Re: [MD] On Pirsig's letter to Paul Turner

[mail]

Dan, all,

On 16-Jul-16 5:41, Dan Glover wrote:
Tuukka,

On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 3:50 AM, Tuukka Virtaperko
<m...@tuukkavirtaperko.net> wrote:
Dan, Adrie, all,

thanks for that one, Adrie. I'll be careful!

My previous post was about things I've already thought through    
but now I'll
switch to a more tentative (and potentially more creative) mode of
discussion.


Dan:
So I remember reading this speech by Leonard Cohen which you can find
here:

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/leonardcohenhowigotmysong.htm

And he says some thiings which might contradict the notion that a
guitar is simply an inorganic pattern in that it the guitar is
actually a living thing and I think he has a point, one that any
musician can appreciate. Anyway...

Tuukka:

What wouldn't be a living thing? Would you consider the sun to be dead?
Althought I don't know, I suppose you mightn't.
Dan:
I see the sun is a living thing just as the Earth. The inorganic
patterns making up the sun are the molecules, however, just as are the
inorganic patterns making up the guitar, and us, are molecules.
Whether or not they are alive, the molecules, is open to debate,
though for the sake of clarity it seems best to use DNA as the basis
for biological patterns.


Tuukka:

Well, the sun doesn't contain DNA. According to Pirsig life is carbon  
chemistry. I take that to mean chemical reactions, so DNA isn't  
necessarily living if it's just sitting in some vial on a shelf. But  
anyway, if we use DNA as the basis for biological patterns, what does  
that mean? Suppose you're sitting in a room with three people and a  
dog. How do you use DNA as a basis for developing a model of that room?

In my model it's simple. There are five biological patterns in the  
room and they can be identified with the senses. But in your model    
it's not simple, because you have to find DNA somewhere before  
identifying a single biological pattern, and you need a laboratory in  
order to do that. Your solution only looks simple on paper.

The MOQ says that knowledge is derived from experience and my point is  
that people were able to tell biological patterns from inorganic ones  
already before DNA was discovered. And the question I'm trying to  
answer is: how did they do that?




The guitar isn't inorganic when Leonard Cohen inhales the   
fragrance of its
living wood. But that life is given to the wood by Cohen himself.

The notion of inorganicity may seem paradoxical since we as observers of
inorganic patterns are anyhow biological patterns and can   
perform   the act of
observing an inorganic pattern only by making it a part of our cognition,
thus turning it alive.
Dan:
The wood is living. It contains DNA. That life isn't 'given' to it,
the wood, by Leonard Cohen or by anyone.

Tuukka:
Most people would say the wood is dead. There's lacquer all over it  
and no water except for atmospheric humidity. Pirsig wrote  
biologicality is "carbon chemistry", not "inert carbon compounds".


When Cohen inhales the fragrance of his guitar's living wood the guitar
serves him as an instrument of self-reflection. He doesn't play   
 the strings
but the guitar plays his mind, reminding him of the day he bought it.

We may call inorganic patterns inorganic to emphasize the fact    
 that they can
so easily be separated from what makes them alive.

Fingernails are biological patterns but fingernail clippings aren't. The
difference isn't about something one can observe by putting a fingernail
under a microscope. It's about the fact that even though the     
clippings don't
come with us as we go we assume that they remain in existence after being
discarded. That we remain able to perceive them even if we     
wouldn't use them
for anything and even if they didn't remind us of anything.
Dan:
Fingernail clippings ARE biological patterns. They contain DNA. The
molecules making up the fingernail clippings are inorganic patterns.


Tuukka:

For a scientist, fingernail clippings could be quite biological. Same  
goes for hair. But the Indians used human hair for making clothes.  
Does this mean those articles of clothing were biological patterns?

Do you see what I'm aiming at? In everyday life it doesn't matter  
whether an article of clothing is made from synthetic fibres or human  
hair. It's still an article of clothing. It's an object. It doesn't  
walk around on its own and it doesn't breathe, and so on. I just think  
this kind of a division between the inorganic and the biological is  
more in accord with everyday common sense use of language than  
focusing on the point that clothes made of human hair contain DNA. Who  
cares about that? And why?

And, if DNA were the only proper way to define biologicality, how did  
people tell living things from inorganic things before DNA was invented?


A pacemaker isn't a biological pattern when it's sitting on the table but
it's a biological pattern when in use.
Dan:
No. A pacemaker has never been alive. It does not now nor will it ever
contain DNA.


We have the notion of inorganic pattern for referring to things   
that could
serve as extensions of many different biological patterns. When   
we were at
the pier the guitar was an extension of the woman playing it but  
   had someone
else played it afterwards the guitar would've turned into an extension of
that other person. That doesn't mean the woman who played the guitar
would've also turned into that other person's extension. Only the guitar
changes with regards to whose extension it is.
Dan:
I think this tends to confuse the issue. Extensions.

Tuukka:
But in your model you have to find DNA before identifying a pattern as  
biological, and you need a laboratory for that. Doesn't *that* confuse  
the issue?



An inorganic pattern has instrumental value when a biological pattern
uses
it to actualize a choice it has made. Obviously, this doesn't mean the
guitar should be discarded after the song is over. Forgetting  
  the guitar
on
the pier and and thus exposing it to the elements would've been a bad
choice. But as far as we are concerned of quality, the guitar  
  inherently
has
none. The reason for bringing it back in and taking care of it lies in
the
value of songs we'll play in the future, but preparing for the future
this
way is an intellectual pattern. It doesn't mean the guitar would
inherently
have quality.
Dan:

No but see the guitar does have value! Even if I were to agree with
you, which I don't, that the guitar is only an inorganic pattern, it
is a pattern of VALUE! See what I think you are doing is mistaking a
thing as having quality instead of it the thing being quality.


Tuukka:

I am not claiming that the guitar is only an inorganic pattern.   
I  am merely
emphasizing the inorganic aspect of the guitar in order to illustrate a
metaphysical point. The guitar, as the extension of a guitar     
player, is also
biological.
Dan:
But if we begin extending values like this, aren't we destroying the
power of the MOQ?

Tuukka:

What is the tradeoff here? Is it that it's pleasantly simple to define  
life as "containing DNA" or "carbon chemistry"? I agree it sounds  
simple but wouldn't that mean life didn't exist before the discovery  
of DNA or the discovery of chemistry?

How does a dog tell the man from the stick? It doesn't matter to the  
dog that both contain DNA. I agree that the stick is biological  
metaphysically, but it's not biological with regards to value  
accumulation.

I wrote that "as far as we're concerned of quality, the guitar inherently
has none". These are kind of meaningless words as Buddhist philosophy
doesn't introduce essences, that is, things that would inherently have
value.

By saying that I just tried to express that since the guitar doesn't make
decisions, attributing value to it doesn't change its behavior, whereas
attributing value to a person might change that person's     
self-image and thus
behavior. I suppose, perhaps mistakenly, that we don't need to take an
animistic viewpoint in this discussion, unless that is what you want.

I also suppose, perhaps equally mistakenly, that we don't subscribe to
essentialism. You indeed seem to be suggesting the guitar essentially has
value, but the question is, what do you intend to do with that   
value apart
from using it to disagree with my previous post?
Dan:
Not exactly. No, I am not saying the guitar essentially has value. I
am saying that is not the proper way to approach the question Value,
or quality, has the guitar. Remember how Rigel asks: Does Lila have
quality? And the answer Phaedrus came up with was yes. But as he
considered things, he realized how quality has Lila, and how Rigel's
question was based on the faulty assumption that patterns have quality
rather than patterns are quality.

Tuukka:
While I'm inclined to think both of these are manners of speaking  
rather than metaphysical truths, I see no need to object to this. So,  
the guitar is quality.


The model I'm presenting here doesn't contradict physics, but   
it's a model
of value, not a model of atoms and molecules. The guitar   
consists of atoms
and molecules, which are value, but people don't perceive them, just the
guitar, so the atoms and molecules are intellectual patterns. Do you feel
the need to use these intellectual patterns to disagree with my previous
post?

It isn't clear to me what you mean by suggesting I mistake a thing having
quality to a thing being quality. Everything is quality, so the notion of
"everything is quality" doesn't help in analysis, which basically means
splitting a whole into smaller parts. You can't split a whole   
into smaller
parts according to an attribute that is shared by every single part. You
know this, and I know the MOQ is more than analysis. But I don't see any
other way to solve the problems Pirsig mentions in the Turner    
letter except
analysis.
Dan:
What I am attempting to do here is lay the groundwork, so to speak,
for further exploration into the MOQ. For instance, you said the
guitar has no quality as it, the guitar, does not make decisions. You
might say the same thing about a head of lettuce. The head of lettuce
has no quality because it just sits there making no decisions. Quality
is only imbued to lettuce when someone eats it just as quality is only
imbued to the guitar when someone plays it.

So when I say I think you're confusing having quality with being
Quality, what I am trying to say is that the guitar doesn't have
quality so much as it is Quality. See, if we start with a faulty
assumption, then we are forced into falling back onto the notion that
since everything is quality we cannot analyze it. Quality. Sort of a
ZMM assumption. In a way. But that is exactly what the MOQ is all
about. Analyzing quality. And in a sense you are right. We can never
completely analyze Quality. The process goes on and on.

Tuukka:
And I'm trying to explicate what kind of quality is the guitar. And  
since knowledge is derived from experience in the MOQ someone has to  
perceive the guitar in order for it to be quality.



Biological patterns accumulate value according to the choices  
  they make.
This is because biological patterns may have volition, which makes it
possible to attribute the value of a choice to the pattern    
that made the
choice. This value is inherent to the biological pattern in the sense
that
it stays with the biological pattern even after the choice has already
been
made.
Dan:
Do you really believe biological patterns have volition? I can't see
it. Biological patterns are constrained into a specific set of
parameters which disable them, the biological patterns, from going
outside those parameters. So really the volition or choice that
biological patterns 'have' isn't that so much as being had by the
quality that both surrounds them, the biological patterns, and
permeates them, simultaneously making it seem as if free will exists,
which of course it does, but only seem to. So in essence this tends to
render your argument null and void if one follows said reasoning above
to its logical conclusion.


Tuukka:

I might understand the concept of volition in a much more   
mundane sense as
what you're aiming at. I understand volition simply as something  
  like, if a
rock is about to roll off a cliff and hit someone, the rock will  
   not stop if
you tell it that rolling off the cliff would have bad     
consequences. But if a
person were about to push that rock off the cliff he might stop   
 if you told
him there's someone down below. Of course this kind of "volition" is an
illusion, it's just an illusion that happens to be helpful.

Frankly, I can't parse the sentence: "So really the volition or   
 choice that
biological patterns 'have' isn't that so much as being had by the quality
that both surrounds them, the biological patterns, and permeates them,
simultaneously making it seem as if free will exists, which of course it
does, but only seem to."
Dan:
Yeah, I can understand the difficulty here. Sometimes sentences get
away from me and I have to whip them back into shape. What I seem to
be saying is that 'having' volition is something like 'having'
quality, that free will exists, just as biological patterns have
quality. But as you say, that is only an illusion. Free will only
seems to exist just as we only seem to have quality.

Tuukka:
Fair enough. Like I said, the concept of free will is unnecessary. I  
only used it because I thought it'd be helpful, not because I'd be  
attracted to the concept itself. I also take this to mean that, in the  
context of value accumulation, volition *is* biologicality. Perhaps  
not so in another context. I don't want to contradict Pirsig, just  
explain things he didn't. Value accumulation.





Social patterns can be modeled as the power set of biological  
 patterns.
Suppose we have persons A, B and C, which compose the set {A,B,C}. The
power
set of this set is   
{{A,B,C},{A,B},{B,C},{A,C},{A},{B},{C},{}}. In other
words, the power set of a set includes all subsets of that set (and,
technically, the empty set {}). Each subset of the power set that has
more
than one member is a social pattern whose value is the sum of  
 the value
of
its members. Social patterns, too, could be said to have volition but
this
volition manifests via biological patterns.

Whenever a biological pattern makes a choice, the   
justification of that
choice accumulates the same value as what is the value of   
that  choice to
all
that are affected by it. This justification is an   
intellectual pattern.

The merit of this model is that it provides a clear answer to  
  a question
Pirsig answered only vaguely and with some difficulty and    
uncertainty in
his
letter to Paul Turner. That letter is, first and foremost, about
defining
the intellectual level. Pirsig writes that although the ancient
Egyptians
had intellect, their culture was not an intellectual one. This can be
expressed more analytically as follows.

The justification of any choice made by a biological pattern is an
intellectual pattern in the sense that it accumulates value as the
biological pattern makes said choice. That is to say, any such
justification
is intellectual with regards to how it accumulates value. But  
  we can say
that a pattern that is intellectual with regards to value accumulation
is
anyhow metaphysically biological if it only takes biological   
 values into
account. If it only takes social values, at most, into account, it is
metaphysically a social pattern. These are *improper* intellectual
patterns.
A *proper* intellectual pattern takes intellectual values   
into account.
It
can do so by including statements about other intellectual    
patterns that
are
either proper or improper.

The difference between proper and improper intellectual patterns
manifests
via the abstract symbol manipulation Pirsig mentions in his letter.
Let's
suppose two hungry people, Steve and Jane, and a banana.   
Steve and Jane
are
biological patterns and if they only take their biological values into
consideration it would, simplistically, mean that each one of them
thinks:
"I should get the banana" in which "I" is a biological pattern.
Therefore
this intellectual pattern would be an improper one.

Friends of Steve would want Steve to get the banana whereas friends of
Jane
would want Jane to get it, but this would only take social values into
account. Therefore such judgements made by friends are also improper
intellectual patterns.

A proper intellectual pattern in this situation could be    
something like:
"The one who is hungrier should get the banana". In this pattern, "the
one
who is hungrier" is neither a biological nor a social pattern. It's a
variable, as the hungrier one could as well be Steve or Jane. This is
why it
makes the justification properly intellectual. And variables   
 are denoted
by
abstract symbols.

When we define the model like this, the social level necessarily
accumulates
more value than the biological level, and the intellectual level
(including
both proper and improper intellectual patterns) necessarily   
accumulates
more
value than the social level, just like Pirsig would have it.   
 To be sure,
Pirsig would probably say that the higher levels "have" more   
value, not
that
they "accumulate" more value, but this model anyhow explains what kind
of a
process leads to such an outcome.

This model does not verify the hypothesis that *any* higher-level
pattern is
more valuable than *any* lower-level pattern. It's not clear to me
whether
Pirsig thinks this way, but I got the impression that he   
might. I don't
think this is a tenable assumption. Let's suppose a medical study,
according
to which a certain drug is safe with regards to certain risks, but the
drug
has some other very harmful side-effect the study did not take into
account.
If the drug is deemed safe because of such a study, the assumption of
its
safety is an intellectual pattern, but the choice of making the drug
available for consumers is not valuable but has a negative value.

In his letter Pirsig also mentions that the argument that the
Metaphysics of
Quality is not an intellectual formulation is not clear to him. Within
the
model I have presented, the Metaphysics of Quality can be used as
justification for making a choice and is in this sense an intellectual
pattern among others.
Dan:

Well and yes of course the MOQ is a collection of intellectual
patterns of value. What else could it be? Any argument to the contrary
is a bit ludicrous. Not that I am saying you are doing that here. I
have always thought that intellectual patterns are ideas. I know
somewhere in Lila's Child Robert Pirsig equates them, intellectual
patterns, to mind. Or maybe he is talking about the intellectual
level. Either way, since intellectual patterns as ideas are not
physical entities existing at large in the world for all to see, any
medical study, or any study, for that matter, isn't concerned so much
with the physical properties of the world as they are with the idea of
physical properties.


Tuukka:

I agree.
Dan:
Good. This is a good beginning.

Tuukka:
Yeah, and now that I'm on MD I have another good reason for waking up  
in the morning. :)

Thank you,
Tuk
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