Diana, Bo and Squad
> > But, Bo, the MOQ is just a metaphysics - a map of reality. If I draw a map,
> > say, of my desk and everything on it including the map, then the map would
> > include the map. I don't see a problem with that.
>
> Good point. The cartoon of a hand with a pencil drawing itself comes
> to mind and I would happily accept such an argument but we have the
> Strawsons of this world to cope with. Magnus Berg always stressed the
> universality of a metaphysics, there's nothing outside it. The map
> metaphor suggests an (objective) reality that we constantly keep
> mapping, but Pirsig doesn't use it that way in the map PROJECTION
> analogue. He merely says that when at the poles you have to use a
> polar projection.
I'd like to add the following to Diana's map metaphor. If you think about
actually *drawing* a physical map on paper, then there's no way you can
include both the table and the map on the map. You could always take one
step back and see that the map is a map of the table and the map.
However, and this is what I think is the most powerful, (and sometimes too
powerful), thing about the intellectual level: It's recursive. It enables
us to include something in itself. I can think, but I can also think about
what I just thought, and then think about that...
That's a truly unique feature, you can't have a cup of coffee inside itself.
You can't have any other type of pattern inside itself.
But then again, it's sometimes too powerful. We sometimes get confused and
we can intellectually create all kinds of strange contradictions using it.
But the MoQ says that any such contradiction is only an intellectual construct,
it does not correctly reflect the other patterns it supposedly tries to.
For example, the SOM is such an intellectual construct. But since we can find
contradictions in it, it does not correctly reflect the "reality" it tries to.
My guess is that the Greeks were blinded by this powerful intellectual level and
made a too static system in which there were no room for future changes. So when
quantum mechanics turns up and blurs the, until then crystal clear, border between
subjects and objects, it strikes the ostrich pose and pretends it rains.
It would have been neat to see what the Greeks would have done if they'd known
about quantum mechanics. It also makes me wonder if the sophists knew something
about it - or something similar, or if they just thought SOM sounded boring.
To close up, I wouldn't say that SOM *is* the intellectual level, but it sure is
one of the first entities that really used it.
Magnus
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
