Hi Jaap and Group
On Sun, 21 Nov. you wrote:
(Bo)
> >Jaap accepted this and launched into some highly interesting
> >considerations how
(Jaap)
> I want to make clear I do nor accept an "initial quantum (random)
> event" as the prime mover. That way, as I said before, causation
> sneaks into MOQ again.
Sorry for misinterpreting you.
> As I wrote I see more in a DQ flowing downward
> through the levels creating a vertical chain of events but working
> only creative ;) at the highest (active) level.
All the worse because I think you are on to something terribly
important here. The MOQ is turning the metaphysical "sock" inside
out so why not upending the causation direction? Oh well, Pirsig
says as much himself in the "B values precondition A"
Would you care to examine my example of how such an
"from above" event can be visualized? Let's take adrenalin:
a chemical stuff (produced by the body, but now synthesized)
which causes the fight or flight alertness: increasing heartbeat,
shallow breathing, high blood pressure etc.
1. At the inorganic level the stuff isn't "interpreted" in any other way
than the inter-level electric bonds and atomic valences.
2. At the biological level the chemical is interpreted as a sensation
of excitement or unrest. That is: biology's value has flowed down to
the inorganic level and changed the substance into sensation.
3. At the social level the event is interpreted further into emotions. I
don't know if it is possible, but if an unsuspecting dinner guest had
the adrenalin in his/her food the biological self would want to flee or
knock the host down :-), but the social self would become afraid
and hold back. I.e. Society - now the active level - changed the
substance into emotion.
4. If the party guest is informed what he has eaten, the intellect
becomes the active level (reality) and modifies the substance into
knowledge or "reason". Not directly but by way of the intermediate
levels.
Someone may object that the chemical composition isn't
objectively altered, but that is the SOM view, the above is the MOQ
one. Not only does it go against causation, it reverses the time
arrow as well: The present influences the past, and in doing so it
points its nose at the (dreaded) second law of thermo-dynamics:
Ken Clark are you there?
> Second there is a sideway apearing throughout the discussion: Is MOQ
> rejecting SOM or not ? Some people say at does but others reject that.
> Last week I spent some spare time rereading a major part of Lila.
> Pirsig says that there are more metaphysical realities (just as there
> are more (social) cultures, more (biological) species and maybe more
> (anorganic) "worlds"). I conclude the SOM has no place in the MOQ
> (although MOQ can study SOM but SOM can not study MOQ), but according
> to MOQ SOM is a equivalent metaphysic reality wich is seen by
> "MOQ-believers" as a lower step in the intellectual evolution. I would
> like to compare it with the biological level. From one brance of
> evolution there are more species living at the same time; when due to
> a evolutionairy event one specie is succeeded by one other you can not
> say that the members of the old specie are a kind of special case
> whitin the new specie -they are an other specie !- but neither can you
> say that the new specie rejects the old one. You can only say the new
> specie is better adjusted but as long both species can survive they
> are equivalent; they are both succesfull.
This was a deep one Jaap. Firstly, that the MOQ rejects the SOM
there can be no doubt about. Yet, Pirsig claims that the MOQ
contains the SOM within itself (or rather the S-O, without the M).
We know how: Inorg.+org.=subjective. Soc.+Intell.=objective. This
containment theory works well up to a point, but it invites an
interpretation of the intellect much like the mind of SOM: a mental
realm where the MOQ and SOM co-exist.
I interpret your references to various biological and social patterns
within their respective levels as a support for the above: A lower
more primitive intellectual pattern (SOM) may evolve into a higher
one (the MOQ) within the Intellectual realm, but still go on living as
a "lower step in the intellectual evolution".
Well, it sounds sound, but I have my objections to it. Even if the
biological species have grown more complex, the higher organisms
aren't more alive than the lower. What we see as higher life forms
is social value starting to influence biology; living in colonies,
sharing food, rearing the young..etc have facilitated more refined
biological patterns. The same goes for society: the Netherlands
isn't more "social" than an aboriginal tribe, its betterness is only
because it is enormously influenced by intellectual value.
Consequently, the MOQ's betterness is -as I see it - because it is
a representative for some new higher value, while the intellect is
hopelessly stuck in its static S-O pattern (seen thus it is stripped
of the M). This clears away the otherworldly quality that sticks to
intellect: Intellect isn't mind, but "mind-matter" plus all other
subject-object generated dualities.
The above is the SOLAQI idea. I hope you found Dan Glover's
essay on it.
I also hope I got you right this time :-)
Bo
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
