Diana McPartlin (diana@asiantravel.com)
Tue, 18 Nov 1997 20:58:01 +0100
Platt wrote:
> There is no kind of thinking
> other than subject-object thinking. Pirsig is simply promoting a change in
> the basic premises upon which subject-object thinking is based. Instead of
> the premise A is A, Pirsig offers the premise A is Value.
>
Hugo Fjelsted Alroe wrote:
>
> Further on the 'What is intellectual quality' question
>
> Diana, I can follow the distinction between a rationalistic worldview, and
> one which acknowledges the limits of reason. And in my view this
> distinction is identical to the distinction between determinism and
> indeterminism. I am just not sure that this distinction falls between SOM
> and MoQ, some SOM thinking might be indeterministic without letting go of
> the structure of subjects and objects. But then again, you might be right,
> that any indeterministic worldview is necessarily MoQ-like - I just dont
> know.
> But I do think it is confusing to say that MoQ is BASED on subject-object
> thinking. I take subject-object thinking to be a specific metaphysical
> foundation, that is, a specific way of structuring our world. It is behind
> most everything in western philosophy and western worldviews, though this
> common metaphysical ground was not realized before Pirsig saw it (as far as
> I know).
> I agree that MoQ is based on *categorical* thinking, and I guess that any
> rational structuring of reality is necessarily categorical - Pirsigs
> struggle with changing the rational categorical structure of the world I
> found most fascinating, because I in some small way had struggled with that
> myself.
I have always thought of rational, categorical and subject-object thinking as all
being the same thing. But perhaps not. Platt says that subject object thinking is the
only kind of thinking there is. I can see that thinking has to be categorical
otherwise the mind has nothing to grasp, but it's possible that these categories may
be something other than subjects and objects.... can we have some more words from you
on this Platt?
> In summary, I see SOM and MoQ as two different categorical structurings of
> reality, in this respect they are similar and rational. Acknowleding the
> limits of rationality has to do with indeterminism and evolutionism, in my
> view, and I am not yet confident how exactly this relates to SOM versus MoQ.
Stay with it, we'll get there;-)
Mark wrote
> At the level above Intellectual Value, Dynamic Quality, ideas are
> neither rational or irrational, rather both exist simultaneously like a
> quantum particle before observation.
Acutally I was suggesting that there may be a fifth static level above intellectual
quality but before dynamic quality. But I'm really playing devil's advocate to try and
get to the bottom of what intellectual quality is.
> Ideas are then crystallized from DQ
> and labelled rational or irrational through the process of
> intellectualization.
This is an interesting point though. The evaluation of an idea as irrational is an
intellectual evaluation. My trouble is that if you take something like quantum physics
then it seems to be irrational, which ought to mean that it is low value. But this
can't be right, quantum physics is mathematically sound (so I'm told) so it must be
rational and consequently high value. Hugo's suggestion to distinguish between
subject-object thinking and rational thinking overcomes this contradiction though.
Quantum physics is low subject-object value but it is still rational and so it is high
intellectual value.
Diana
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