Marco to Andrea (and Elephant, Roger, and all MD) Andrea wrote: > I use "Quality" meaning DQ, not static quality. [...] > "Perceiving Quality" means the immediate experience of value: [...] > but I would like to know if you believe this: > SQ) "Perceiving" Quality really means perceiving static quality. > One cannot directly experience DQ. DQ has to do with an evolution > in the way we perceive sq, or what we perceive as sq, not something > that we directly "see". Or a perception of DQ is a dramatic event such > as "enlightment" and occurs sporadically, sometimes (usually) never > occurs at all in one's life. Here I find immediately a difference. Quality means Reality. As Quality is an event, Reality is an ever present event. What we experience is reality. Reality manifests to us primarily as perception. Senses are our first tool... but when senses are involved, the Quality event is already in the past. Later will come the social and intellectual selves ... later. What is that Reality we experienced? Static Quality? Dynamic Quality?..... IMO, simply Quality. In Lila, ch. 9, RMP writes: "One can imagine how an infant in the womb acquires awareness of simple distinctions such as pressure and sound, and then at birth acquires more complex ones of light and warmth and hunger. *We* know these distinctions are pressure and sound and light and warmth and hunger and so on but the baby doesn't. We could call them stimuli but the baby doesn't identify them as that. Form the baby's point of view, something, he knows not what, compels attention. This generalized "something" , Whitehead's "dim apprehension", is Dynamic Quality. When he is a few month old the baby studies his hand or a rattle, not knowing it is a hand or a rattle... " "... if he is normally attentive to Dynamic Quality he will soon begin to notice differences and then correlations between the differences and the repetitive patterns of the correlations. But it is not until the baby is several months old that he will begin to really understand enough about that enormously complex correlation of sensations and boundaries and desires called an *object* to be able to reach for one. This object will not be a primary experience. It will be a complex pattern of static values *derived* from primary experience". Well, it seems that the experience of DQ is not matter of enlightenment, as it is common for every baby. In few words, the same *object* I reach for, could be a static experience for me and a dynamic experience for you... or vice versa. Here is the point: we, like all what exists, immediately after the experience try to reduce the experience into existing and *known* patterns. If it is possible, then it's a static experience. If it's not possible, then it's a dynamic experience. Usually it is a mix of both. I'd call "enlightenment" (the very special event you speak of) a special experience with a consequent creation of new patterns... new not only for the creator, new for all universe. Given this first discrepancy, I try to go on: > > Let's begin: > > Q1) Quality is beyond logic, and cannot be precisely > described by words. Agree.... with a little rectification on "beyond". Logic is intellectual, and intellect comes later... Logic is derived from Reality. It can't describe *exactly* reality 'cause the great part of reality has been already discarded (by senses, emotions, prejudices....) and because of the limits of language. > Q2) Your perception of Quality is beyond logic, and > cannot be precisely described by words. > > I believe both. It's the same thing seen from the reverse viewpoint: experience comes before logic, and it can't be described by words. Right. > > Q3) your perception of Quality is itself limited by your > individual horizons (context, experience, etc.). Thus you and I > perceive Quality in different ways. (This is stronger than saying > that we would describe it with different words, if forced to, unless > you believe that you perceive exactly what you > can describe and exactly the way you would describe it). > RIGHT! (if we use "perception" to say what comes after the cutting edge of experience) > It may be useful to state that in any case, this is not related > to the idea of a single "me" program run by everyone. That may or > may not be the case, independently of Q3). If we all run the same > "me" program, it is still a fact that we live different lives and store > different data, and that could still yield Q3). If Q3) holds, and since > it is your individual essence (with its limitation) that attaches > meanings to words, yielding *your* language, in this sense one may > say that your language is your world (including Quality). When *I* experienced reality, many milliseconds ago, a huge quantity of sensorial data (virtually infinite) was there. *I* used a series of static *filters* (inorganic, biological, social and intellectual) in the attempt to reduce those data into *known* patterns, discarding what's considered useless. This *static* quality *I* perceived, is actually made of past experiences. The more these static filters are working, the less the reality I perceived is dynamic. If I will face reality with a dynamic "attitude" (more or less spontaneously), maybe I'll let the space to include part of what's left of the original dynamic experience into my *self*. I will select in this process the DQ to be saved. This selection (not necessarily a conscious choice) answers to a fundamental question: "Which? .... Which part of DQ must be saved? Which is better?". The Latin term for "Which" is *Qualis* .... so here we get the term *Quality*. So the DQ becomes sq, and also it becomes part of me. That's why, actually, we are made of Quality... everything is made of Quality... Reality is Quality. I completely agree that everyone *knows* (or, is composed of) different static patterns, so the same data are stored (or discarded) diversely. Language, that is a social tool we use to share intellectual patterns, can at most represent all my intellectual patterns (but IMO it's however inadequate even to it). I'd say that *in this sense* language can be, at most, the hardcopy of my intellectual map of the world. > > If one accepts Q3), one may wonder whether believing that there > *is* a "universal" value and that we perceive it in different ways > is sensible. > That is we could discuss statements of the following forms: > > Q4) Quality is one, but we perceive it in different ways; > Q5) Quality is about how and what we perceive rather than > being what is perceived, so Q4) is meaningless or wrong > I'm more on the Q4 position. Reality/Quality is one, but we translate the experience into different forms according to the different static patterns we are composed of. The Q5 seems to be closer to what I mean for sQ. > Those would be very interesting subjects for further discussion, > to me. A parallel question is where does the concept of Truth fit > in all this, if it fits at all. I would be very interested to know your > opinion. Some statements on truth: > > T1) there is an absolute truth, which metaphysics can only > approximate (as the truth has to do with Quality and > metaphysics is linguistic) > T2) there is an absolute truth, which metaphysics can > describe completely provided it has the right tools, > e.g., the concept of Quality > T3) the concept of truth is opposed to that of Quality - > so metaphysics goes for the "better" and not for the "true" > T1 is a good point. It is similar to the Heidegger's "aletheia" (truth as disclosure). What Heidegger fails to see is that the Greeks had another term to mean "truth": "episteme", that is something like "over-stability". Aletheia is the process of progressive disclosure of the episteme, that is the Reality that stays unchangeable over every attempt to explain it. Anyway, IMO there is an Episteme over every attempt of Aletheia, then T2 seems to me impossible: intellect is a static level and no static pattern will grasp Reality. About T3, I'd say that Truth is a type of Good. In my last post to Elephant I offered my key to Truth: the more you want to formulate undeniable concepts [that is, the more you formulate a *truth*], the more you are talking of the static nature of your observations. There's a point in Lila (I don't find the exact quote) where Pirsig states the supremacy of science over religion, as science, more than religion, allows new experiences, and new evaluations of what it learns. The truth of religion is "stronger" (that is, more static): that's why science is more dynamic, and, definitely, superior. Back to truth, my conclusion is that it's a type of Good. There is no contradiction in searching for the "true" and searching for the "better".... in one sentence, we all are searching for a better truth. Given these lines, your next sentence has found IMO the answer: > Especially in the light of T3, it is unclear to me why MOQ > should insist to be "science" or "logic", as these seem more > like tools for discovering truths than for discovering beauty. > If one believes T3, and also believes that MOQ should be logic, it > seems that s/he should think that the MOQer > should pretend not to be aware of T3 to work within the > MOQ framework. Perhaps MOQ can be rephrased by saying > that it attempts at seeing what can be gained by searching for > quality with the tools that apply to truth. This > would also be the meaning of the idea of "rationally understand > you are one with the universe" when lying on top of a mountain > and thinking MOQ. Or you may think that logic is a tool for > discovering beauty, not truth. Or...? > As there is no contradiction between truth and Good, the tools of logic are excellent in order to discover/create truth, and also to discuss the past truth. About beauty, I'd say that it's for the "beauty" of new truths that scientists go on searching. Logic is one tool to translate the encountered DQ into a static form... that is, to fix the beauty into truth. Few months ago I tried to persuade Roger and others that the scientific method is an important intellectual tool, but not the only possible one. I offered that also art can be intellectual, as it has the same purpose of science (investigation of reality), it creates patterns made of a "code" (the technique of the artist is a sort of language) and shares the results in a social context. Of course, there are "specializations": science is analytic, while art is holistic, and they tend to investigate different aspects of reality. Particularly science seems unable to investigate emotions, while art is very good in this. At the contrary, it's obvious that the behavior of particles can't be investigated by dramatists.... In the end we reached for the conclusion that good science and good art and good philosophy are all "High Quality Endeavors" that is the definition for the intellectual/artistic way to aReTe. > Finally, in this thread we came up with: > > L1) language is a part of reality. > > I believe this (of course). Language is a topic to be addressed if > you want to describe the world, and at the same time something > that modifies the world. It modifies the world both because it is a > part of the world (like my dog modifies the world by digging in the > garden) and because our notion of "world" in a SOM sense is itself > created by language (which are of course two different things). Thus: > > L2) language is a part of reality just like my dog, and interacts > with it; > L3) language creates my (SOM) reality. As I wrote above, I'd say that language is the tool to share my intellectual patterns of reality. > > That is all very sensible. But as a consequence of Q3, Q4 and > Q5, one may also state that: > > L3) language (in a very wide sense) creates my reality > (in general - not my SOM reality). > I don't subscribe this point. Language derives from reality (as everything) so it is created by reality. (Does Lila have quality? No, it's Quality that has Lila. She's created by it). We just use it to write and share our map of reality. > By reality in general vs SOM reality I mean pre-linguistic, > immediately perceived reality (with value as a pivot) > vs categorized, conceptualized, post linguistic, reality. > Again this division... "SOM reality" is a map of reality "MOQ reality" is another map. The only difference is that the MOQ map contains the SOM map, and pretends to be one step beyond, towards an infinitely distant horizon . Anyway, pre-static reality can't be reduced completely to any map... principally 'cause Quality writes the maps. > > Thanks to anyone who wants to help :) > Hope I did. Please, let me know. Ciao. Marco. MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/ MD Queries - [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at: http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
