Doug Renselle (renselle@on-net.net)
Sun, 14 Dec 1997 05:31:08 +0100
Hi Dave and The Lila Squad,
Dave Thomas wrote:
>
> Doug
>
> A comment about this one.
> > Does Quality inhere in objects?
> >
> > -- SOM view: Yes! All objects are defined by their inherent
> physical
> > properties.
> > -- MoQ view: No! All patterns of value are in Quality. Patterns
> of
> > value are defined in Quality by their interrelationship properties
> with
> > other patterns of value.
>
> Not sure about this one, I think this is a large stumbling block for
> many
> people, I know it has been for me.
>
> On one hand, the quote Bo posted from ZZM which talks about the
> analogues
> humans create and then call reality. MoQ is also a analogue and as
> such is a
> description of reality not reality itself.
> So in that sense no "object" has Quality because quality is a human
> mental
> analogue of what is.
>
Dave,
I agree with this.
IMhO, all humans have finite intellect. We also have finite sensory
capability - consider our disproportionate (classical) tactile,
auditory, and visual utilization of the full frequency spectrum. Thus
(classically) we are limited to 'modeling' reality when we discuss it.
But our (sensory-limited) experience of reality can be (is) more 'real'
than our ability to use language and symbols to describe it.
MoQ as an analogue of reality, IMhO, is one of (if not) THE best models
developed to date. It certainly is 'better' than the SOM analogue (the
evidence abounds for this).
Doug Renselle.
> But on the other hand, Pirsig, in his SODV article, discussing Bohr's
> experiments maintains that there had to be data input into the
> experiment and
> the source of the data was Dynamic Quality. So in this case it appears
> that
> qualities are resident in the external "object".
>
Dave,
Bo, Gene, Hugo, I, et al., have discussed this at length in prior
posts. In SODV, Pirsig shows us just a few of the trials and
tribulations of great scientists and philosophers on this subject. This
subject, IMhO, is what TLS is about. It is a 'better' way we can
understand for ourselves, and then help others understand the MoQ. What
you said above exemplifies our entrenched western classical
interpretation of reality imposed on us (mostly by the Aristotelians)
for many millennia.
Classical science, Western culture, and in particular SOM
(Subject-Object Metaphysics) tell us (and most of us still intuit) that
what you said above is true: the properties are IN the objects. That
is how we conclude wrongly that Value inheres in objects. By-the-way,
most of classical science still practices this doctrine. The macroworld
deceives us that the Aristotelian view is right. The Aristotelians
accomplished this deception by accusing their enemy of sophistry
(deception - Remember Phaedrus' ZMM-encounter with this fork in
humankind's philosophical journey which occurred so long ago?). Isn't
that ironic?
MoQ, quantum science, and several Eastern cultures disagree: MoQ says
what we perceive as reality is Static Patterns of Value (SPoVs) created
by Quality at the edge of Now - via a Quality Event (QE) - which Values
and latches SPoVs. Note here that the Values are not in the SPoVs, but
in the relationships (note: data are interrelationships as Pirsig shows
in Fig. 3 of SODV) among the SPoVs (esp. first exposures to: hot stove,
music, art, first-love, roller-coaster, ..., everything we call
reality).
The exciting virtue of MoQ is how closely it parallels quantum science.
Niels Bohr's complementarity, which Pirsig's SODV (Subjects, Objects,
Data, and Values) paper (see TLS site) reviews, is an analogue of the
Dynamic Quality to Static Quality (DQ-SQ) interrelationships. (We can
write a quantum dual of the MoQ process described in the previous
paragraph.) Complementarity says that the wave-particle duality may be
described in an analogous manner to Pirsig's Quality-creation of SPoVs
via DQ-SQ interrelationships. (For those of you who want a fuller
description of this, I am sending another post wherein I quote Jim
Baggott on a quantum theoretical view of complementarity.)
And if you read about the intermix of Eastern culture and modern quantum
science (e.g., Zukav, Capra, Herrigel, Zohar, and even Peck!) you get
the same analogies - over, and over, and over again. It may be easier
to see this if we distill the Eastern culture analogies into one word:
interpenetration (of perceived reality and its complement).
Dave, does this make sense to you? Does this help, or have I just made
it more difficult? Perhaps I am wrong, perhaps I should not keep
pounding on this, but it is crux. At least in my opinion it is crux.
I want TLS to present MoQ to the rest of the world in a manner Pirsig
approves.
Doug Renselle.
> So at this point in time here's my take. Everything has inherent
> Qualities.
Dave,
>From the above, you can see why I disagree with this statement.
Everything (our perceived reality) is in Quality. In MoQ, no-thing has
Quality. In SOM all things have qualities (This is the foundation of
classical science!)
Doug Renselle.
> All of these qualities make up the el giangundo field that is
> everything.
> There qualities that are of and discrete to any individual human and
> qualities
> that are of and discrete to all things external to that individual.
> From that
> point of view when we ask the question: How do we know this? We then
> move
> into the MoQ analogues which are called Static and Dynamic Quality. In
> Static
> Quality we don't know reality as it is "a priori", we each construct
> our
> pattern of static values which we call reality. Everything outside
> that
> pattern is unknown to us and is in the overall field of Quality. My
> latest
> thinking is that this "unknown to us" Quality field is not just
> Dynamic
> Quality but a combine of "Static Quality unknown to us" and Dynamic
> Quality
> which is truely unknown to all. So I feel the potential exists for
> both static
> and dynamic quality events through which the individual's static
> patterns of
> values can change. Hopefully to a closer correlation to what actually
> is.
>
> What makes MoQ superior to SOM is that:
>
> 1. It states upfront that individual and collective reality is
> tenative in
> nature and as such is subject to change based on newer and better
> information.
> Or it can and does evolve.
> 2. It defines how change is possible and occurs.
> 3. It has, not two, but five interrelated catagories with which to
> constructed
> and, more importantly, evaluate reality.
> 4. Is establishes rules and defines a moral order for the overall
> system.
> 5. By carefully and diligently using MoQ one can create an analogue
> which can
> more closely approximates that which truely is than by using SOM.
>
Dave,
If what I wrote above is good, this needs rework.
Doug Renselle.
> Some may think that this method will make everything simpler and
> clearer but I
> feel that just the opposite is the case. Given this many components
> and
> interrelationships to deal with at the most basic, metaphysical, level
> vastly
> increases the complexity.
>
> Example:This tree. In SoM we define it by its scientific
> characteristics ie
> (size, shape,color, species, x board feet of lumber, structural
> properties,
> cell structure etc) and there we generally stop. But in MoQ, at least
> when we
> talk about man's static pattern:"this tree", we at minimum have to
> move on up
> into the social level at talk about what social values does man assign
> to
> "this tree". Which then leads to the relationship of the static
> pattern that
> is "this tree", to the patterns of the forest and on and on and on. A
> more
> complete understanding of "this tree" but also much more complexed.
> So I would modify your rhetorical question this way:
>
> Does Quality inhere in objects?
> -- SOM view: Yes! All objects are defined by their inherent
> physical properties.
>
> -- MoQ view: Yes and No! [All things have inherent values] All
> patterns of
> value are in Quality. [Those] patterns of value [which humans assign]
> are
> defined in Quality by their [static pattern of values and the
> interrelationship those properties have with other patterns of value.]
>
> Dave
Dave,
An aside -
Your Principles graphic is superb! Did you know that Niels Bohr used
the Tao symbol for his coat-of-arms when he was knighted by Denmark? He
saw the wave in the curved line (path) and the particle in the circle.
So to him, the Tao symbol embodies complementarity. Simultaneously, I
drew art (not as well as you) and integrated the M, V, S, O, and Q. If
you mirror the path in the Tao it becomes an 'S,' then S and O unify as
Pirsig did in Lila.
Mtty (I did not intend this as an irritant, I got tired of re-typing my
original adieux.),
Doug Renselle.
-- " But quantum theory has destroyed the idea that only properties located in external physical objects have reality."Robert M. Pirsig, page 14 in his paper "Subjects, Objects, Data and Values," presented at the Einstein Meets Magritte conference, Fall 1995.
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