Re: LS Time To Stand and Be Counted
Squaders, I thought I'd try to summarize the results of Roger's two questions. Roger's two questions asked if the MOQ levels existed ndependent of the intellect and whether or not the levels were created or discovered. These are superb questions because the answers help show "where you're at" with regard to MOQ. Really only the second question was necessary for that, but the first question served as a "check", a necessary one because it was in some cases the more telling one. Good going, Roger. I would argue there are only two ways to answer the two questions, and they are: 1) all POVs are intellectual POVs: yes 2) levels were created or discovered: created Denis, Glenn, Roger or 1) all POVs are intellectual POVs: no 2) levels were created or discovered: discovered Magnus, Bo, Dave B, Horse, Ken Dave B. didn't actually vote! But I'm guessing he would vote this way. Forgive me if I'm wrong, and if I am I think I'll throw in the towel! Bo actually answered "no, created" but I think this is a problem with the word "created" and it can be traced back to Pirsig's use of it. Denis answered "yes, Mu". I thought about answering "Mu" but upon further reflection decided not to. It's not quite complete to say "We create our discoveries. We discover our creations." It's better to say "the thing we create stands a chance of being discovered (later)", and in that light the question *can* be answered. Roger thinks all reality is a dialectic invention. I answered with him but I don't agree with this. I answered the question from the world's perspective. The world has not accepted MOQ (yet), so MOQ is provisionally a creation. Personally, I think there is enough I either don't understand about MOQ, or I just disagree with (I often can't tell the difference), that I err on the side of safety and still call it a creation of the mind. Horse brought up a nasty, nasty paradox for those who answered "created": "Intellectual Value is one of the 4 levels. But if the levels are a creation of Intellectual value then how did Intellectual value appear?" Only if the levels were discovered can you avoid this paradox. Horse: "So the existence of the levels was discovered after Intellectual value was created and in turn discovered its own existence." Nice. Jonathan M. answered "Foul", and I couldn't follow his links, so I don't know what he thinks. John B. answered "no, created", like Bo did. But I did not understand his post enough to feel comfortable putting him in one camp or the other. Sorry, John. So what conclusions can be made about these two camps? The "created" camp is interesting because these folks either 1) misunderstand MOQ. This is easily forgivable, by the way, and the forum can help. 2) understand MOQ, wish they agreed with it but deep down don't. In other words, they don't agree with MOQ but REALLY want to, and they have a hard time admitting it, especially to themselves. 3) understand MOQ, see its potential, but disagree with it, or at least some key aspect(s) of it. The "discovered" camp is interesting because these folks either 1) understand MOQ and, being excellent students, recite just what Professor Pirsig wants to hear. 2) understand MOQ, wish they agreed with it but deep down don't. In other words, they don't agree with MOQ but REALLY want to, and they have a hard time admitting it, especially to others. 3) understand MOQ and have truly entered its mythos. And so all people from both camps are hoping they're a 3), right? :) Please take these conclusions with a good dose of humor but also a little introspection. Glennn MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
Re: LS Time To Stand and Be Counted
Roger and group I regret it if you regard me as one of the ...various members re- inventing and re-creating the MOQ. If possible I would have started and ended each message with a tribute to Robert Pirsig's achievement, that our efforts to see it from various angles only is possible because we sit on his shoulders. In the Phaedrus Parker vs David Buchanan dispute I side with David: His "painting MOQ with a SOM brush" is a very apt phrase. In this PP statement : To take which has caused us to create the world, and include it within the world we have created, is clearly impossible. That's why quality can't be defined. only the above is Pirsig. The rest The MOQ's fundamental division of reality, the first cut of the intellectual knife is not between your static reality and intellect.It is, as Roger and Denis state, between dynamic, flowing, undefined quality and etc. is Parker. The DQ/SQ division is not done by ZMM's mind-intellec's knife, but by something that desperately wants to free itself from the SOM-intellect. See below. ZMM represents the "trinity" stage of the Q idea (Quality- Subject/Object). The book attracted many adherers because it seemed so like the many theories/books of the seventies on how the world is all mind's creation. But look. Nowhere in ZMM is the MOQ or SOM mentioned. The QUALITY idea wasn't fully developed until LILA . When Pirsig came to Norway in 1994 he tried to speak about LILA, but the journalists only wanted to hear about ZMM and at times I wonder if not the success of that book is the most formidable obstacle to the understanding of his MOQ. Don't think for one moment that I don't understand your position. The ..everything has no existence outside the human imagination, it's all ghosts... is WATERPROOF. To prove that everything is in the mind is child's play - from a SOM point of view. It is as David says the famous Kantian cul de sac. This insight brought P of ZMM to the asylum because he had not left the SOM world view (where you are supposed NOT to think its tenets to their full consequences. If you do you are mad!). How, could he, the MOQ wasn't conceived yet. The new P of LILA, however, said: OK, everything is mind (or language) let's see how a totally new metaphysics with that AS THE STARTING POINT looks like. Hence the MOQ where general "everything" is DQ while appearances are SQ. The monster platypus of SOM is thus made into a new world order, but - afterwards - to introduce one of the static appearances (Intellect) as containing "everything" once again, is to restore the SOM. Pirsig isn't very clear here, but how could he foresee all the implications of his new metaphysics? It is like demanding of Christ that he should have understood every "sect" his simple utterance came to spawn. ZAMM is a wonderful book. It reveals the tortous route of Phaedrus and the various stages the Quality went through, but only LILA should be cited when discussing the fullfledged Quality Metaphysics. Bo MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
Re: LS Time To Stand and Be Counted
Hi all, > ROGER ASKS > 1) Are all patterns of value also intellectual patterns? Yes, when you describe them in "intellectual" terms. > 2) Were the 4 levels of the MOQ discovered or created? Are you asking what CAUSED the MoQ? Foul!!! CAUSE is a SOM platypus word. See my post from a year ago: http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/9809/0102.html Also relevant is my essay on causality at http://indycc1.agri.huji.ac.il/~marder/Science_Philosophy/Causality.htm Jonathan MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
Re: LS Time To Stand and Be Counted
ROGER IS HOPELESSLY BIASED, SO HE ASKED HIS IMAGINARY FRIEND PROFESSOR PHAEDRUS TO GRADE THE PAPERS I hope I do not upset anybody with my artistic liberties. But rather than answering myself, I thought I would cut and paste PARAPHRASED quotes right out of ZMM and Lila to address David's recent post and the various responses to Denis' and my questions. Admittedly, I have changed some wording, and even added a twist or two of my own in places to clarify or to get it to flow better. However, I am not intentionally distorting what I believe the fictional Phaedrus would or in many cases basically did say. With that disclosed, let me mention that my exercise is specifically oriented to get people to pull out their copies of Zen and Lila and reacquaint themselves with the work. That is why I list the chapter and paperback page number (all quotes are from Zen unless otherwise noted). There is nothing wrong with various members re-inventing or recreating the MOQ. But they should not confuse their metaphysics with the MOQ. In all fairness, the same applies to me, so let me know where I have misunderstood or confused the concepts. How are my versions of what Phaedrus would say different than Pirsig's? But please include the same courtesy of references. Let me start with David B's hilariously funny and well written post.. DAVID: It seems to me that Denis and Roger have used a MOQ brush to paint a SOMpicture. I've tried to understand what they've described. And as I understand it, they have all four of the levels of static Quality "located in the Q-Intellect",as Denis said or "biological patterns are just cuts of the intellectual knife", as Roger put it. I don't think it's correct to collapse the levels in this way. I think putting the whole of reality into the intellect is a pretty radical kind of solipsism. PHAEDRUS: No David, Roger was not the originator of that cutting analogy. He stole it from me. What you must remember is that when analytical thought, the knife, is applied to experience, Primal Reality is always killed in the process.(Ch7 p70 ) It is important to see the knife for what it is and not be fooled into thinking the levels or anything else have to be the way we sliced them. Concentrating on the intellectual knife itself, it is apparent that we use it in ways of our own choosing until we reach what we want. Even the terms classic and romantic, static and dynamic, and the four levels are examples of this knifesmanship.(Ch6 P66) DAVID: In the picture they paint, the intellect interacts with DQ directly and CREATES the world of static patterns. This conception of the static patterns seems a lot like Kant's categories of the mind, but with magical creative powers. And aside from the solipsism and creative ability, the epistemolgy of this notion seems very much in line with the classical empiricists, that is SOM and the mind\body split. PHAEDRUS: We respond to our environment with an invention of many marvelous analogues. We invent the levels and the things that fill them and call these analogues reality. And they are reality. But that which causes us to invent the analogues is quality. Quality is the continuing stimulus which our environment puts upon us to create the world in which we live. All of it. (Ch20 p225) DAVID: As Bo says, you've got "reality" in one sphere and the intellect in another and you're rather skeptical about the possibility of connecting the two spheres. It's kinda Cartesian in that respect. I think that this picture of the MOQ leaves us in so better shape than before. Its just as lonely, atomistic, and impenetrable as SOM ever was. In short I think you've constructed a SOM philosophy using MOQish ideas and Pirsigian vocabulary. Its a SOM scene painted in MOQ colors, so to speak. PHAEDRUS: David, to take that which has caused us to create the world, and include it within the world we have created, is clearly impossible. That's why Quality can't be defined. (Ch20 p225). The MOQ's fundamental division of reality, the first cut of the intellectual knife, is not between your static reality and intellect. It is, as Roger and Denis state, between dynamic, flowing, undefineable quality and static, discontinuous, conceptual patterns. (Ch 29 p417-8) DAVID: I believe you've mistaken the nature of Pirsig's problem with "substance". It certainly doesn't mean that there is no reality outside of DQ and our conceptualizations of it. It doesn't mean there is no inorganic reality. PHAEDRUS: That, David, is ridiculousThe world has no existence whatsoever outside the human imagination. It's all a ghost, and in the days of the sophists was recognized as such. The whole blessed thing is a human invention. (Ch3 p31) Do you really think this motorcycle we have been working on is made of "substance"? Where you see substance, I see ideas. We've been discussing concepts, and you've mistaken them for primal
Re: LS Time To Stand and Be Counted
Hi All Temporary Lurk Mode OFF On 24 Sep 99, at 19:26, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > 1) Are all patterns of value also intellectual patterns? > > 2) Were the 4 levels of the MOQ discovered or created? To me the above look suspiciously like those damnable Either/Or formulations that I continually try and circumvent by invoking a Both/And answer. Today is no exception. > 1) Are all patterns of value also intellectual patterns? Intellectual patterns of value include the 3 other levels inasmuch as Intellectual patterns describe and structure what is already there. If the MoQ is an evolutionary metaphysics (or a metaphysics which underlies an evolutionary system) then Intellect must have evolved FROM something. That intellect can describe both the other levels AND itself is testimony to its power. Recursion is a powerful thing but very difficuly to handle well - ask any Lisp or Prolog coder. Handled badly one is in danger of disappearing up one's own Aristotle!! I suppose another way to look at the levels is not to assume that they are seperate entities (i.e. objective things) but separate attributes evolving from a single source - Quality. Each is an emergent property of the former, each containing the former and being contained by the former. Pirsig says something like this when he says that Intellect contains the Inorganic which contains the Intellect. This is the basis of emergence - the higher levels may not exist without the base from which they emerge but are simultaneously independent of the lower levels.Their separation into discrete levels is an expression of Intellectual value. Intellectual value 'understands' their existence, partitions them and describes them, so the levels are both Intellectual patterns AND patterns independent of intellectual value. I would disagree with some on this forum when answering the question: "Seen in the light of the MOQ, what is it that is described in the last part of ZMM (The Greeks). Is it the emergence of SOM, the"coming of age" of the Intellectual level, or...?" and say that what emerged in ancient Greece was not _true_ intellectual value but some form of prototype. Certainly some form of Intellectual value was involved but not what I would describe as the Intellectual value we know today. When Intellect begins to comprehend its own existence and considers itself valuable in it's own right only then can it be said to have "come of age". This is a very recent event. But, to coin a now hackneyed phrase "I could be wrong". > 2) Were the 4 levels of the MOQ discovered or created? Tricky one this! Intellectual Value is one of the 4 levels. But if the levels are a creation of Intellectual value then how did Intellectual value appear. So if Intellectual value is created, as one of the four levels of patterns of value, then what created the Intellectual patterns that created the Intellectual patterns - and don't cop-out and recite the DQ mantra. Without thinking too deeply about it, to say that Intellectual patterns of Value created themselves, without some basis from which Intellectual value could be created, introduces something of a paradox. This is not a problem of recursion as any recursive process has to start from some identifiable base principle/assertion or whatever. Intellectual patterns of Value (of which the MoQ is one example) provide the basis for discovering their own existence but were created by an emergent process from Social patterns of value, which emerged from Biological patterns etc. So the existence of the levels was discovered after Intellectual value was created and in turn discovered its own existence. The recursive base is the emergence of the intellectual level as an identifiable and independent attribute of Quality. Make sense? Horse Temporary Lurk Mode ON MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
Re: LS Time To Stand and Be Counted
> Hey all, > > Well, I would say it is about time we actually see how close we can get to a > consensus. > > But first, I want to clarify an issue. A few days ago, Bo wrote the > following and I said I agreed with it 100% while Denis called it a wallowing > retreat back to SOM. This occurred in a post where Denis and I were > supposedly arguing the same side. Let me paste the paragraph of note: > > Bo: > >When concluding as I will below I appeal to your collective goodwill. > >Theorizing, naming - thinking - about animals and things even about > >thinking itself - is not going on in an abstract sphere about > >something more real in another concrete sphere. Q- INTELLECT IS THE > >ABILITY TO MAKE THE BI-SPHERIC DISTINCTION ITSELF. The highest and > >most valuable stage that evolution has reached - yet. > > I read this as Bo saying that the intellectual level is the creator of the > spheres. The distinction makes the 'abstract' and the 'concrete' realms. > This I do agree with 100%. I also agree with Denis though that if Bodvar > meant that the spheres have independent existence and are 'discovered' by the > intellect , that Bo would indeed be prescribing a Cartesian dualism. > > Bo? > > A key difference in those of us with what I see as the sophist position > (Marco, Denis and me), and those with the Aristotelian position () is > CREATION vs DISCOVERY. The sophist position is that man created the levels, > or substance or atoms or whatever. The Aristotelian position is that it was > "out there objectively to be discovered." One position measures the creation > by quality, the other primarily measures the discovery by truth. > > So let me ask EVERYBODY that contributed this month, and all the lurkers, two > questions: > 1) Are all patterns of value also intellectual patterns? YES, everything we are talking about is also an intellectual pattern. But it doesn't mean that truth does not exist: truth is not objectivity, is inter-subjectivity. When the most (or all ) people agree on something, that's true. Until a Brujo comes. > 2) Were the 4 levels of the MOQ discovered or created? Created, by R. M. Pirsig. Just like gravity law, by Newton. Marco. MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
Re: LS Time To Stand and Be Counted
>1) Are all patterns of value also intellectual patterns? Oh my. I think this question could easily be taken the wrong way. The word "also" doesn't help. The question *as stated* is not very interesting and is easily answered "no". An inorganic PoV that says "atoms like to cling to each other in solids" is not also an intellectual PoV (clearly), because atoms don't operate at the intellectual level. But taken in the context of your discussions... I think you mean: Did any of the first three levels exist (along with their patterns of value) before the intellectual level evolved? To this I answer: 'yes', but only if the answer to the second question is 'discovered'. And it's not, so my answer is 'no'. So the answer to your original question (in the sense it was posed) is 'yes'. Got that??!! >2) Were the 4 levels of the MOQ discovered or created? Created, but this answer is provisional. Suppose these 4 levels were a critical underpinning to the success of MOQ. And suppose no other levels, and no proper subset of these levels, could be substituted for these 4 levels and make MOQ half as good. And further suppose that MOQ, with these 4 levels, achieved a world-wide status of "top metaphysics banana" that not only was head-over-heals better than any competing metaphysics, but prompted most professionals in this field to consider the subject closed. Then and only then would I call the 4 levels of MOQ a discovery. As it stands TODAY the 4 levels seem more like creative choices which underpin an otherwise promising metaphysics. The jury is still out. Maybe MOQ will be widely and wildly accepted 100 years from now. But I doubt it. It's hard to imagine any "discoveries" ever being made in metaphysics due to its inherent shortcomings, which Pirsig describes. >What answer to each of these statements is of highest quality to you? If by this you mean which is the more important question, I'd say the second, because the answer to the first is contingent on it. That is, if I interpreted your questions properly. Regards, Glennn MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
Re: LS Time To Stand and Be Counted
Hi Squad > 1) Are all patterns of value also intellectual patterns? No. Reality is quite content without intellectual patterns. How could it be otherwise? If the assumed history of the earth, (the universe actually), is not totally misleading, there once was no intellectual patterns. > 2) Were the 4 levels of the MOQ discovered or created? Discovered. The MoQ is a *meta*-physics! Physics is clueless without one. > What answer to each of these statements is of highest quality to you? They're actually somewhat redundant. If the answer to #2 is discovered, it implies that #1 is no. But if I have to choose, it would be #1. A yes answer to that is a real show-stopper and it's useless for two people answering differently to discuss the rest of the MoQ. I agree with DMB that saying yes to #1 is kind of like using a MOQ brush to paint a SOM picture. A few lines from Denis' answers: > So all patterns of value are also intellectual patterns. Never forget > that you're only talking. It seems you too begin each day with Descartes: "I think, therefore I am." Don't be so human-centered. Reality is far more than that. I've said before that: The MoQ says that the following statements are just as valid. I weigh, therefore I am. I sense, therefore I am. I interact with others, therefore I am. This is what the levels are saying about what is real. Magnus MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
Re: LS Time To Stand and Be Counted
Dear Squad Pre Scriptum: Its Sunday at my longitude and I have worked on the following since yesterday being absentminded to my dear wife and all. I have deliberately NOT looked into today's mail as there possibly is much material that makes my statements outdated. Forgive me, but if this is to be published at all I just have to post it as it is. *** This has been a most rewarding month. We have reached the very kernel of the MOQ and even if my idea that Intellect is identical with SOM has been treshed badly - trashed outrightly - everyone seem to acknowledge what is at stake. The formulation (of the topic): Seen in the light of the MOQ, what is it that is described in the last part of ZMM (The Greeks). Is it the emergence of SOM, the"coming of age" of the Intellectual level, or...? had the effect that if both were confirmed the SOLAQI would have been proved. There were different ways of avoiding my sly tactics ;-(. Magnus thinks that intellect already were formed to be used by SOM Gregg saw the said ZAMM event as the "coming of age" of Intellect, but was unsure about the SOM part Todd agreed that what was described was the emergence of SOM, but did not understand the last half of the question. Dave (DLT): wanted to modify my SOLAQI into: "SOM was/is the Western world's dominate, stable, intellectual pattern. The MoQ, a new, not so stable intellectual pattern, challenges that dominance. It remains to be seen whether the challenge will be successful". Diana keeps it suspended, I think she sees some of its virtues (more is to be demonstrated in this message). Denis started a sceptic, but after rummaging through his mailbox found that he had agreed to it earlier. Today, however he turned his thumb down. Roger agrees to part of my argumentation, but disagrees to some other. Let's see if this post makes any difference. David B has not delivered any verdict. Only in Marco do I spot an ally, at least he gives me the benefit of doubt. He wrote somewhere (sorry I can't find it) that if MOQ was part of Intellect it would be the enemy of a movement beyond.Exactly! A "mind" Intellect that can contain the MOQ and SOM on equal footing gives no opening for further development, and as this is an important tenet of the MOQ, it sort of proves my point. What is the value of a Intellect that merely contains all sorts of ideas? Thinking? Then a level above would value no-thinking!! It is axiomatic the next level goes against its parent. No, Intellect is one particular way of thinking and DQ's way of breaking out from its last static prison will be ANOTHER WAY OF THINKING. I admit that Pirsig said in a letter to Anthony McWatt that he regards Intellect equal to "mind". It bothers me greatly, but the inventor himself is of course so steeped in it that he is in no danger of letting the "matter" half of the dualism seep into it and thus SOM. Marco asked why not introduce "intelligence" (as a term), and I highly recommend that. When we once discussed artificial intelligence it was aired as a useful term - separate from the Q- stage we call Intellect. I often feel that it is INTELLIGENCE that many people mean when Q-intellect is discussed. For instance Glenn Bradford :-). BTW, Artificial Intelligence should become a monthly topic. I know that someone with a degree in that field has just entered Peter O'Neil (or Cntryforce?) asked why the Sophists were so pivotal to P of ZAMM. The only known statement is the ..man is the measure of all things... sentence by Protagoras. This contains in a nutshell what Socrates hated: "There's no truth except what people agree upon is good". This is also the essence of Social value, but at the ZAMM stage the static levels weren't yet formulated so why is it that the enemies of Socrates automatically became friends of Phaedrus? >From LILA we know that Intellect joins forces with Biology in its crusade against Society. And if it is a rule (that any level allies itself with its grandparent) then a movement beyond intellect will necessarily join forces with Society. No wonder the rhetoricians were Phaedrus' darlings, and what's more: It also underpins the Intellect as SOM idea Magnus wrote: > Bo asked: > > What strange vessel is Intellect that it can be used by SOM, perhaps > > eptied of it and filled with other contents? > Nah, let me use the dimension metaphor. SOM was probably one of the first > entities that expanded reality much in the intellect dimension. In a way, that's > still a "vessel", it can be emptied and filled with other contents, i.e. > patterns, just as the biological level may be emptied (the dinos 65'' years > ago) and filled again. Here you are on thin ice Magnus. The dimension analogue is good, but If anything a spatial dimension can't be emptied and filled with another "value"; height can't turn into depth etc. Th
LS Time to stand and be counted.
Roger and squad, I have been following your exchanges as best I can understand them and I seem to disagree with both positions. Both sides are attributing all patterns of value to the human intellect and this is okay as long as we specify that we are talking about human understanding in particular but to my mind this is a far cry from the complete sweep of the MoQ. First, to answer your questions: 1. Are all patterns of value also intellectual patterns. A. The patterns of value that come under the cognizance of the human intellect are but a small part of the complete range of patterns of value (Quality) so my answer to this question is no. I would say that all patterns of value are potentially intellectual patterns but our minds will no doubt never encompass all expressions of Quality or patterns of value in the universe. Those patterns of value of which we are aware are also intellectual patterns. Those patterns of value which are outside the ken of the human intellect are not, obviously, intellectual patterns. 2. Were the four levels of the MOQ discovered or created. A. The four levels of the MOQ were created by the mind of man out of the patterns of value that were already in existence due to the operation of Quality. These patterns of value exist independently of man and man applied his limited understanding of the complete sweep of Quality to those patterns of value of which he became aware. In this sense, and strictly in the context of man, the levels were first discovered and then created. My interpretation of the MoQ holds that Quality came into being at the birth of the universe and is the force that drives the universe toward increasing entropy. The action of entropy in the universe is Quality which, in turn, is responsible for all of the causation that has resulted. We could say that Quality is the Second Law of Thermodynamics if we interpret the second law as the drive toward entropy that results from any concentration of energy. This drive can be interrupted by any of a myriad of latches that can remain effective for varying periods of time from an instant to the life of the universe. We interpret the patterns of value of the universe as having Quality, goodness, and truth because we are the product of the operation of Quality and thus the results of the operation of Quality establish the conditions that have produced the Universe, and us. We are inescapably embedded in a Universe that, to us, is good, and true, and has Quality. Ken MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
Re: LS Time To Stand and Be Counted
ONE,TWO,THREE,FOUR,WHAT ARE WE COUNTING FOR? SORRY COUNTRY JOE. Y'all Thanks Rog "for the "How long have you been beating your wife" setup. Count my responses as: 1) Are all patterns of value also intellectual patterns? YES 2) Were the 4 levels of the MOQ discovered or created? YES What answer to each of these statements is of highest quality to you? TWO The values or qualities were created; the patterns were/are discovered and rediscovered. In talking about his book "Care of the Soul" Thomas Moore said, "You see, the one thing about the soul that's very interesting-...-is that the soul is convivial" Now he means convivial not just in the modern sense of "having a feastive time" or being "fond of eating and drinking", but also in the Latin: convivere [to carouse together] http://www.moq.org
Re: LS Time To Stand and Be Counted
Hi, Squad, Well, if it's time to take a stand, there is mine : [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Bo: > >When concluding as I will below I appeal to your collective goodwill. > >Theorizing, naming - thinking - about animals and things even about > >thinking itself - is not going on in an abstract sphere about > >something more real in another concrete sphere. Q- INTELLECT IS THE > >ABILITY TO MAKE THE BI-SPHERIC DISTINCTION ITSELF. The highest and > >most valuable stage that evolution has reached - yet. > > I read this as Bo saying that the intellectual level is the creator of the > spheres. The distinction makes the 'abstract' and the 'concrete' realms. > This I do agree with 100%. I also agree with Denis though that if Bodvar > meant that the spheres have independent existence and are 'discovered' by the > intellect , that Bo would indeed be prescribing a Cartesian dualism. > In fact I wonder if I wasn't somewhat unjust with Bo. Bo wasn't really wallowing back into SOM but making an unnecessary subsumation of SOM into MOQ. He never really answered my critic that S/O division wasn't a primary function of Language and/or Intellect, but I think the above quote shows how important he thinks this division is. He believes it is the highest stage of intellectual evolution, and, following the SOLAQI idea, the actual birth of the Intellectual level, its leaving the Social level. This idea (as I stated in my 'SOLAQI ? Why not ?' post) has its value, but saying that it is the primordial stage of Intellect leaves me somewhat baffled. In a private exchange I wrote : > The problem I see with > your vision that S/O Logic has to be the initial Dynamic foundation of > Intellect, is twofold : > > 1. How are we to differentiate pre-Socratic societies from social > animals ? Are "primitive men" (those not yet sold to the SOM world-view) > nothing more intelligent than dogs ? You say that we have to > differenciate Intellect from Mind, but WHAT is there between animal > societies and human non-SOM ones ? What is it if not Intellect ? > Super-society ? How comes only humans have it ? > > 2. SOLAQI creates a fifth level that is supposed to grow FROM S/O Logic. > But Pirsig DESTROYED S/O Logic ! He has invalidated the very AXIOMS of > S/O Logic ! > -> Truth isn't primary (Good is) > -> the primary division of reality isn't Subject and Object (or whatever > SOM stuff you want there) > > The MOQ isn't the verge of a new fifth level, it is a crucial stage in > the evolution of the intellect. Intellect is leaving the primal waters > of mythology (even the scientific one) and is learning to walk on its > feet ! And the firm ground under them is QUALITY. > [ROGER] > Bo? [ME] Bo ? Back to the questions : > So let me ask EVERYBODY that contributed this month, and all the lurkers, two > questions: > > 1) Are all patterns of value also intellectual patterns? > Since I was the one to propose this assertion as a MOQ axiom, the answer is obviously YES. What else can they be ? Pirsig creates them in Lila, in an act he rightly interprets as a DQ event : "The division he finally settled on was one he didn't really choose in any deliberative way. It was more as if IT chose HIM." Lila, p.125 (paperback edition) This was the initial choice of DQ/SQ, from which the four levels are deduced. As I said before, any assertion is a product of language, and language produces meanings, which are Intellectual static patterns of value. The assertion that static reality is composed of four levels : inorganic, biological, social and intellectual - is a complex intellectual static pattern of value. When each of the level is described, the assertions about them are also intellectual patterns, and so on. All we CAN talk about is words, which were initially deduced from DQ. Dynamic Quality is a notion that was deduced from DQ. The word is not the thing. So all patterns of value are also intellectual patterns. Never forget that you're only talking. > 2) Were the 4 levels of the MOQ discovered or created? > Hah ! Complex question, this. Patterns of value sound a bit like Aritotle's Forms, which are to be empirically experienced even if matter isn't. Do we experience patterns ? Following Pirsig original claim, we see the answer : Quality is experienced, patterns are deduced. So patterns are the illusion. They are 'maya', the illusion of the phenomenal world, the illusion of the Many in the One. Still, we fall here into the mystic trap of not being able to say anything about the world in which we live. For humanity, this has very little pragmatic value. The DQ/SQ division can help us there again. >From a Dynamic point of view, patterns don't exist. Everything changes, nothing is really similar and nothing really lasts. So patterns (and therefore the four levels) are inventions of the human intellect. They were created. >From a Static point of view, the PoV of Knowledge, the patterns are everything. If there is only DQ, all is Chaos. In this view,
LS Time To Stand and Be Counted
ROGER ASKS EVERYONE READING THIS POST TO ANSWER TWO QUESTIONS Hey all, Well, I would say it is about time we actually see how close we can get to a consensus. But first, I want to clarify an issue. A few days ago, Bo wrote the following and I said I agreed with it 100% while Denis called it a wallowing retreat back to SOM. This occurred in a post where Denis and I were supposedly arguing the same side. Let me paste the paragraph of note: Bo: >When concluding as I will below I appeal to your collective goodwill. >Theorizing, naming - thinking - about animals and things even about >thinking itself - is not going on in an abstract sphere about >something more real in another concrete sphere. Q- INTELLECT IS THE >ABILITY TO MAKE THE BI-SPHERIC DISTINCTION ITSELF. The highest and >most valuable stage that evolution has reached - yet. I read this as Bo saying that the intellectual level is the creator of the spheres. The distinction makes the 'abstract' and the 'concrete' realms. This I do agree with 100%. I also agree with Denis though that if Bodvar meant that the spheres have independent existence and are 'discovered' by the intellect , that Bo would indeed be prescribing a Cartesian dualism. Bo? A key difference in those of us with what I see as the sophist position (Marco, Denis and me), and those with the Aristotelian position () is CREATION vs DISCOVERY. The sophist position is that man created the levels, or substance or atoms or whatever. The Aristotelian position is that it was "out there objectively to be discovered." One position measures the creation by quality, the other primarily measures the discovery by truth. So let me ask EVERYBODY that contributed this month, and all the lurkers, two questions: 1) Are all patterns of value also intellectual patterns? 2) Were the 4 levels of the MOQ discovered or created? What answer to each of these statements is of highest quality to you? [ I strongly encourage everybody to reread the past week's exchanges between Magnus, Bo, Marco, Denis and I before declaring. Sorry in advance for the "How long have you been beating your wife" nature of the the setup to the questions, but I couldn't resist. If nothing else, I am laying my assumptions out there ] Roger MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
