Hey Magnus, I believe you've misunderstood my intentions. For one, you say, "didn't we say that we would try finding the 'correct' division of the static levels?" Oh, no, no, no. Remember? There are no criteria available for that to be applicable? All that stuff? The difference between the two of us is, still apparently, that you think you are doing something different than I am in talking about all this levels stuff, but the only major difference is that you think you are looking for the "correct" division between levels.
Which is just as well, because the problem for me has always been that I become bored far too quickly with this kind of conversation. I became bored while I rewrote my old classifications. You say they're too anthropocentric, but I'm not sure what else a description of human evolution is supposed to be. I tried to really read what you were saying, but I just don't see it. I just don't get excited about sensation. Your argument about the Quality event is interesting, but I'm not sure why you've either 1) construed Pirsig as saying that a single Quality event creates a single subject and a single object or 2) barring fidelity, why you would want to suggest that. I think that that part requires some firming up on your part. And without it, you lose your particular way to interpret Pirsig's definition of what a level is: a "unique _way to_ experience reality," as opposed to the way I think most everyone else interprets it, as something like a "unique _kind of_ experience/reality." As I see it, you have at least two major tasks: 1) establish your "Quality event" premise and 2) explain why your interpretation of a level doesn't reintroduce the subject/object problem that Pirsig avoided by making experience synonymous with reality. In your interpretation, the "experience" and "reality" are separated by a space, but in the one I would attribute to Pirsig, the two are connected by a slash. As I see it, Pirsig collapsed the experience/reality distinction to collapse the knower/known distinction, but that seems to me exactly what you are resurrecting, placing "how we know reality" at the center again, which was the problem with SOM in the first palce. Magnus said: Don't you realize the *realness* of such level borders? It's not an ad-hoc border that I just made up one day to solve some thought experiment, it's simply the real deal. Matt: Sure, I'm talking about reality, too. Most of what we are talking about is real. It has to be and we run no real risk of not. However, you do need to explain _why_ we should split things up the way you do. Your attachment to your borders as more real than others' mere ad hoc ones is simply an add-on to your argument about the levels, a separate argument about Platonism that doesn't have anything to do with discussion about levels (hence the easy way in which I was able to separate the discussion into two threads, "Correctness and Usefulness" and "Levels Talk," that now have nothing to do with each other). The problem is not your continued Platonism, the problem is that no one else seems to have the same sense of your levels' *realness*. To combat that, you do have to explain your sense, articulate your sense more explicitly, and that involves resolving doubts that others have. You sneer at "thought experiments," but your sneer is directed at the kind of argumentative engagement that I've been trying to impress upon people (if a little needlessly at times), that all of our philosophical pronouncements have to be directed at the solving of some kind of problem. The problem for philosophers is that not all philosophers, let alone all people, sense the same problems. Philosophy has to engage the doubts of others because if it doesn't, it will be idiosyncratic, insular, and boring to other people. People claim over and over, like a mantra, that Pirsig's philosophy, his model of reality, the Metaphysics of Quality, is better than other models available. How so? That's _not_ a dismissive challenge: it is simply the challenge that must be faced, or otherwise the mantra seems less like Copernicus' suggestion about the earth and sun and more like Bush's suggestion that 9/11 had something to do with Iraq. Your exasperated "don't you see it?" isn't an argument, or an explanation, or at all persuasive. It is a sign that you are tired and have reached the borders of trying to connect what you're saying up to what other people are saying. It is the same border Bo reached when he told Struan to "Have another go at Reality and return when you know what it is about." Some people have lauded Bo's remark. I think it was confessional, about Bo's lack of new ideas about how to explain to Struan what Struan was apparently not understanding. I reach that point constantly. We all do. We just can't figure out how to continue that conversation, how to explain what we sense, how to better articulate our sense of betterness. That's when I bow out of a conversation, either silently by just not responding (because I've emptied my bag of responses and/or I've no ideas for a new one) or by just saying, "I'm sorry, but I'm out of ideas about articulating my position." For instance, Bo thinks he has gotten to the core of reality and dialectically shown the superiority of his position to all and that I am protecting my pride (because he assumes that I have seen his superiority, too) when I tell him I can't converse with him. I don't think it's my pride, but I am protecting my time and energy. I just can't figure out any more new ways, after a very long and extensive engagement with him a couple years ago, to articulate to him my thoughts about his philosophy and interpretation of Pirsig. I feel strongly that it is partly Bo's peculiar way of composing himself in dialogue that leads to blockage (which is why my confession of lack of new ideas comes attached to my feeling that it's partly his own fault that some people can't converse with him), but the bottom line is that I only continue conversations where I feel like something interesting will pop out, either on my side or on someone else's. I don't know how other people decide to spend their time on the MD, but I suspect many have that sentiment in the back of their minds (though I think others just like to argue). The question is always: how do we move the conversation forward? I have to confess that I am probably not the best person to have a detailed discussion about the levels because I just get bored too quickly. But I am interested in the enabling pieces of the discussion, the premises, which is likely because if we don't nail those down as at least explicitly enunciated (if not agreed-upon) then there's no point in going on into the details because misunderstanding would be too likely. I don't think we'll ever find criteria to end dispute in this area, but we can at least explore everybody's self-understanding so that we all know a little better where we all stand in relation to each other. Matt _________________________________________________________________ Get Free (PRODUCT) RED™ Emoticons, Winks and Display Pics. http://joinred.spaces.live.com?ocid=TXT_HMTG_prodredemoticons_052008 Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
