Hi Platt
Apologies in advance for the length of this post - it just seemed to
take on a life of it's own!
On 01/05/2010 18:23, [email protected] wrote:
Hi Horse,
Thanks for the opportunity to further clarify my views. I have tried to do so
by inserting comments in your post below.
Happy to continue the discussion with you.
On 1 May 2010 at 15:03, Horse wrote:
Hi Platt
Thanks for answering the question. You're absolutely correct - I don't
agree with you but at least it's good that we should try and find out if
our differences can be resolved. Unlikely as maybe, but definitely worth
a shot.
On 30/04/2010 03:07, Platt Holden wrote:
Within this evolutionary relationship it is possible to see that intellecthas
functions that pre-date science and philosophy. The intellect´s evolutionary
purpose has never been to discover an ultimate meaning of the universe. That is a
relatively recent fad. Its historical purpose has been to help a society find food,
detect danger, and defeat enemies. It can do this well or poorly, depending on the
concepts it invents for this purpose"
If intellectual patterns of value didn't exist prior to SOM (SOM as the
entirety of the Intellectual level) as you seem to be saying then how did
SOM create the Intellectual level?
This question needs to be answered.
Horse
Your wish is my command. Again, you conflate intellectual patterns of value
with the intellectual level. The two are separate concepts (thoughts, ideas).
[Horse]
I disagree. Intellectual patterns constitute the Intellectual level. As
static patterns of value this is the only place where they fit in within
the MoQ.They are constituents of the same thing - Intellect. Thoughts
and ideas are intellectual patterns that are within the Intellectual
level. This also appears to be how Pirsig sees the situation. In
annotation 136 of Lila's Child he says:
"...an imprisoned criminal is no longer a threat to society and it
becomes arguably immoral to kill him because he is still capable of
thought."
[Platt]
No doubt in some instances Pirsig considers" thought" to be the intellectual
level. But, in other instances he considers the intellectual level to be the
subject-object understanding.
I think that Pirsig sees the subject-object point of view as the
dominant pattern of the Intellectual level, at different times referring
to it as a metaphysical position and at other times as a way of thinking
about certain aspects of the division of static reality. That's entirely
reasonable as this is the way we are traditionally conditioned to
perceive reality. But he also considers the MoQ to explain this mode of
thinking as an opposing pattern. I can't find anywhere that he makes a
case for either a metaphysical (SOM) or thought related (subject-object
thinking) position as being the only patterns within the Intellectual
level in the same way that he doesn't limit the other levels to a single
type of value pattern. There are inorganic, biological or social
patterns that are dominant at certain times and certain contexts but
this doesn't mean to say that each level is composed exclusively of one
particular type of pattern.
In a different thread (AI thread) you referred to a number of different
Social patterns - religion, government, armies etc. - and you could also
include cities, nations, families, tribes and whole bunch of other
social patterns. Can you pick one and say that IT is the social level?
They all occupy a niche within the social level, sometimes one will
contain others and you can use several simultaneously to describe other
patterns and groups of patterns. Nations contain cities and states and
towns and villages but a nation isn't just these patterns. Similarly,
cities contain boroughs and families live within these boroughs - all
social patterns co-existing at the social level. You can also have a
social identity within these social patterns. I'm a Londoner, English,
British and European simultaneously without any conflict whatsoever.
By limiting a level to a single pattern type you destroy the
possibilities and the richness that varied pattern types bring to that
level. Why limit intellectual patterns to a single instance and limit
yourself to a single point of view. It's like limiting a symphony to a
single note or a painting to a single colour or a language to a single
word. Yuck!
There's the rub. What I don't comprehend (and what you may be able to clarify
for me) is how the MOQ as a static intellectual pattern can include itself in
its own intellectual level, i.e., the problem of a smaller container trying to
contain a larger one.
Andre beat me to the dictionary parallel in an earlier post and I think
this gives an excellent instance of how a definitional system can
contain itself without conflict. A dictionary defines words and a
metaphysics defines concepts so a system of definition, which is what a
metaphysics is, can reference itself without any problem whatsoever as
long as you understand that it is a reference to and not an instance of
- i.e. neither SOM or MoQ are instances of reality they are references
to reality. Or you could maybe think as it as a recursive process.
Recursion within language does this all the time and provides the scope
for a, literally, infinitely variable set of sentences. Where's the problem?
I.e. social patterns should not destroy (a source of) intellectual
patterns. I haven't used the full quote as I am only showing what is
necessary for the immediate purposes of what we are discussing and would
prefer to leave any political implications alone for the moment.
Also in annotation 111 he says:
"Objects are biological patterns and inorganic patterns, not thoughts or
social patterns."
here contrasting Objects (biological patterns and inorganic patterns)
with Subjects (intellectual patterns [thoughts] and social patterns).
There are other instances where Pirsig makes similar references - can
you show me some where Pirsig makes any claim that is not in accordance
with this - i.e. that thoughts, concepts, ideas, intellect etc. are not
intellectual patterns and thus part of the intellectual level.
[Platt]
I can show you where Pirsig associates the intellectual level with
scientific subject-object understanding:
"The INTELLECTUAL LEVEL of patterns, in the historic process of
freeing itself from its parent social level, namely the church, has invented
a myth of independence from the social level for its own benefit. Science
and reason, the myth goes, comes only from the objective world, never
from the social world. (Lila 12)
"What had happened since the end of World War I was that this
INTELLECTUAL LEVEL had entered the picture and had taken over
everything. It was this INTELLECTUAL LEVEL that was screwing
everything up." (Lila, 24)
"Today we are living in an intellectual and technological paradise and a
moral and social nightmare because the INTELLECTUAL LEVEL of
evolution in its struggle to become free of the social level has ignored the
social level's role in keeping the biological level under control." (Lila, 24)
Not only does PIrsig directly tie SOM to the intellectual level in these
passages but in doing so continues the critique of reason, intellect and
intellectualism that he laid out so clearly and passionately in ZAMM. For
example:
"That's probably why he felt such a deep kinship with so many failing
students in the back rows of his classroom. The contemptuous looks on
their faces reflected the same feelings he had toward the whole rational
intellectual process.". .
My interpretation of the above quotes would be that a subject object
metaphysics or a subject object way of thinking, AS THE DOMINANT PATTERN
WITHIN THE INTELLECTUAL LEVEL, has caused the problems described above.
Pirsig ties the problem to the dominance of this pattern of values
within the level and not to the pattern of values being the entirety of
the level itself.
Take another example. Microsoft is the dominant operating system for
home computers. Home computers access the internet. The spread of
viruses, spam and general malware is caused mainly by poor security of
Microsoft operating systems which causes problems for everyone accessing
the internet. This doesn't mean that Microsoft is the only operating
system for home computers - or that we'd want it to be. Dominance
doesn't equate to exclusivity.
Alternatively, please show how and where thoughts, concepts, ideas,
intellect etc. (all static patterns) fit within another static level.
[Platt]
The thoughts, ideas, concepts of religion, for example, arguably fit in the
social level.
Disagree. The practices and rituals of religion are social patterns and
fit within the social level not the intellectual patterns of thoughts
ideas and concepts which give rise to them.
Similarly, thoughts, ideas, concepts comprising Victorian
social moral codes fit in the social level.
Thoughts ideas and concepts (intellectual patterns) are references to
social moral codes not instances of social moral codes (social patterns).
Before the intellectual level "took over everything,"
became the dominant pattern
there was plenty of thinking going on, all the way back to the first human
tribes. In fact, up to the time of Greeks, most thinking was social level
thinking,
Intellectual patterns of value in the service of social patterns of
value as Pirsig said (I think he said it anyway and if he didn't then he
should have!).
and there's a lot of that sort of thinking going on today.
Sure is - that's what the MoQ is trying to correct.
Pirsig made this distinction himself when he said the original purpose of thinking was to
"help a society find food, detect danger, and defeat enemies." For me, it makes
sense to put such thinking in the social level.
Thinking (the intellectual level) developed from the social level in
order to give societies a better tool with which to perpetuate their
existence. In the same way, social patterns developed from the
biological level in order to give humans a better way to perpetuate
their existence. Does it make sense to put cities, nations and other
social patterns in the biological level? This collapses the entire MoQ
in upon itself.
Intellectual patterns of value is a broad concept that includes all sorts of
ideas other than SOM that were used to find food, detect danger and defeat
enemies, most of them having to with the activities of various Gods and spirits.
[Horse]
But still thoughts, concepts, ideas, intellect etc. and thus part of an
Intellectual level. Where else would they fit?
[Platt]
See above.
Ditto.
So intellectual (thought) patterns certainly did exist prior to SOM which
wasn't a prominent concept until the ancient Greeks came up with
the idea.
[Horse]
Precisely. The Intellectual level was in existence prior to SOM. SOM was
a new pattern of values that came into existence through intellectual
processes. It was also of higher value than previous intellectual
patterns but those other intellectual patterns did not cease to exist or
become social patterns. Other intellectual patterns came along later and
are competing for "space" within the Intellectual level. SOM is a
dominating or dominant pattern within the intellectual level but not the
only one.
[Platt]
Perhaps this where we can find agreement
Woohoo - it could happen some time Platt :)
-- SOM as the dominant
pattern of the intellectual level. I want to ponder that some more. I
wonder, for example, where does "mystic understanding" fit in the levels?
Hmmm. Not sure. I'd also have to think more about that. This post is
getting pretty long already! Sorry about that.
Seems to me we understand some things (have ideas, thoughts about)
that we can't prove "intellectually," like the truth of Godel's Theorem.
Also, where does the idea of beauty fit? I disagree with Pirsig's claim that
nothing gets left out of his static levels. Even he seems to have doubts
when he imagines a Code of Art or something similar.
In terms of Art (in the broad sense) we come at this from different
angles so it could be useful to see if they coincide at some point. I
can feel a few clichés coming on but hopefully they won't sound too
pretentious and you'll get the gist of what I'm saying.
You're a painter, I'm a musician. Let's say for arguments sake, at the
moment, that Art is a means of approaching Dynamic Quality - sneaking up
on it if you will. You start off with some ideas and get into the
process of painting or playing. When we continue to practice our
respective activities we become "lost in the moment". Time pretty much
disappears and the painting or music becomes the whole world for a brief
moment. But we don't stop thinking completely because we still need to
do what we're doing in order to maintain that moment. It doesn't
actually seem to be thinking or acting in the same way though - and it's
not quite an automated process either. Killing the intellectual patterns
isn't quite right because we'll need them again when we emerge, so it's
more like putting them to sleep for the duration of the moment. Making
them dormant or at least reducing their importance. Then at some
point.... POW....and we're back to reality with a bit of a shock. That's
the initial part of it anyway. You have shapes and colours on your
canvas and I have recorded sounds on disc. We take a look or listen at
them, think about them a bit...is this bit right, is that bit right, a
bit more of this here or there and you're off again - back into wherever
it was you were - back to "the moment". That's how it feels to me anyway
but it's a very difficult state to describe, and where words and
explanations generally fail dismally.
Is beauty when you're "in the moment" or is it when you examine the
results? Or neither? Or both? Hmmm.
From Lila:
"First, there were moral codes that established the supremacy of
biological life over inanimate nature. Second, there were moral codes
that established the supremacy of the social order over biological
life—conventional morals—proscriptions against drugs, murder, adultery,
theft and the like. Third, there were moral codes that established the
supremacy of the intellectual order over the social order—democracy,
trial by jury, freedom of speech, freedom of the press. Finally there’s
a fourth Dynamic morality which isn’t a code. He supposed you could call
it a “code of Art” or something like that, but art is usually thought of
as such a frill that that
title undercuts its importance."
This code of art could be the link between what we are doing (thinking
about painting/playing) and the what we're experiencing ("the moment").
The experience (the moment) certainly seems to trump the intellect which
is maybe what Pirsig appears to be getting at.
Perhaps this also relates to "mystic understanding" mentioned above in
that it is the understanding/knowing that you have after this particular
experience.
I'll stop there for now but would love to hear what you think - if the
above makes any sense whatsoever!
As for your final question, SOM didn't create the intellectual level. A man named Pirsig
did. Before him there was no "intellectual level" as such.
[Horse]
Not as such, I agree - but what Pirsig did was to create a metaphysics
centred on Quality and expand on other intellectual patterns and create
new ones. Effectively, he renamed, reconfigured and added to existing
patterns of value by creating a new way of looking at how we classify
the results of experience. That's what a metaphysics is, isn't it? Or at
least one way of looking at it. Either way, a metaphysics is still a
static pattern of intellectual values - regardless of what it refers to.
[Platt]
Yes, we agree. A metaphysics is a static intellectual pattern. But for the
MOQ there is the problem of a smaller container trying to contain a larger
one. And, for a full understanding the MOQ, is intellect alone enough,
especially since the indefinable aspect off Quality plays such a central
role? I don't think so, but I could be wrong.
Personally, I would have said that to understand the metaphysics aspect
of the MoQ, intellect is sufficient. To understand the underlying
concept of Quality upon which it's built, all the intellect in the world
is insufficient. You have to experience it to know or understand it but
when you have experienced it you certainly do know it! Describing it in
terms of static patterns is something completely different - and
probably impossible. It's something you feel deep down. That's my take
on it anyway.
Finally, in ZAMM Pirsig speaks of the need to escape from the "prison of
intellect." I empathize with that need . . . which may influence my
understanding of the intellectual level. :-)
Maybe Art is the key here. It's what we use to escape from the prison of
intellect into the moment of beauty. It's certainly a fabulous place to
visit anyway, even if it is only for very brief 'time'. :)
Thanks again, Horse.
My pleasure Platt and I apologise again for the length of this post.
Cheers
Horse
--
"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines
or dates by which bills must be paid."
— Frank Zappa
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