Hi Marsha, Mary, Horse, Marsha: > All you list are subject/object oriented. For me there is a Quality Level > where > Reality is Quality(unpatterned experience & patterned experience), and as of > yet, no language (except possible when used poetically) properly communicates > that reality. Even within physics there is no way yet to intellectualize > what is > still in its infancy of discovery and understanding. I like best the > possibilities > for entanglement. But I will admit I know very little.
Steve: Quality level? For Pirsig, "level" refer to a type of pattern of value. Are you sure that that is what you mean? What is a "Quality pattern of value"? Marsha: >> If your point is that because we "use subjects and objects [and] the >> associated >> rules for their manipulation" then the Intellectual level is strictly S/O >> then the >> MoQ, which is written in the same language, is also at this same level. So >> the >> MoQ is part of the Intellectual level - which is not what you or Bo appear to >> be saying. > > Yes, there is the SOM explanation of the MoQ, where it is intellectually > presented > and explained as a theory: ZMM, LILA, SODV, etc., but there is also the MoQ > that > represents Reality equals Quality(unpatterned experience & patterned > experience.) > > Mary has asked, and I have asked for examples of intellectual patterns that > aren't presented as the manipulation of reified concepts and the rules for > their > manipulation, but I have seen no such examples. Your process metaphysics is > most certainly a s/o presentation, hopeful for the future, but still mired in > SOM. > > I'm sticking with Bo. The Intellectual Level is through and through SOM. Steve: Your "I'm sticking with Bo" includes an implicit "So long, Pirsig's MOQ." On the other hand, most of what you say about your support of Bo little to do with what Bo is saying, so maybe you aren't completely off Bo's rocker. The key for you seems to be this statement "The Intellectual Level is through and through SOM." Metaphysics as an area of study is traditionally broken down into ontology and cosmology. It is the ontology aspect that is of issue here. Ontology is the study of the nature if being. More specifically it is taken to refer to answers to the question "what sort of things exist?" SOM answers to this question vary. Such answers include Locke's notion that there are two types of substances: mental substance (minds) and material substance (objects). Other answers include collapsing everything into material substance or everything into material substance. Where the MOQ (as well as pragmatism) differs from SOM is in saying that the whole project of trying to find the fundamental stuff of reality is wrong-headed. It says that there is no fundamental substance in which all the properties of rocks, trees, and people inhere. Instead the MOQ proposes as its ontology value relationships upon value relationships all the way down, and it distinguishes between a static as well as a dynamic aspect to those relationships. It further distinguishes types of relationships (value patterns) in an evolutionary hierarchy. Now, where in all this do you get the notion that the fourth level of that hierarchy is SOM itself? Where are the mental substance and material substance that make up SOM ontology in this description? Nowhere of course. Intellect itself does not require that we postulate such substances. We can think without making any assertions about ontology whatsoever. Most people don't give any thought to metaphysics. They just follow static intellectual patterns of those who came before them, and SOME of these patterns rely on the S/O ontological assumptions. But we can even use the words "subject" and "object" themselves without any ontological implication that these represent two types of fundamental substances that constitute all of reality. It is only when we make this presupposition that we are doing subject-object metaphysics. Pirsig's intellect--the manipulations of symbols--does not require us to attach any ontological significance to the symbols as subjective stuff and material stuff. To the MOQer, the symbols don't refer to any kind of "stuff." The symbols are patterns of value, and they stand for more patterns of value. There is no "stuff" to speak of except as a sort of pattern of value. It is patterns all the way down. I would urge you not to make the mistake of thinking that every time you see the words "subject" or "object" or read a statement where words can be thought of as playing the grammatical role of subjects or objects that you have before you an example of SOM being played out. SOM is only of issue when there is ontological status attached to the terms as mental stuff and material stuff. I'll spare you the quotes since you seen them so many times, but Pirsig was happy to retain the words "subject" and "object" in talking about his own metaphysics and certainly did not give these terms SOM ontological status. Pirsig gave some examples of intellectual patterns that have no subjects or objects such as mathematics, but he also notes that just because you are using the words "subject" and "object" doesn't mean that you are doing subject-object METAPHYSICS. (Bo, if you are reading this, there is no need to reply to me. We have been over this stuff so many times that I see no point in getting into it again with you. I'm sure you'll want to comment, so I'm suggesting that you address your comments to Mary and Marsha.) Best, Steve 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/md/archives.html
