Marco to Elephant, and Roger
(and to Glenn, Platt, Andrea, Jonathan and all MD)
Elephant,
I agree that the "trivial" thread is all but trivial; in addition I
think it is better to distinguish three arguments. This one (inside &
outside) is the natural evolution of the language/reality thread. Two
other, as soon as I will find the time, will follow: one about the
paradoxes, and one about beauty.
I will begin from one of your last lines, in which you accuse me of
materialism:
On 15 Feb. 2001, you wrote:
> Your commitment to the materialist idea of static
> patterns out there is extraordinarily strong - although
> this is not, perhaps, extraordinary in this culture.
This is the first time someone accuses me of materialism .. I'll add
this blame to other sparse accusations of idealism, solipsism (!),
communism, liberism, religiosity, atheism I've received, not only here.
The point is that many (maybe even me sometimes) are used to classify
the other people upon their own positions. I'm not a materialist, at
least I don't think so and many other also don't think so, but it is
very probable that my position is a bit less idealist than yours...
I've noticed you did not answer using Pirsig's quotations, as I asked
you. It is nice that when I offer references from Lila you answer that I
"misread every last one of the passages" while you subtract yourself
from doing it. However I liked your conceding that our respective
positions share at least a pair dignity. I accept that we both must
read Pirsig (and not only) better. And also it is obvious that our
respective positions depend a lot on our "static filters". So I want
here analyze my own static filter, to explain it as better as I can to
you and your companion Roger (Hi Rog!).
Sorry for this long premise. Let's begin.
=================================================
I will start from your point that the *outside* reality is dynamic,
while *inside* the world is static.
Elephant:
> Your idea is that there are intellectual tricks, and then there
> are real particular realities out there. Well no, there aren't.
Marco:
> More... I say that even intellectual tricks are out there!
Elephant:
> Neat quip. Doesn't really address the point. Even if
> intellectual tricks are 'out there' (which is a claim I don't for a
> minute accept or even really think intelligable), this does
> nothing to address my point that as an intellectual trick formed
> in the attempt to get something graspable out of the fluid
> situation, any object (including the evolutionary
> history of seagulls) is static, not dynamic.
> Have you anything to say about that?
You offer (and Roger seems to agree completely) that the fence between
*inside* and *outside* is dividing all what's intellectual (the
concepts) and all what's not intellectual (the Dynamic reality).
According to this vision, language is in some way on the door and
introduces the dynamic perceived reality into the realm of concepts. So
language, you state, precedes all the world: the static world of
concepts is built by language.
Elephant:
> So there's an essence of seagull that is a functional reality,
> and as a conception held in a mans head, a static
> entity in a net of language. That's the essence. Then along
> flies a birdy thing fitting the description. Wallop: existence.
> Essence precedes existence.
And all what's *outside* is dynamic and flowing. All what's *inside* is
static.
I agree that it is static. Actually, the staticity of concepts is due to
the simple fact that we have build them just to manage the flow. As the
flow is (by definition, I guess) infinite, we must "define" it. So we
create a world of definitions in which we put our experience of the
flow: concepts are created static as we have to manage reality. Their
staticity is evident as they all have the common characteristic that we
create them as definitions of the flow, by means of the same tool, with
the same purpose to manage the flow.
[By the way: I will simplify by supposing that only humans are able to
"open the door" and manage such realm of concepts. It is not the place
and time for a discussion about a possible intelligence of other
species, and anyway it doesn't change the matter].
After my first contestation that even language and concepts are in some
way *outside* and dynamic, 'cause as soon as I formulate them, they
become part of an intellectual reality I cannot control, you state that
I'm analyzing language as a "natural phenomenon", and therefore
participating to the flow, while you are focusing to its "essence" of
creator of the *inside* static world. According to its essence, language
precedes and creates all the objects we know.
Up to now, your discourse is working.
The Descartes' "Cogito ergo sum" is maybe a little surpassed, but it is
undeniable that I am as I think I am, and this is certain. Said so, it
seems that every single individual is the bearer of a single personal
world, and that only of this personal world it is possible to state that
it is *true*.
Hope you will concede that it is just in its possibility to exist also
*outside* as natural phenomenon, and therefore to be the tool for the
communication of the *inside* concepts between human beings, that the
nature of language is expressed. It is by the communication and the
usage of a common language that we reach in some way for the plausible
conclusion that there are many other *insides* out there, and that every
human being participates to an inter-subjective truth depending on a
possible social agreement on the truth we have *inside*.
Using my terms, concepts "are statically" (within my *inside*) and
"interact dynamically" (*outside*). It means that while according to
their essence (i.e. what they are) they can only exist *inside*,
according to their nature they are also part of the flow *outside*,
therefore they interact with other concepts of other people.
Up to now, I don't deny all this, and I hope that, leaving aside a
probable batch of "step by step" rectifications, I've explained yours
and Roger's common position.
Given that we could agree on the staticity of what's *inside*, what
about the *outside*? This staticity does not explain why and how my
concepts, as soon as I create them, can't stay still more than one
millisecond and run *outside* to interact with the dynamic world. If
this is the Dynamic/static split, it doesn't tell me a lot about what's
*outside*, therefore I need something else to understand the *outside*.
So, what about the *outside*? Are we sure that it can be fixated only in
concepts? Where does it come from the distinction between "this cat" and
"this dog"? Is it merely an inter-subjective agreement we reach for when
we share and build together our respective *inside* concepts?
In one question: is the *outside* completely dynamic and flowing? Maybe
I'm surprising you. I state "All the pre-conceptual reality (*outside*)
I perceive is dynamic*". But let me explain what I'm meaning, and where
is our disagreement.
As said, a purely subjective position can be surpassed thanks to an
inter-subjective vision, by which we accept the possibility that other
human beings have my same faculty to manage an *inside* of their own.
This is a necessary step: without it, knowledge is a nonsense. More,
it's probably impossible. Practically, we must open our personal
*inside* to a sort of collective environment, where concept can
interact thanks to the common characteristic we all have to be able to
build and share them.
In this enlarged environment, individual concepts are different in
different individuals, and we use to classify individuals according to
the value they grant to the concept they bear. So we are materialists,
idealists, communists and so on.... Anyway, it is sure that it is
impossible to have two persons bearing the same exact set of concepts,
(that is: there are not two equal *insides* ) but it is equally sure
that we can share, communicate and replicate concepts. I think I'm not
talking here exactly of the Kantian a priori pure concepts: even before
any analysis of how is it possible a reason, it's a fact that a reason
is possible; and it is a fact that this possibility is by necessity
common to all the components of the intellectual environment.
How is it possible such operation? On what assumption I decide I can
communicate with humans (either directly or "reading" their
intellectual/artistic products) and not with rocks, trees, airplanes? It
is evident that one "special" concept make it possible to recognize my
fellows. The enlargement from the subjective *inside* to the
inter-subjective environment is possible only thanks to the simple fact
that this "special" concept is common to all the fellows. It's a sort of
"communication protocol" that allows the communication; otherwise, no
communication is even possible. I'm not here talking of the same
language (English, Italian... or Art or whatever else): I'm here talking
of the basilar point that is the foundation of every language. In few
words, this basilar point is that we can communicate with our fellows.
This common characteristic is equal in every individual who shares with
us the participation to the intellectual environment.
I think you can well read the equation: xa+xb+xc=x(a+b+c) . What is
common (x) to every single individual (a,b,c) can be extrapolated as a
common characteristic of the group. To say that the "communication
protocol" is a property of every *inside* is exactly like to say that
there's a static "communication protocol" *outside*.
Static? For what we have seen up to now, all what's *outside* should be
dynamic. But yes, it is static. It is static given an intellectual
environment, as it must be necessarily equal in every active component
of the environment. Or, as said, it will be not a component of the
environment.
But, you cry, if it is *outside*, it is not static. And I agreed: it is
not static, seen from this *inside* we have talked about up to now. What
is missing in the discourse is the possibility of the existence of more
than one kind of *inside*. This "communication protocol" interacts
dynamically with reality (so my intellect can manage it as coming from
*outside*), but IMO it is static within a different *inside*. Seen from
the *intellectual inside*, the "communication protocol" is *outside*,
and therefore is matter of science. It can be studied and interpreted
and explained by billions of concepts. But seen from this new kind of
*inside*, there is nothing to study. Every new born kid will know that
it is possible to communicate with mum. Or why and how to learn a
language? Why and how to learn to talk? Why and how to cry from the very
first moment of life?
Here we have two kinds of *insides*: let me call "intellectual" the
former, "social" the latter. I call *social inside* the environment
where all the possible stable social protocols reside. And let me use
the general term "pattern" to point to both the kind of static entities
(concepts, and "protocols"). If you will say that this "communication
protocol" that I call social pattern is static and *inside*, I'll
answer you are failing to see that it is simpler and more plausible to
say it is *outside*: actually, you can't build or change this pattern by
language, intellect or whatever else within the inside. On the other
hand, if you will say that it is dynamic, I'll say you are talking about
it as "natural phenomenon", while I'm focusing on its essence of social
pattern.
I know, I know that I'm now talking from the *intellectual inside* (from
where else?), so I'm here using my *inside* static concepts talking of
something that is *outside*, but it is very plausible that even if my
concepts can't match the staticity of the social patterns, they are
static within the *social inside*.
And it is plausible that in that *social inside* there are many "static"
patterns. As said, I call them static as they must be necessarily equal
in every component of a given social context; besides the said
"communication protocol" it is plausible the existence of lot of other
static protocols. All those make it possible for us to love, to hate..
in few words, to be components of the *social inside*.
Not diversely by concepts, these social protocols have been created to
manage the flow. While concepts are built upon language within the
intellectual environment, there must be something the social environment
uses to build its "protocols" upon. Here comes a good suggestion by
Mark Butler, who wrote to MF on 26 May 2000:
*********
<< ... They sent me wandering down a wide variety of Intellectual (I
hope) avenues in search of these "biological characteristics". In
backtracking the social path, I arrived at a vague idea of some
biological pattern designed to bring sexual partners of a species
together... hormones? While "deep searching" the Internet, I arrived at
pheromones! Some of the following information is 'lifted' from "The
Mystery of Smell" at:
http://www.hhmi.org/senses/d/d110.htm
A pheromone (for those who like myself lack a science background) is a
chemical produced by one member of a species that is detected by another
member in which it produces a physiological or behavioral response. Such
a response is probably due to an influence of vomeronasal input on
hormone levels.
A virgin male hamster or mouse whose vomeronasal organs (VNOs) are
removed generally will not mate with a receptive female. Apparently, the
VNOs are needed to start certain chains of behavior stimulated by a
specific pheromone. These chains of behavior are already programmed in
the brain. However, losing the VNOs has a much less drastic effect on
experienced animals. When male mice have begun to associate sexual
activity with other cues from females they become less dependent on the
VNOs. Sexually experienced males whose VNOs are removed mate almost as
frequently as intact males. So what about human VNOs and pheromones? It
has long been noticed (by women) that women living close together (e.g.,
college roommates) develop synchronous menstrual cycles. It turns out
that this is because they release two (as yet uncharacterized) primer
pheromones one prior to ovulation that tends to speed up the onset of
ovulation in others one after ovulation that tends to delay the onset of
ovulation in other women. Both pheromones are released from the
armpits. The pheromones are not detected consciously as odors, but
presumably are detected by the human VNO (the vomeronasal organ).
Four distinct functions of pheronomes have been identified in animals.
These are (1) Sex Attractants, (2) Alarm Pheromones (3) Aggregation
Pheromones (4) Dispersion Pheromones.
Perhaps these pheromoes in their functioning form the basis of a machine
code for social patterns: but as our social level has evolved, social
patterns (refined, perpetuated and transmitted across human generations)
have replaced the need for them.
Sex Attractants have been replaced by rituals of courtship
(conversation, looking, smiling, dancing), appearance (dress,
hair-style, make-up), perfume, etc.
Alarm pheromones, which signal potential threats to the group have been
replaced by drums, smoke, sirens, house alarms, road signs, flashing
lights, etc.
Aggregation pheromones have given way to infrastructures: roads, canals,
paths, visual signs, city lights!, etc.
Dispersion pheromones (for territorial marking) have evolved as social
man has utilized organic patterns. geographical borders, city walls,
visual markers, buoys, maps, etc.
It is noticeable that most of these 'social pheromones' rely on sight
and hearing, but not smell. We do not have much of a vocabulary for our
sense of smell compared to that of the other senses. We see things in a
wide spectrum of colors, patterns. We can accurately measure sound- loud
and soft, low and high. Our sense of touch is so refined we can 'read'
with our fingers. We categorize taste in terms of sour, salty, sweet,
bitter, and expert tasters can tell one wine vintage from another.
But how do we differentiate smells? However, the evocative power of
smells reminds us of their former glory at the biological level.
(Whenever I smell freshly cut grass I think of the aging caretaker at my
Primary school in Yorkshire, England over 25 years ago, and all the
associated memories come flooding back.) So, perhaps we may find in time
that pheromones and the VNO represent some kind of 'machine code' for
the social level, buried now by patterns built upon human senses more
functional for the social level>>.
*********
Well, as Mark says, all this discourse is an hypothetical intellectual
(concept-made) building. It is one of the infinite possible
explanations. Anyway, if we just go on along this thread, I find it very
sensible this idea of pheromones. They could be the biological products
that make it possible for a society to be formed. At the social level,
pheromones are the tools used in order to manage the flow; they tell:
"Hello, my biology is like yours. We can make sex, protect each other,
hunt.... don't you think we could solve together all these biological
needs we are experiencing?" Just like language, that is the social
product that make it possible for an intellect pattern to be formed.
Now it's easy to go on guessing that there is a common characteristic
that make it possible for pheromones to be produced. Life, that uses the
language of DNA as common "protocol" to make it possible to participate
to the biosphere. Or, simply, beings are not alive. And, going on, the
inorganic level. We could argue about it but it is not my aim now. It is
not the time and the place to discuss the number and the nature of the
levels. This post is about the dynamic/static split.
Conclusion.
Dear Roger, I agree with you when you state that the concept of the rock
is created. I agree with you that the concept of "static pattern of
value" has been created by R.M.Pirsig.
In your famous "stand and be counted" (September 99 on MF) post you
asked:
> 1) Are all patterns of value also intellectual patterns?
I answered: "YES, everything we are talking about is also an
intellectual pattern". You asked ALSO, and we were in agreement. But if
the question is: "Are all patterns of value only intellectual
patterns?", my answer must necessarily be NO.
> 2) Were the 4 levels of the MOQ discovered or created?
I answered: "Created, by R. M. Pirsig. Just like gravity law, by
Newton". That is: the Newton law describes gravitation. The phenomenon
of gravitation is a static inorganic pattern of value, and Newton has
created an intellectual pattern to explain it. RMP has created the four
levels, but it does not mean at all that the four levels exist only in
our concepts.
Tell me: what kind of value is the "value that holds together a glass?"
A dynamic value or a static value? IMO the most sensible answer is that
it is a static pattern of value, and that this static value is not in
our concepts. Of course you can offer thousands of answers, but my
answer is IMO the most simple and sticking to the common experience.
And IMO it does not contradict the MOQ. I could offer a lot of
quotations from Lila and SODaV to support my opinion, but as Elephant
asserts I use to misread Pirsig, I will not.
Let me just say that it is true that seen from our Western SOMish
tradition, the MOQ seems very "similar to the similar to the Cittamatra
tradition in Buddhism which asserts that entities exist within the flow
of perceptions but not as independent external objects". But also it is
true that RMP ran away from India as it was impossible to accept in toto
such a vision of reality. So I guess that seen from a traditional
Eastern viewpoint, the MOQ is "very similar to the Western tradition of
empiricism". The point is IMO that the four levels of reality he
describes is something different either from Buddhism and from SOM.
Dear Elephant, this is what I mean when I say there must be something
static *outside* there, even if my intellect perceive it as dynamic. My
point is that the social protocol we all use when our intellect is
working, this "me program" we all are sharing, can be described better
as a static characteristic of another *inside*. Actually, it is not a
concept, but it is static: not 'cause I think so, rather because we all,
willing or not, can think.
More generally, I define "static" what is repeated equally given a
certain number of *insides*. It is the RiTual which tries to preserve
itself forever. It is static the football rule we use when we play
football... you can say that the rule is *inside* every match, or that
it is *outside* and static. IMO, the latter is another map to explain
football. And it's a better map.
And, as I've always said, static is not fixed. When the players discuss
with the referee about a possible penalty kick he did not assigned, the
static rule is dynamically interacting with the players. And this
dynamic interaction could even cause the evolution of the rule.
In the end, I want to add here a clarification. The equation I offered,
as well as this example of football, seems to show that intellect is
"contained by" society. This figure seems to contradict other figures of
the four levels offered by many in the past. Especially the one (from
3WD... or was him David Buchanan?) where the 4 levels are concentric,
but in inverse order. The contradiction is only apparent. This figure
comes from the viewpoint it has been designed. If the viewpoint is the
*intellectual* inside, the result is of course that one. Actually, I do
prefer the "dimensional" view where the real entities are static
according to a four-coordinates position; and are dynamic according to
their possible movement. Of course, if you look at reality from one
dimension, you will have the imagine of an *inside* looking at the
*outside*. Actually Reality is ONE. No *insides*, no *outsides*: both
*inside* and *outside*. No staticity, no dynamism: both staticity and
dynamism.
If you go on thinking this is materialism.. you're free. If you go on
thinking I'm misreading the MOQ, you're free. Frankly, I don't think so.
Sorry for the length, and thanks for Your patience.
All the best,
Marco.
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