David B. replies to Bodvar's introductory post...
> the culture vs nature riddle is highlighted, but it appears in many
> guises. Yet let's concentrate on it because it fits in with the
> opening chapter of LILA where Pirsig's discusses anthropology.
> The last I heard of it was that Margaret Mead (Coming of Age in
> Samoa) had been fooled by the youngsters that - like the Indians
> of LILA - found it extremely funny with this white lady asking all
> sorts of questions and had piled on as much of what they felt she
> wanted to hear.
>
[David Buchanan] Yes, Margaret was a terrible poker player too.
And she lost thousands at three card monty. She was incapable of telling
the simplest white lie, such as "Your hair looks nice." or "There's no
way you're old enough to be his mother!". How she ever got a PhD in the
human sciences is a mystery to me.
But seriously, I think the nature vs. nurture riddle is
dissovled in the MOQ. The short answer is "both". Nature becomes
organic and inorganic level value and Nuture becomes social and
intellectual level value.
> Mead did belong to the "nurture" school: the upbringing is the
> source for what a human being becomes. LILA doesn't seriously
> discuss those two approaches, because it rejects both. The point
> of Pirsig using anthropology was that that discipline more than
> anything else shows the weakness of SOM. However, the riddle
> isn't limited to anthropology, it permeates ALL of our culture
> because SOM does. Recently there was a book published here in
> Norway (I can't recall its title, but it was something about
> conscience) and the two authors spoke about what constitutes our
> "setup".
>
[David Buchanan] Well, I'm thinking that he went for
Anthropology because its SUPPOSED to study human values. Its a choice
that clearly shows the absurdity of using SOM's "amoral scientific
objectivity" as a means of understanding humanity. SOM's nature and
nurture really boil down to a contest between materialistic determinism
and social determinism, and in that sense I'd agree that Pirsig rejects
both. And they're still cranking out all kinds of science telling us
that we are this or that process, this or that set of mechanisms. Yuk!
But if we are composed of static patterns from each of the four levels,
then biology and society are obviously both a part of what we are.
> As usual they said that neither genes nor society was the sole
> contributor and as usual it sounds plausible, but it's throwing sand
> in ox' eyes. No sooner have they said it and turned their backs to
> the microphones and cameras before they are at each other's
> throats again: "It's the genes that are the REAL cause". "No, it's
> society that decides what genes are to propagate themselves, and
> thus REALLY is the cause! In the SOM one of the two realms HAS
> to have the upper hand.
>
>
[David Buchanan] How blank is the slate? How many angels can
fit on the head of a pin? I think one of the main reasons that SOM
science goes round and round on this is that they don't really see the
social level values, as if it were just a matter of meat and the
knowlege put into it. But in fact we're born with a capacity for
language and a whole range of archetypes and unconscious motivations.
There is a whole level of reality that is neither biological nor
intellectual.
> As said, Pirsig's business in LILA was to prove that VALUE was
> the prime mover, and it becomes somewhat awkward to say that
> his opponent was (Franz Boas) "objectivity" because that sounds
> as if Pirsig defends "subjectivity", but we now know that it was
> SOM's value-as-subjectivity that was his target, and we also know
> his unravelling of SOM's weakness and MOQ's virtues, but did
> Pirsig ever address where exactly the MOQ seeks for how we
> behave the way we do, or does the MOQ abolish the whole
> CAUSATION riddle. We know his tentative "new" physics of "A
> causing B" replaced by "B valuing precondition A"?
>
[David Buchanan] Right, the MOQ is not a defense of
subjectivity, but I think its safe to say that one of Pirsig's most
important criticisms of SOM is that it construes values as somehow less
than real, less important or less substantial than "objective" reality.
In that sense, it does rescue experience itself as well as the other
"non-material" things. And I think the new physics you mention here
touches on an idea we discussed last month, when I'd said that the word
"quality" itself implies consciousness. I think we see the same notion
here as well. In saying "B values pre-condition A" instead of "A causes
B", Pirsig has simply replaced causation with volition. We could just as
easily say "B likes pre-condition A". Both formulations will accept the
data, but Pirsig's implies an awareness and a will, even at the
inorganic level, whereas SOM's formulation is mechanistic,
deterministic, cold, solid and dead.
> Well, that is inorganic physics, about what constitutes our human
> reality I feel that the four levels must play a role. In the famous
> "hot
> stove" example Pirsig says that it is perception of value that makes
> the person jump in the air, anyone else would say it's the
> autonomous nerve system's reflexes which is true too. Perhaps
> what Pirsig means is that the inorganic patterns of excited atoms
> (heat) are perceived by the biological patterns as low value and
> takes immediate action, only later as the event has gone through
> the social level does the oaths and sheepish expression occurs,
> and after the intellect has evaluated the situation the
> "rationalization" of what happened occurs. And that this is what
> happens all the time and that our actions and outlook makes it up
> through the levels. Not all originating at the inorganic, some at the
> biological, the social or even only taking place at the intellect.
>
[David Buchanan] There's one sure thing I've learned from the
MOQ; One should never sit on a hot stove.
> Does this reintroduce causation in a MOQ guise?
>
[David Buchanan] No. There is nothing so certain as a cause,
even at the lowest level of static quality. And the higher levels have
even more freedom of "chocie" than particles and waves. For humans, who
are a collection of values from all four static levels, there is bound
to be a chorus of voices in every choice. Our task is to balance and
integrate those different values according the the moral code. But its
not a code for behaviour, oughts, or thou shalts. It begs us to sort out
the various values at play in any given conflict. The explanatory power
of the MOQ is in the five moral codes, but making it useful requires a
genuine feel for the entire ontological scheme. I mean, we can only use
the codes if we actually know one level of value from another and be
able to recognize the difference when we bump into them in the real
world.
It seems the nature vs nurture question is a great example,
seemly unsolvable in normal science, the MOQ simply says that each
aspect is the expression of different levels of values, and that
ultimately it was all aquired by experience, even the stuff you're born
with. The whole problem dissolves. We look to the values involved,
rather than causes. Then its just a matter of applying the levels and
their codes.
[David Buchanan] Thanks, Bodvar.
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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