to
objectivize (scientifice) the social myths is supposed to be of great value
to be kept in high esteem. Will we manage to be scientific if a new level is
established that says that - for instance - the electric theory is but one
truth and not THE TRUTH????? Any thoughts about it?
Thanks for reading.
Bo
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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