Hi DMB Many thanks for the below, I hope you realise this is a much better quality response, getting to grips with the real issues, well done, please see my comments below.
dmb says: Okay, so what we're talking about here is the status of "objects" in the MOQ. The way that Craig has framed the question is somewhat objectionable… DM: I agree, literally, too quick to consider objects… DMB:… so let's just stick with that neutral and unloaded version of the question. What is the status of "objects" in the MOQ? The short answer is that objects are "a complex pattern of static values derived from primary experience". DM: 100% agree DMB: Usually, this is where I like to quote Pirsig's description of radical empiricism, wherein subjects and objects are described as concepts derived from experience. DM: 100% agree DMB: Maybe it needs to be pointed out that a rock is an object and so, yes, the MOQ would say rocks are concepts derived from experience.) Apparently, this is an ineffective answer because those who pose the question do not understand this answer. So let's take a look at a more detailed description of how concepts are derived.... DM: 100% agree, never written anything to make you think otherwise, you imagine I don't agree but I do when you express it correctly, rocks are complicated extractions from more primary experiences, you can only isolate a pattern like a rock by pulling it out of the wholeness of your moment to moment experience. DMB: “If the baby ignores this force of Dynamic Quality [the flux of experience] it can be speculated that he will become mentally retarded, but if he is normally attentive to Dynamic Quality he will soon begin to notice differences and then correlations between the differences and then repetitive patterns of the correlations." DM: Great quote, so repetitive patterns are noticed by babies, now before we get to conceptual rocks, there are lower level percepts linkable into rocks, i.e. certain shapes, colours, textures. Now this is a baby, is it reasonable to see babies as using concepts to do this? Do you associate concepts only with language and culture, or do you see babies as doing something conceptual? DMB: "But it is not until the baby is several months old that he will begin to really understand enough about that enormously complex correlation of sensations and boundaries and desires called an object to be able to reach for one. This object will not be a primary experience. It will be a complex pattern of static values derived from primary experience. Once the baby has made a complex pattern of values called an OBJECT and found this pattern to work well he quickly develops a skill and speed at jumping through the chain of deductions that produced it, as though it were a single jump…in a very short time it becomes so swift one doesn’t even think about it….only when an “OBJECT” turns out to be an illusion is one forced to become aware of the deductive process” …In this way static patterns of value become the universe of distinguishable things. Elementary static distinctions between such entities as “before” and “after” and between “like” and “unlike” grow into enormously complex patterns of knowledge that are transmitted from generation to generation as the mythos, the culture in which we live.” (Lila p.119, chapter 9, just past the first use of the hot stove example) DM: See here Pirsig is clearly jumping on to full blown cultural achievements, no disagreement here, just seeking clarity about pre-cultural experiences such as percepts, how does MOQ want to describe these, are they patterns? Are they pre-preconceptual, proto-conceptual or actually conceptual in some sense, or are percepts DQ and whilst being something on which patterns and concepts can be based, they remain so elusive none of these qualities form part of percepts or perceptions? Do you say percepts are undefinable, are mere smells, shapes, colours not to be seen as patterns, not until they are used to create something higher level like a rock? dmb resumes: Here we see good description of the relation between objects and the primary empirical reality from which they are derived. DM: So taking this divide are percepts SQ or primary DQ experiences? DMB: The objects reached for are not primary realities but they are derived from and agree with that complex bundle of "sensations and boundaries and desires". They are derived from the "force of Dynamic Quality", from the "flow of perceptions". Since the two main categories in the MOQ are concepts (sq) and reality (DQ), I think this is a fairly important point. I think it's especially important for Marsha and DM to look at this very carefully because is it a crucial aspect of the MOQ's radical empiricism. DM: Looks like percepts are DQ for you, DQ is reality, percepts are DQ, therefore percepts are reality. Great, now my proposal is that we then accept that percepts contain regularities and patterns, can we not measure percepts, is that not what science does? This is why MOQ can embrace science and realism but reject SOM, sure rocks and suns and elements are complex concepts we can revise and rethink such ideas, but the whiteness of the moon is a percept on which we can all agree, so if we measure the moon, where the whiteness begins and ends that is easy to do, easy to agree about, and explains how evidence and agreement is possible and so successful in science, further away you get from percepts, concepts like budget deficits, the harder agreement gets. I think I realise something here that you are not getting or thinking carefully enough about, I am very well versed in the history of science, and I think the patterns and regularities we find in experience, the evidence of our eyes and experience we call all agree on, before we use any concepts, especially SOM concepts, is crucial to empiricism and science, that is why I think pre-conceptual patterns and regularities in experience are a very useful quality to recognise and save MOQ from idealism or anti-realism. Pre-conceptual patterns and regularities or percepts are the best way to avoid SOM because SOM is a full blown conceptual system, there is nothing in primary experience to make us adopt SOM concepts, if you banish regularity and pattern from primary experience then all regularity and pattern is a cultural achievement dependent on concepts and therefore open to revision and dispute, this opens MOQ to all the problems of the worst aspects of post-modernism, my suggestion avoids this, think carefully and consider what we lose if we just say percepts are patternless DQ? Try and understand what I am saying, this is crucial for the future of MOQ, you may want to reject my proposal, but I hope you understand what the issues and implications really are, and do not simply reject it because it does not fit with your past assumptions. DMB: And this has all the realism you can eat, but without falling back into a metaphysics of substance or physicalism or scientific objectivity. DM: yes please, let's keep realism “The Metaphysics of Quality agrees with scientific realism that these inorganic patterns are completely real, ...but it says that this reality is ultimately a deduction made in the first months of an infant's life and supported by the culture in which the infant grows up.” SODV DM: Is this OK? Sure DQ and percepts are real, even optical illusions are real, they are real experiences, but what is the status of patterns above percepts, where concepts are used to pick out and make certain objects? This is more complex regarding objects like money or borders or who is a foreigner? Interpretation, is it all the way down, or only down to percepts? What is your view about these complex levels of experience? Takes us to the SOM problems at the heart of the debate about the value of science versus the humanities, the fight against scientism and reductionism. 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