[Arlo] Going to respond bottom-up, to begin with agreement. [Horse] Yes, if what I think you're saying is what you are saying!! ... So if by agency you mean that we are better able to respond to choice and that there is a greater variety of choice/agency among (f.ex.) intellectual patterns than social patterns or more choice/agency within social patterns than biological patterns then I agree.
[Arlo] Yes, this is what I was saying. One way of looking at the hierarchy is increasing degrees of freedom, which really means that higher levels are evidenced by offering a greater repertoire or potential to act than lower levels. But, I should emphasize, although patterns move towards greater "freedom", no level is without structure. Indeed, from within (most) agency/structure metaphors, the two are NOT opposed but mutually enabling. You cannot have "agency" (freedom) without "structure". [Horse] I would disagree with you, to an extent, about the self not being an illusion but a pattern of value, as I'm still unconvinced that static patterns of value are not illusory. [Arlo] I am not sure the value of calling all patterns of value "illusions". At that point "illusion" doesn't have any meaning. Its like saying everything is purple. When we move from SOM towards a MOQ, we can drop things like "illusions" because the "illusion" is the subjective-objective perception that we are trying to overcome. Certainly there is no "autonomous self", THIS is the illusion. In other words, SOM thinking prompts the illusion that there is an autonomous self. That is the fallacy a MOQ seeks to overturn. The same way seeing, say, a "motorcycle" as an independent, existential "object" out-there is an "illusion" that SOM thinking leads to. But patterns of value are not illusions. They are not existential "things", to be sure, but they are pragmatic and empirical. To go back to ZMM, the bombs that exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki were certainly not "illusions" in a MOQ sense. They were very empirically and pragmatically "real", and still have an impact on experience. [Horse] ... as it is remembered that the self, within the MoQ, is illusory... [Arlo] Its the autonomy, or existential primacy of the self that is "illusory". I don't believe Pirsig would say the "self" is an illusion, but that the SOM formulation of the self is an illusion. The "self", like "rock", "motorcycle", "calculus", "wolf", etc. are all patterns of value, empirically, experientially, pragmatically "real". In fact, Horse, I am saying that "real" and "illusion" are themselves SOM concepts. Real/Illusion is really just another way of saying "Objective/Subjective". Within the MOQ, nothing is "real" in the sense that exists as some existential objective "thing", an "autonomous self", a "motorcycle", and nothing is an illusion in the sense that it is only some subjective, imaginary construct that we create independent of the "objective" world. So let's move from the "self" for a moment and to "motorcycle". Yes, the MOQ says that its an illusion that this "motorcycle" is some independent, existential "thing". But what is the pragmatic, experiential value of saying, from a MOQ perspective, that the motorcycle as a pattern of value is an "illusion"? Other than overcoming SOM thinking, how is my pragmatic, experiential activity improved by thinking the bike is an illusion? When I go get on it, and throttle the engine, and move through miles of road, its value is that it is precisely NOT an "illusion" but a predictable, stable pattern of value. 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
