Marco To Roger and all insiders:
MARCO (to ELEPHANT):
> I will start from your point that the *outside* reality is dynamic,
> while *inside* the world is static.
>
ROG:
> I reject this split. In and out are static divisions as well...
> probably the primary static split. I don't think Elephant
> was suggesting this division, I think he was suggesting
> it as a common materialist view.
> I better let him speak for himself though.
>
Well, every split can be accepted or rejected. Every split, even
static/dynamic, is a static split. But the only fact that Elephant
suggested it (oh, he did!), or anyway that this split is, as you say,
"probably the primary static split", makes it worth of discussion. I
also reject it, as primarily IMO there is no split (read my conclusion:
"Actually Reality is ONE. No *insides*, no *outsides*: both *inside* and
*outside*. No staticity, no dynamism: both staticity and dynamism"). But
if we want to discuss, we have to try a split, and then see how does it
work. My attempt was to start from a very popular, split (inside vs
outside), and then see if it is a good one. Well, it doesn't work. My
thesis is that its fallacy is due to the simple fact that it considers
only one possible "viewpoint" while IMO the behavior of "things" is
better explained by a four dimensional viewpoint, that is my
interpretation of the 4 levels.
Actually......
the in/out split Elephant suggests (oh, he does!) is IMO wrong as my
point is that Pirsig states that every entity is at the same time Static
and Dynamic and is it a paradox? yes it is! and IMO Pirsig states that
there are four levels and that when we use our intellect and our
concepts we are just talking from one possible viewpoint and that the
other three viewpoints are as real as the intellectual one and if the
intellectual one can't grasp exactly the other three and the flow well
it's because intellect is limited and also Pirsig IMO states that these
four levels are definitely four possible ways to interact with / be part
of the flow aka DQ that is the only reality ever present so in the
end I am a four level entity because in the quality event I interact
with / am part of the flow according to my dynamic nature and I reduce
the flow to a four level experience according to my static filters which
are my static nature.....
this I was saying but Elephant does not listen to me as he primarily
feels the urge to classify words from his own viewpoint so you are
materialist numericist wittgensteinist edonist platonist empiricist and
I don't know what else but I am just me, CAZZO! -ask Andrea for the
translation- I hate classifications I don't want to know in what page of
Elephant's book of philosophy I drop and actually my post was inspired a
lot by his awful! attitude it was definitely a message about viewpoints
and my thesis is in the end that Pirsig's q-intellect is not the only
patternmaker 'cause IMO Pirsig states that there are four different
patternmakers and they all operate simultaneously after the flow and in
the flow and that there is no flow without patterns and there are no
patterns without flow so that I feel that my intellectual self operates
like the parallel one of every human being and my social self operates
before and independently by it and like the parallel one of every social
animal and my biological self operates before and independently by it
and like the parallel of every alive being and my inorganic self
operates before and independently by it and like the parallel one of
every "thing" and before all there is a quality event that is the
cutting edge of reality and before it there is only DQ and no one can
say what it is or how does it operate or if it is static or dynamic or
whatever else as it's too
late it was at the very beginning of this strange stream of words and it
is now of course but these words are already in the past even before
I'll write them few! I've never been able to read the Joyce's Ulysses up
to the end but I would have liked to write it.
But Elephant... he denies all that, and you've said you agree with him.
He thinks that DQ is dynamic, while IMO DQ is paradoxically static, as
it doesn't change at all. Thanks God at least Platt seems to agree!
The English Pachyderm thinks that entities can't be dynamic and
static at the same time.... but, tell me, if every split is a static
split, if after all we are discussing a monism... well, the only
possible solution is that what is real is simply real, participating to
the flow dynamically, according to its static nature. Static and
dynamic at the same time.
MARCO (to ELEPHANT, about the IN/OUT vision):
> 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.
>
ROG:
> I think that all living things simplify and extract meaningful
> patterns from reality. Language just takes it to a new level
> and allows conceptual labeling and sharing. I could be
> wrong though.
I discussed it also in the past with Elephant. By the way, he denied
that the creation of patterns is a simplification. I agree with you
here, but I'm convinced that also non-living entities simplify reality,
according to their inorganic "viewpoint". Anyway, I think you and
Elephant are not saying exactly the same thing here.
MARCO (to ELEPHANT, about the IN/OUT vision):
> And all what's *outside* is dynamic and flowing. All what's *inside*
> is static.
ROG:
> No, pure experience precedes the division. Let me jump ahead now......
Well, Roger. This is also my point. As said, I started from
the inside/outside illusion, trying to show it is just a consequence of
a particular viewpoint. My reasoning ends to a necessary conclusion that
intellect can't be an exclusive viewpoint.
ROG:
> All this "in" and "out" confuses the issue. "Concepts" and
> "rocks" are both static patterns assigned to reality/pure
> experience. We can assign one as "in" and one as "out," but
> they are both our divisions of reality. (The
> concept of a concept is of course recursive)
>
IMO you are here falling in a sort of in/out trap. "Concepts" and
"Rocks" (and "Nations" and "Cats") as you write them within brackets
are concepts. IMO it's true that "Rock" is a concept assigned to a pure
experience. But it is also true that Pirsig states that Rocks and Cats
and Nations (non bracketed) are what they are according to the way they
are created after the flow by other patternmakers which operate
independently by intellect.
Experience can't be univocal: the interaction between "me" and the"rock"
has been built after an interaction between the skin of my hand and the
rock. If I hold it in my hand, it will get "warm". What my intellect
calls "warm" is the concept I use to describe the static inorganic
simplification of the pure experience operated by the rock. It is a
static (ritual) simplification as it is evident that every rock will get
warm when I hold it in my hand. I don't see any metaphysical difference
between this effect and the creation of concepts: the static nature is
expressed by a ritual behavior after an experience.
If you don't accept that, you'll state all that there is (but DQ), "is"
because we assign a bracketed name to patterns created by intellect
after the pure experience. That is: within our intellectual world. No, I
feel this explanation is not good as the one I'm supporting. My social
self and my biological self and my inorganic self are not intellectual.
IMO intellect is not the only patternmaker. My position IMO could
explain why the world appears multiple (it is because the other
patternmakers operate before and independently by intellect) without
denying that the flow comes before everything.
MARCO:
> 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?
ROG:
> I think that seeing a medium-size discrete mammal pattern is
> an evolved skill. Animals that couldn't recognize this set of
> experiences as a living potential enemy, mate or food source
> would not have much chance of staying alive. Again, Pirsig
> explains how babies learn to develop this innate ability
> and how it spreads into the shared mythos in Chapter 9.
>
Pirsig is here explaining how the baby's intellect begins to work. Is
this process valid for a tribe? Is this process valid for a tree? Is
this process valid for light? I'm not here talking of "light" "tribes"
and "trees", they surely are intellectual. I'm talking of something that
is of course different when the flow operates on intellect (or vice
versa). Or why does the intellect create the "tree" and not the "cat"
looking at an appletree? The only solution is IMO that the biological
patternmaker (life) also operates on the flow (or vice versa) and
creates a static biologic appletree. Intellect is able to see all that,
so it creates a static "tree"
MARCO:
> In one question: is the *outside* completely dynamic and flowing?
ROG:
> Reality/Pure Experience is dynamic and flowing. This precedes
> the in/out distinction though.
Indeed. I agree that pure experience is dynamic and flowing. All what we
can experience is DQ. My reasoning is "Is it possible to experience
directly static quality?" IMO no. Even when I experience concepts, for
example when I read your ideas, actually I'm experiencing the flow. That
is: your concepts, even if you have created them static, can be shared
only through the flow.
So, why should not be possible that other kinds of static patterns
exist? Actually, it seems plausible that also other species of static
patterns can be created, and that I can perceive them through the flow.
MARCO:
> 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.
>
> ROG:
> The protocols are derived from reality.
YES!!!!! FROM REALITY!!!!! but not intellectually. My thesis is that
they must exist before intellect, on a diverse level of experience, as
they are the conditions for intellect to exist. Then our intellect could
perceive them through their participation to the flow and "rebuild"
their staticity, and create a science about them... but they exist
independently by the intellect.
ROG:
> We share Billions of years of common
> -- in fact identical -- evolutionary history with
> each other. Consider the metaphor that every
> living human is just a recent spin-off from
> a common past. Every human's history merges
> and becomes one within less than a hundred
> thousand years. Add a common social environment
> to our common biological background, and it is no
> wonder we tend to make the same common
> distinctions from reality.
Billions of years.... it presumes time. Where are those billions of
years? All what there is , it's the flow, and the flow is present, isn't
it?
This "common background" is made of static patterns which are containing
an huge number of "patterned" experiences. We call it past. Rocks have
their own experiences, trees have their own experiences, nations have
their own experiences, philosophies have their own experiences.
Experiences created by the four patternmakers within the ever present
flow.
MARCO:
> 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.
>
you did not comment the first point, that is IMO decisive. Are static
patterns ONLY intellectual patterns? IMO NO. And IMO this is also
Pirsg's point.
> > 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.
>
> ROG:
> Sure it does. The concept of the levels is a concept. It is
> as simple as that. Of course, the levels refer to reality, which
> is not a concept. Reality really is real. Really!
>
Of course. The concept of the level is a concept. And reality is not a
concept. Did I ever deny it?
In the end, you offered this quote from chapter 8:
ROG:
> Let me end with a quote from chapter 8...."..the patterns are
> NOT the reality they describe." (Emphasis Pirsig's)
>
Roger, (I hope incidentally :-) ) you forget to quote the whole
sentence:
"Within a Metaphysics of Quality, science is a set of static
intellectual patterns describing reality, but the patterns are NOT the
reality they describe".
He is talking of science and intellectual patterns, and this is what I'm
saying too. Let me offer another consequent passage from chapter 12:
"The mind-matter paradoxes seem to exist because the connecting links
between these two levels of value patterns have been disregarded. Two
terms are missing; biology and society. Mental patterns do not originate
out of inorganic nature. They originate out of society, which originates
out of biology, which originates out of inorganic nature.... "
I think that your explanation of this sentence is that Pirsig is saying
that mental patterns, society, biology and inorganic nature are all
concepts. That is like to say that mental pattern and concepts are not
the same thing. That is like to say that biology, for example, is a
concept but it's not a mental pattern.
It does not sound good to me. Actually IMO here Pirsig states the
equivalence between concept and mental pattern and is talking of
something that exists out of a world of concepts, out of science,
independently and before the existence of any concept. Prior than the
intellectual world, there are other three ways to simplify the pure
experience into patterns.
This is the MOQ. IMO.
Bye
Marco.
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