Hi DMB
Let me try this: in my view what SOM calls
mind/consciousness/agency/subjectivity
sits at the high end of the SQ levels, at this level SQ is more complex but
also
more open and therefore 'shines' more brightly with DQ. What SOM calls
matter is further down the levels, is thick with SQ and 'shines' very little
with DQ, making it easy to fall into pure physicalism and materialism.
Interestingly below the molecular level of thick SQ matter, you get the
more free and open levels of particles and waves, so that DQ 'shines'
more brightly in the dynamic and free behaviours they exhibit. Now
DQ is not easy to talk about or describe, we come at it with metaphors.
DQ loves to hide. Is not the problem with SOM is that it so forgets DQ.
Does not SOM often sound like it is obsessed with SQ, pattern, laws,
matter? -forgetting all SQ. Now seems to me you want to say look
at experience right and you have to acknowledge the DQ. Great
I agree with that but I want to add look at all the levels of SQ and how
they have evolved, changed, become and be-gone. To me the play of
SQ reflects DQ, so that all SQ is subject to change, overcoming,
renewing and original emergence. To me the plurality and openness
of the cosmos as a whole reflects the plurality and openness that we
find in experience. There is a cosmos as a whole that transcends our
individual experience, sometimes you sound like experience is
limited to a single self, whereas it clearly opens out onto a world
and a plurality of others. This is how the MOQ of experience relates
to the wider whole of the cosmos in process.
all the best
David M
-----Original Message-----
From: david buchanan
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2013 10:41 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [MD] DQ/sq as WATER/ice
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?
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
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
