Country-Jon, David B. and Foci (a PS for Jaap)
Jon wrote:
> Sort of dry, confusing topic this month.
Yes, the November topic hasn't caused the great ovations exactly
;( It was clear to me when I formulated it, but as it developed I got
more dubious about - not the MOQ answer, but what the n-n riddle
really asks for in its subject-object context. Mainly if free will and
causation are part of it.
> I'm not clear as to how the above question funnels into the nature vs.
> nurture debate that it seems to have turned into.
> Because I am confused, I will keep this short. The MoQ looks to
> Intellectual (dynamic as well as static) Quality for an explanation.
This I agree with .....if what we have gleaned from the last two
month's discussion [the "S/O-division as Q-intellect" and the "fifth
level"] is taken into considerations). The MOQ does indeed look to
the intellectual level, but to see something you have to be outside
it. This vantage point is perhaps your "dynamic" part of intellect,
but personally I like to call this a budding fifth level.
The thing is that the static part of intellect is notorious SO-
orientated and sees everything through its bifocal glasses; the
nature/nurture appraoch to the human experience is no exception.
> > This may involve SO division, but only when deems a SO division
> > necessary.
Right. The SO division as the static part of intellect (or as THE
intellect itself) is a great value seen as such, but poisonous seen
as a metaphysics. However keeping this in mind it requires great
concentration and perhaps even greater peace of mind (your fine
"peace" message over at the MD).
This is the grand picture. Exactly how the four (five?) levels of the
MOQ contribute to our human "outlook" is what I meant by my
topic suggestion. Perhaps it's confusing but give it a chance.
******************************************************************************
On 20 Nov 99, at 15:04, David Buchanan wrote:
> Chapter 12 specifically addresses the mind-matter dilemma and the free
> will vs determinism debate and says explicitly that the levels of
> static quality are where we look for answers to such questions. What
> follows is a condensed version of chapter twelve. Pirsig closes the
> chapter by saying the levels of static patterns represents a key
> insight, one nearly as exciting as his original idea of Quality
> itself, and opens the chapter by saying the levels are a huge plain of
> understanding and recalling that "high country of the mind" metaphor.
> P says...
> > Once this independent nature of the levels of static pattern of
> > value is understood a lot of puzzles get solved. The first one is
> > the usual puzzle of value itself. In SOM value has always been the
> > most vague and ambiguous of terms. What is it? When you say the
> > world is composed of nothing but value, what are you talking about?
> > The word is too vague.
> > The "value" that holds a glass of water together and the value that
> > holds a nation together are obviously not the same thing. Therefore
> > to say that the world is nothing but values is just confusing, not
> > clarifying.
David B, you are right, and it is about time that I did a re-reading of
LILA. As said above to Jon it was what the Nature-Nurture question
really asks for that caused me the greatest problem, and made me
want to keep the freedom/causation issues separate from it, but it
all is part of the quality solution to the SOM.
> [David Buchanan] I guess its safe to say that Pirsig goes after
> SOM's misunderstanding of value first because the most obnoxious
> problem he's trying solve is SOM's amoral objectivity. SOM's "value"
> is a vauge notion, but the MOQ is designed to sharpen distinctions...
> > Now this vagueness is removed BY SORTING OUT VALUES ACCORDING TO
> > LEVELS OF EVOLUTION. (The water is inorganic and the nation is
> > social.) They are completely different from each other because they
> > are at different evolutionary levels. The patterns have nothing in
> > common except the evolutionary process that created all of them. But
> > that process is a process of value evolution. Therefore the name
> > "static patterns of values" applies to all.
> > That's one puzzle cleared up. Another one is the mind-matter puzzle.
> > The torment occurs not because of anything discovered in the
> > laboratory.
> > Data are data. It is the INTELLECTUAL FRAMEWORK with which one deals
> > with the data that is at fault. The fault is within SOM itself. When
> > SOM regards matter and mind as eternally separate and eternally
> > unalike, it creates a platypus bigger than the solar system.
> David Buchanan] The previous quote seems relevant to your
> SOLAQI idea. I think it shows that, in Pirsig's view, the MOQ is an
> alternative intellectual framework. One that dissovles the "torment"
> of a flawed framework. It clearly implies that there are and can be
> options within the intellectual level. So this means that SOM is not
> equal to the intellectual level itself, just one possible system
> within that level. It seems to me that if SOM is equal to the
> intellect, then the MOQ would be impossible to conceive or imagine.
> Pirsig continues....
Yes, this is the crucial point. Jon (above) sees SOM as the static
part of intellect (the MOQ must be the dynamic part) while the
master himself sees it as one static intellectual pattern and the
MOQ as another. Of the two I prefer Jon's view it looks like a
SOLAQI light to me. I simply cannot come to grips with a view of
intellect where different metaphysics (in the overall REALITY
sense) co-exist. To your objection.....
> It seems to me that if SOM is equal to the
> intellect, then the MOQ would be impossible to conceive or imagine.
...I have this to say: The quality evolution has created and
surpassed static levels. Why should the intellect be an exception?
It is the tendency to regard it as something standing apart from
everything else (as 'mind' of SOM) - that makes it look impossible
to surpass (of course, if seen as 'mind' it's impossible to conceive
anything from a non-mind stance)
A personal confession:
To me it is taking the intellect down several notches that is the
strength of the quality idea and what still gives me such a kick.
Seeing intellect as SOM is more "humiliating" for intellect (and no
punishment is too great for it because it terrorized me for so long)
than seeing SOM as a competing metaphysics that can be kicked
out of intellect.
> The mind-matter paradoxes SEEM TO EXIST because the connecting links
> between these two levels of value patterns have been disregarded. Two
> terms are missing: biology and society. Our intellectual description
> of
> nature is ALWAYS culturally derived.
Here is Pirsig's way of integrating SOM into the MOQ. It is most
useful. No wonder :-)
> [David Buchanan] But I continue to have some sympathy for
> SOLAQI, because all intellect is culturally derived, we are suspended
> in a language that demands subjects and objects in nearly every
> utterance. It seems there is something inherently SOM about the social
> level of reality. Or so it seems? More Pirsig...
Thanks. I have alternated regarding the language question, and its
relationship with the social level...and the Intellect. It IS subject-
object in a grammatical sense, and does certainly have some
incitamental role re the development of intellect, and still, intellect's
value (to see what's objective true different from the subjective
social myths) is a more extensive S-O. I think Denis' seeing it as
the "machine code" between the two has its merits.
> > A third puzzle illuminated by the MOQ is the ancient "free will vs.
> > determinism controversy."
> > In the MOQ this dilemma doesn't come up. To the extent that one's
> > behavior is controlled by static patterns of quality it is without
> > choice. But to the extent that one follows DQ, which is undefinable,
> > one's behavior is free.
> [David Buchanan] This is not exactly the same as our "nature vs
> nurture" question, but I think it safe to say they are related and can
> both be answered using the same method prescribed by RMP, that is by
> sorting out the levels and applying the moral codes.
I rejected the free will initially, because it had some age old quality
(God's internal problem) long before the n-n dichotomy was
invented, but I guess both spring from the same source and are
both ivalidated by the MOQ. I just wanted to know how one could
visualize the inter-level workings. Jaap and Tor has delivered som
good stuff there.
> > The MOQ has much more to say about ethics...
> > It says that even at the most fundamental level of the universe,
> > staic patterns of value and moral judgements are the identical. The
> > "Laws of Nature" are moral laws. When inorganic patterns of reality
> > create life the MOQ postulates that they've done so because it's
> > "better" and that this definition of "betterness" -this beginning
> > response to DQ- is an elementary unit of ethis upon which all right
> > and wrong can be based.
> [David Buchanan] In MOQ terms it seems that the "nature" part
> of our nature is really just the more static and older aspects of our
> being, the first two levels of static patterns. The biological
> patterns are very stable and the inorganic level seems as solid as a
> rock, totally static. And when SOM talks about "nurture" they're
> really talking about the more dynamic levels within us. Socialization
> and education are classic examples of nurturing functions, eh?
Again, yes, the original (weak) SOM-MOQ containment is sufficient
at most occasions. Here it certainly suffices ("weak" not in any
derogatory sense, but compared to Quantum Physic's weak and
strong interpretations.)
Thank you all.
Bo
PS for Jaap who asked for material on the SOLAQI idea.
Dan Glover has published a research paper on it's origin and
development (a splendid job btw) at:
http://members.tripod.com/~Glove r/SOLAQI.html
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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