Hi Dan,
Dan comments:
> I offer this rather long quote in an effort to explain how I felt when you
> suggested I am saying that Robert Pirsig is "buttering up" the readers. I
> think it is as insulting being told I am pandering to my readers by making
> an effort to better my writings by offering them a firm grounding in the
> background of my stories. You are basically saying by writing down to a
> reader an artful author is pandering to them. I disagree.
>
I'm obviously missing your point somewhere. Perhaps because I'm not the
artful author in this discussion. I've read and re-read what you said but
I just don't see why you think Pirsig is just offering a "grounding" for
the MOQ when he talks about inorganic and biological patterns evolving
billions of years ago. *
I would say that in LILA the grounding in the background of his metaphysics
is done by the account of the aborted anthropological thesis on Native vs
European American values. He uses this account to expose the problem of
trying to understand cultural values within the subject-object metaphysical
framework, setting the scene for the solution offered by the MOQ which
starts in Chapter 8 with the relocation of value as the leading edge of all
experience. As I read it,
**
Chapters 8 and 9 reiterate context (1) with Chapter 9 introducing the basic
metaphysical division which underpins both contexts and starting the
value-centered reconstruction of the mythos presented in context (2).
**In Chapter 11 we are well into the high level exposition of context (2).
The quote I offered about the evolutionary process which gets us from
inorganic patterns billions of years ago to chemistry professors today is
part and parcel of context (2), not an exposition of subject-object
metaphysics for any purpose, although clearly it shares some assumptions
with materialism, if that's all you mean? I found a quote from Pirsig which
neatly sums up my two contexts:*
*"When we speak of an external world guided by evolution it's normal to
assume that it is really there, is independent of us and is the cause of
us. The MOQ goes along with this assumption because experience has shown it
to be an extremely high quality belief for our time. [This is what I call
context (2)] But unlike materialist metaphysics, the MOQ does not forget
that it is still just a belief - quite different from beliefs in the past,
from beliefs of other present cultures, and possibly from beliefs we will
all have in the future. What will decide which belief prevails is, of
course, its quality. [And this is context (1)]"*
> > Dan:
> > > Are you equating the MOQ with reality in context 1? That is how I read
> > it.
> > >
> >
> > The short answer is no, but perhaps not for the reason you may think. I
> > suggest we have to intellectually subordinate EVERYTHING to value,
> > including reality, so that we immediately avoid the Parmenidean/Platonic
> > split between Reality and Appearance, Truth and Opinion. What I mean is
> > that we shouldn't start with a notion of a Reality and try to find
> > something that fulfills its role. This, I suggest, is the enormous
> problem
> > created by the Ancient Greeks, not so much the candidates they came up
> > with. If we do this inversion, reality becomes a term for that which is
> of
> > the highest quality. So the question "Is the MOQ reality?" becomes "Is
> the
> > MOQ of the highest quality?" This is a more useful question, I think.
> >
>
> Dan:
> Interesting. By asking if the MOQ is of the highest quality then it would
> appear (to me) that we are in effect asking whether there can be nothing
> better than the MOQ. I am pretty sure that something better will one day
> emerge.
>
Agreed, perhaps if I'd said "highest quality right now, in the current
circumstances," it would have been better.
>
> What I see you saying is that the MOQ begins with human experience. Well,
> actually that is exactly what you say. Now, it may be that I am
> misinterpreting your words but the MOQ is not so grandiose as to claim it
> begins with experience. Yes, the MOQ is a collection of intellectual
> quality patterns seeking to explain reality in a more expansive way than
> does our current prevailing mythos.
>
We're going round in circles now but this is effectively context (1), yes.
>
> Rather, I would say intellectual quality patterns emerge from Dynamic
> Quality. For me, it works better to think of experience and Dynamic Quality
> as becoming synonymous. It appears this statement bothers you (among others
> here) a bit though I have yet to discern why.
>
OK, I've explained why the statement bothers me and how I interpret
Pirsig's use of it in the dialogue from which you have taken it. Happy to
answer more questions, should you have any.
> I know that a more conventional MOQ answer would be that Dynamic Quality
> is
> > reality and the MOQ is a static pattern so is not equivalent to reality
> and
> > I think that's a good enough answer in most cases but can't help feeling
> it
> > puts a little toe onto the Yellow Brick Road back to Athens....
> >
>
> Dan:
> I hesitate to say Dynamic Quality "is" anything. We may say what 'it' is
> not and we may use analogies and synonyms to intellectually illuminate what
> we are on about when we say 'Dynamic Quality' but to say 'it' is reality,
> or this, or that, is to fall further into a trap of naming the unnameable.
>
I tend to agree, and in this case particularly it elevates the notion of
Reality to the top of the intellectual hierarchy, which is the troublesome
move started by Parmenides.
> Simpler perhaps, but both positions are true in different contexts.
> > Certainly I suggest it is simpler to assume that inorganic patterns came
> > first within an evolving universe of static patterns when reading LILA
> from
> > Ch 11 onwards. The whole basis of morality collapses without that
> > assumption.
> >
>
> Dan:
> How so? In fact, I think that a world of inorganic patterns waiting for our
> intellectual discovery dissolves any notion that the world is a moral
> order. These inorganic patterns have nothing to do with morality. They are
> rock and stone, mineral and bone. It appears to me that the only way a
> moral hierarchy works in the MOQ is to recognize that these inorganic
> patterns begin as ideas, not old patterns scattered about like fossils.
>
Again, in context (2) inorganic patterns, rocks, stones etc. just ARE
patterns of morality - [the MOQ]* says that even at the most fundamental
level of the universe, static patterns of value and moral judgment are
identical. The 'Laws of Nature' are moral laws [LILA Ch 12] - *and are
there because of the cosmological evolution of atoms towards betterness.
Please demonstrate how anything Pirsig has said leads to the conclusion
that inorganic patterns of value have nothing to do with morality.
Another quote from Pirsig may help you accept what I'm saying about the
basis of morality in the MOQ:
*"If cosmological evolution does not exist then the ordering of the four
static levels in the MOQ would cease to be a viable basis for a moral
framework."*
> > Dan:
> > > I actually hoped for better from you, Paul. Where does the nonsense
> creep
> > > into what I wrote?
> > >
> > > No, I do not think there is any "buttering up" going on. As I said, I
> > think
> > > in introducing a more expanded way of viewing reality--the MOQ--that it
> > is
> > > necessary to start with a common sense approach. If you see that as
> > > buttering up the reader, then I doubt we will ever find any common
> ground
> > > here. It almost seems as if you are looking for reasons to insult me.
> > >
> >
> > Sorry if it came across as an insult. I'll start again. You seem to be
> > saying that Pirsig only talks about evolution predating human experience
> > because it's common sense, only to then dismiss common sense as really
> > untrue. It's like you think he says, "yes, it's common sense but
> actually
> > it's wrong, ideas came first, end of story." That's not expanding common
> > sense understanding, it's denying it. In my reading he is saying it's
> > common sense because it *has value* so we should believe it.
> >
>
> Dan:
> When I get up in the night and stumble to the bathroom and in the dark stub
> my toe on a chair I inadvertently left sitting in the middle of the room, I
> am quite sure that the patterns of that chair are separate and apart from
> my aching toe.
>
> However, that idea arises from the experience which as it unfolds is a
> mystery. At the moment I stub my toe it is like the person sitting upon a
> hot stove. The pain and the curses come after the experience. The pattern
> that I name 'chair' did not cause the pain I feel in my toe. Rather, the
> pain emerges from the experience of toe upon chair, and only as an
> afterthought.
> It isn't wrong to think the chair caused the pain in my toe and thinking
> otherwise does nothing to mediate the pain that I feel. Neither is thinking
> because something is common sense that it is wrong. The map analogy might
> help here. A polar map isn't wrong but it is not a common sense way of
> viewing a map.
>
Thanks for taking the time to write this variation on the hot stove example
but I don't see the relevance to the point I was making.
Beginning a metaphysics by grounding it in a common sense everyday world is
> a brilliant move, in my opinion. If you are at all familiar with story
> telling most good authors start from the everyday world. By using this as a
> foundation it is easier to lead the diligent readers into the suspension of
> disbelief sometimes necessary to understand the story.
>
> Same thing in Lila. In order to follow the MOQ it behooves the reader to
> suspend their belief in the culturally accepted mythos that is the
> subject/object metaphysics. If the author were to say, look, there are no
> objects in reality. There are only patterns of value. We'd laugh and say,
> sure, buddy, sure. That stupid pattern I stubbed my toe on sure hurts
> though.
>
I'm sorry Dan, I can see you're trying to teach me something about good
writing (and maybe good reading) but I'm really failing to see the
relevance of all of this to our discussion, unless you are just saying that
he starts with the evolution of static patterns from inorganic beginnings
because it includes assumptions shared by materialism, which is the basis
of Western common sense. Even then, I still say that he has already laid
out the trickier part of the MOQ, i.e., that value creates everything,
earlier in the book and that he gets into evolution early because it is a
foundational part of context (2) not because it is the easiest part for the
reader to relate to.
> OK, but the *emergence of static patterns from Dynamic Quality* should be
> > described if we are to get into the metaphysics of value at all. I think
> > "experience" is a good word for that emergence. The Buddhists call it
> > "dependent origination" but this puts a further burden on the Western
> > reader.
> >
>
> Dan:
> Why doesn't emergence of static patterns from experience work better within
> the context of the MOQ? I understand there are many here who insist on
> using qualifiers like 'direct' and 'pure' to describe experience but I
> think it unnecessarily complicates an already complex metaphysics when we
> begin breaking up 'experience' into all these different terms.
>
I'm not breaking it up, I am using it in a way which relates it to the two
terms created by the basic metaphysical division of the MOQ.
>
>
> >
> >
> > > > > If on the other hand "experience is limited to the emergence of
> > > > > intellectual patterns
> > > > > which contain “every last bit” of the world" then context 1 seems
> to
> > > > refer
> > > > > to an individual (subject) defining the world (object).
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > I don't follow this argument. In context (1) both the individual and
> > the
> > > > object are intellectual patterns emerging from Dynamic Quality which
> is
> > > > neither.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > Dan:
> > > "experience (subject) is limited to the emergence of intellectual
> > patterns
> > > which contain “every last bit” of the world (object)"
> > >
> >
> > "Experience is limited to the emergence of intellectual patterns which
> > contain "every last bit" of the world (including subjects and objects)"
> >
>
> Dan:
> Who is experiencing what?
>
The "who" and the "what" are both contained in the emerging static
patterns, i.e. they are both created by experience, so don't have the
relationship your question assumes.
>
>
> >
> >
> > > > In context (1), it is stated that the mythos has, in fact, always
> been
> > > > created and sustained by value.
> > >
> > >
> > > Dan:
> > > Then why the prevalence of subject/object metaphysics?
> > >
> >
> > Because of its value.
> >
>
> Dan:
> But a subject/object metaphysics denies value.
>
Actually I would say it doesn't, it just says it is subjective. But that's
irrelevant to the point which is that ALL beliefs are held because of their
value, even the belief that value is subjective.
> > > Context (2) is working out what the mythos
> > > > would consist of if it was based on the assumption that everything in
> > it
> > > > was actually patterns of value.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Dan:
> > > Yet you seem to be backtracking with your context 2 rather than
> expanding
> > > rationality.
> > >
> >
> > How so?
> >
>
> Dan:
> Well, context 1 seems to say the world is composed of value.
Not quite, context (1) says the discernment of experience into things,
properties and relationships (the creation of the mythos) is done on the
basis of value. Context (2) says that the things discerned are themselves
best understood as patterns of value, arranged on an evolutionary basis
into a conflicting hierarchy, the conflicts of which form the basis of
moral orders.
Dan:
> How can we (intellectually) know that "in context (2) objects and organisms
> (as a name for inorganic patterns and biological patterns) exist
> independently and prior to human experience." Isn't this a high quality
> assumption?
>
As opposed to what?
RMP:
>
> Anders is slipping into the materialist assumption that there is a huge
> world out there that has nothing to do with people. The MOQ says that is a
> high quality assumption, within limits. One of its limits is that without
> humans to make it that assumption cannot be made. It is a human specific
> assumption. Strictly speaking, Anders has never heard of or ever will hear
> of anything that isn’t human specific. [Lila's Child]
>
> Dan comments:
>
> It appears to me that the MOQ begins with experience and to postulate
> non-human experience is a materialistic assumption which works within
> limits.
Yes, and the limits within which it works is what I call context (2).
> To add qualifiers like 'human' and 'non-human' to the term
> 'experience' seems to complicate matters more than to simplify.
>
I made the qualification to highlight the implicit assumption you were
making that all experience is human.
> Is your pure empiricism still intact
> > here?
>
>
> Dan:
> Again it isn't my pure empiricism.
>
OK, I meant "is your presentation of pure empiricism, with its implicit
necessity of humans, still intact?"
Dan:
> How is this ("that inorganic and biological patterns exist (i.e. emerge
> from Dynamic Quality) before humans and continue to exist independently of
> us," not a high quality assumption beyond verification?
>
It is a high quality assumption but, again, as opposed to what? What form
of verification is it beyond?
Paul
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