David M said:
Yes water is static, ice is static but the change from one to another is
dynamic, and in a sense difficult to analyse, think Zeno here. And of course
this refers to SQ that we experience and SQ that we may wish to understand as
analysable as patterns that transcend experience, i.e. what we might want to
call objects.
dmb says:
Seems to me that you are misusing terms "static" and "Dynamic". Melting and
freezing are physical processes wherein the water changes states. But that's
not what "Dynamic" means in the MOQ. I think it's also a mistake to impose
physicalism upon "static patterns," as if that were just another name for the
pre-existing and external objects. Taken together, it seems pretty clear that
you're using the MOQ's jargon (static and dynamic) but still conceptualizing
everything in terms of SOM. Static patterns are conceptual, not material. There
are no Kantian things-in-themsleves in the MOQ, just as there is no
pre-existing objective reality. Or rather, these things of "substance" -
Kantian or scientific - are taken to be concepts rather than being
ontologically primary.
David M continued:
I guess I see subject-object analysis as a second order form of analysis,
making sense of science and history over and above MOQ, where MOQ is given the
priority of making sense of our experience prior to any analysis of reality in
terms of subjects and objects that looks at evolution outside of the context of
experience and in a sense subject-object analysis is theoretical and
non-empirical as it postulates things as transcending experience, i.e. the tree
in the forest can fall without anyone being there to experience it, and the
cosmos evolved before human beings were around to experience it too.
dmb says:
Whew! That might be the longest sentence ever posted in moq-discuss.
It's not entirely clear what you're saying but I think I get the basic thrust
of it. Pirsig says that the MOQ has no quarrel with science. He wants to expand
on its empirical basis and he wants DQ to be acknowledged as central to the
scientific process. Science is also quite compatible with the MOQ's pragmatic
theory of truth and that's what would allow us to adopt the basic assumptions
of science - "as if" they were true - while doing science, etc.. The MOQ does
not reject "subjects" and "objects" so long as they are taken as concepts and
not mistaken for primary realities. I think that's what Pirsig is saying in the
following three quotes:
"The MOQ does not deny the traditional scientific view of reality as composed
of material substance and independent of us. It says it is an extremely high
quality idea. We should follow it whenever it is practical to do so. But the
MOQ, like philosophic idealism, says this scientific view of reality is still
an idea. If it were not an idea, then that 'independent scientific material
reality' would not be able to change as new scientific discoveries come in."
[LILA'S CHILD, Annotation 4]
"The MOQ says that Quality comes first, which produces ideas, which produce
what we know as matter. The scientific community that has produced
Complementarity almost invariably presumes that matter comes first and produces
ideas. However, as if to further the confusion, the MOQ says that the idea
that matter comes first is a high quality idea!" [LILA'S CHILD, Annotation 67]
"It is important for an understanding of the MOQ to see that although 'common
sense' dictates that inorganic nature came first, actually 'common sense' which
is a set of ideas, has to come first. This 'common sense' is arrived at
through a huge web of socially approved evaluations of various alternatives.
The key term here is "evaluation," i.e., quality decisions. The fundamental
reality is not the common sense or the objects and laws approved of by common
sense but the approval itself and the quality that leads to it." [LILA'S CHILD,
Annotation 97]
Not sure exactly what you want with a "second order form of analysis" but
Pirsig does seem to provide plenty of room for something like that. I'm
thinking of the bits where he says, "the traditional scientific view of reality
...is an extremely high quality idea. We should follow it whenever it is
practical to do so" and "the MOQ says that the idea that matter comes first is
a high quality idea". "This 'common sense' is arrived at through a huge web of
socially approved evaluations of various alternatives. The key term here is
'evaluation,' i.e., quality decisions."
David M said:
Yes water and ice are concepts about physical states, but they are also
something we experience. For me our metaphysics, derived from experience,
should tie in with any theories we then go on to have about physical things or
physical states that transcend our experience (ever tried adding Kant to your
analysis DMB?).
dmb says:
Yea, I tried to throw some Kant into mix (above) but I still think it's a
mistake to be talking about "physical states that transcend our experience".
The MOQ says that "physical states" are concepts derived from experience. They
do not transcend experience but grow out of it and refer back to it.
David M said:
DMB your points always seem to me to narrow my proposals and thereby exclude
them whereas I am trying to broaden out the MOQ to make contact with wider
terms and approaches to show how the MOQ makes contact with them and helps to
illuminate them (I hope and feel). Maybe this reflects the difference between
someone wanting to analyse down and someone wanting to connect ideas.
dmb says:
I really don't see how it's about narrow and broad nor do I want to "analyze
down" or stop you from "connecting ideas".
As I see it, you are persisting in an error that I already tried to correct two
or three times. Instead of addressing the criticism, in fact, you have
basically repeated the same error. Remember where this started? It was your
praise of the McGilchrist quote, which, I had complained, "only undermines the
MOQ's central distinction" The problem is a "materialistic misinterpretation of
the static/Dynamic split, wherein metaphysical terms are inappropriately used
to describe physical states," I had said. "You can see this very common error
in David Morey's response to that quote".
David Morey said:
I love this quote. And it is when we experience changes like ice changing to
water then it becomes pretty clear what DQ is all about, and that water is more
dynamic than ice, and that is more static than water. ...
dmb says:
See, that's not very different from the claim you made at the top. ("Yes water
is static, ice is static but the change from one to another is dynamic,..")
You're just repeating the same mistake, aren't you? Pirsig says that Dynamic
Quality is the cutting of experience but you're using "dynamic" to describe a
knowable, definable, physical process. I still don't see how it could make any
sense to say that water (or melting or freezing) is the cutting edge of
experience or the primary empirical reality. Do you see what I'm complaining
about here? It's not something you've addressed, as far as I can tell, and the
error is being repeated. Don't the quotes help?
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