Bodvar Skutvik (skutvik@online.no)
Wed, 17 Jun 1998 03:35:13 +0100
Hi Squad.
Thank you - all - for a lot of hefty contributions to the DQ/SQ
discussion, particularly the "sentience" (or "mind") problem and the
SOTAQI idea (which is a way of coming to grips with the said
problem). This is encouraging and I feel that we are making
progress now - even if we are at the end of our mental tethers
and it requires great concentration to keep tracks of our reasoning.
MAGGIE.
You wrote:
> Yes. But I see a contradiction. You gave several examples, and I want
> to use them. I'm chopping up your sentence.
>> On the other hand, the backdrop of it all, that which makes
>> an atom "sensitive" to Inorganic values,
> Wouldn't that "sensitiveness" be a function of static Inorganic values, ie
> relationships within and among static inorganic patterns? At this level,
> the sensitiveness would be pattern matching-- following set chemical
> reactions of attraction or repulsion.The Dynamic aspect at this
> level would be DQ, something that allows change, escape from the rules,
> the formation of new patterns. (This also includes biological
> patterns, which to the inorganic sensitivity, are not discernable as such).
When we speak - for instance - about IPoV it is hard not to retain
SOM's model of substance particles reacting to forces, but in a Q
context matter IS the Inorganic value! I may be wrong, but it sounds
as if you equalize patterns with substance and value with forces (and
see change in their interaction as DQ influence), but do IPoVs
"change" - within? The moral of matter is to remain matter! When the
Inorganic values were transgressed it resulted in the next moral
level: Biological values.
You continued:
> Biological patterns maintain pockets of inorganic freedom, pockets
> of DQ within the shape of the biological patterns. But, the only sensitiveness
> AT the inorganic level, seems to be pattern matching. This would be
> the inorganic analogue to "sensation". There is also a function, something
> analogous to "sentience" at this level, that involves influence by biological
> patterns.
> So. DQ provides the mechanism, the engine, of "inorganic sentience", but
> it is the formation of a new level, a new set of static patterns that contain
> and maintain this "inorganic sentience".
You possibly say something of great importance here, anyway it is
unnecessary to look for a special term for the Q-sentience at
the various levels, we are simply back to Pirsig's original QUALITY!
After all, the existence of such a sensitivity is the chief MOQ
postulate. I do accept the DQ as the engine of.....everything. No
need for new names.
> ......snip.... There should be a "sensation" analogue here, too, but it is
> NOT "sensation" in the commmon usage. In the common usage, "sensation"
> refers mostly to biological-level sensation. I don't know what the examples
> would be of social-level "sensing". (*)
Remember the sequence INTERACTION-SENSATION-EMOTION-REASON
representing the various levels "experience"? I maintained that
emotions are the most basic social "sensing", but I know that you
(tend to) look upon the Social level in a more modern human society
sense. Still, think about it.
HORSE.
You wrote:
> There seem to be two main models emerging at the moment, the first is
> that DQ is apart from SQ and that SQ consists of a hierarchical and
> evolutionary system of separate and disjoint levels of static patterns
> of value. The second is similar to the first except that the
> hierarchical system of patterns of value are not static but are part
> dynamic and part static.
I find your two models of Dynamic and Static quality and
their interaction - as well as your summary of our present
predicament - very apt. A certain note of despair has crept
into our discussion - as if we sense that the MOQ is about to enter
the SOM paradox mire, perhaps the "Explain the DQ/SQ split" title has
something to do with it? By putting it that way we have stated that
there is a problem to be solved.
However your suggestion for possible ways out looks promising. This
goes for your message of 16 June even more, but one thing: I do
believe that the sentient (or mind) in the MOQ is best resolved with
my SOTAQI notion. To start speaking about "sentience" when we mean
the dynamics which has created - and upholds the Value patterns only
confuses (even if we use quotation marks). If all mind-indicating
terms collectively are seen as the Intellectual level "mind" has
found its place. The said Q-force is Pirsig's original Dynamic
Quality.It is better left as such.
DONNY.
About the society "bug" that stop you from accepting the SOTAQI
idea fully. You wrote:
> The intellectual level comes after the social one, it's dependent on society, but society
> is not dependent on it. But you do need to have S-O thinking (or
> "consciousness" which really says the same -- I/This, me/not-me) in
> order to have a society. Fish, ants and birds don't have societies (except in
> a loose, basically metiphorical sense).
The last time we discussed it I dropped the fish school, bird flock
"society", but I simply fail to see the necessity of S-O
consciousness for societies to function, and there is a slight
contradiction in your statement. Correctly enough; social
value patterns are NOT dependent on Intellectual ones, but to require
S-O thinking ..in order to have societies... says the opposite (If
you accept that S-O consciousness is Intellect!!!)
> ............. a societies ability to exist depends first and formost on the ability of it's
> individual constituants to diferentiate between social entities and
> non-social entities -- minded-beings and mindless-beings, or (perhaps
> put best) people and (mere) things.
I think the first primitive "homo something" lived in very well
organized socities without - or with a weak - sense of subjective
self (S-O consciousness). Much like higher primates who keep up
intriguingly complex relationships without language or recognition of
personhood. A baboon knows very well the difference between social
entities (baboons) and non-social ones (other animals) not to speak
about "things" - bananas for instance! No, Donny, your .. mind vs
mindless...thing is an Intellect "worry". Give the SOTAQI idea
another test in your mental cyclotron!
ANTHONY.
I will use this opportunity to thank you for raising the
"Subject-Object thinking as Q-Intellect" in your letter to Pirsig,
and will bring his answer in short form (it was interspersed with so
many different arguments and commentary that it is hard to follow)
to the knowledge of the Squad.
Regretably it was presented in the original SAIOM (SOM as the
Intellectual level of the MOQ) form, as if the S-O METAPHYSICS was
the Q-Intellect, it makes a great difference to many.
First Pirsig defined Intellect:
> > As I understand it the intellectual is the
> > mental, the whole mental and nothing but the mental. The
> > MOQ like Hinduism and Buddhism, sees the "individual" as
> > a composite of static patterns which disappear upon
> > enlightenment. This is the meaning of the Vedic
> > statement,"ta tvam asi" (thou are that).
Later he said this about the SAIOM idea proper:
> > I don't want to either approve or disapprove of anything
> > in the Lila Squad for fear of destroying its openness to
> > new ideas. Historically, however, as the MOQ was
> > conceived, both the subject-object metaphysics and the
> > MOQ are patterns lying entirely within the intellectual
> > level of evolution. Other patterns in the same level are
> > Euclidian and Rieman geometry, the branches of scientific
> > knowledge, and the written laws and many others. They
> > grow or fade on their basis of quality judgments that are
> > quite different from social judgments or biological
> > judgments. Such intellectual quality measurements are
> > logic, fittingness to empirical data, economy of
> > statement, and what is sometimes called "elegance" by
> > mathematicians. Social quality measurements of quality,
> > by contrast, are such things as conformity to social
> > custom, popularity, ego satisfaction, and "reputation".
> > Biological standards are physical pain and pleasure. I
> > think the location of the SOM is shown in the following
> > modified diagram of the MOQ.
(the diagram is the one that appears in the Brüssels paper "Subject,
Object, Data and Value")
I will not judge if this is a dismissal or an approval, as
said it was a little premature in its form, but Pirsig obviously does
not object to our trying out various openings.
DIANA.
Forgive me, this message grew too long, but I had to jumble it
all together to keep up with the conversation.
Bo
..................................................
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