John, On Mon, May 19, 2014 at 1:49 PM, John Carl <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Dan, > > It's been a busy weekend, getting the place cleaned up for guests for > Sarah's wedding.
Dan: A wedding! That's wonderful! I love weddings, as long as it isn't mine. :-) Congratulations! > > > > On Sat, May 17, 2014 at 6:14 PM, Dan Glover <[email protected]> wrote: > >> John, >> >> > >> > Jc: The object of artistic endeavor, can be anything from flower >> > -arranging to metaphysics, of course. But the endeavor of artistry is >> > different than other endeavors, including approaching things >> > intellectually. But to make the useful distinction clearer, intellect >> > can be done artfully but art can't really be done intellectually, unless >> > you want to bend the definition of intellectually to fit your own private >> > space - but isn''t doing so (estoricism) counter-productive? >> >> Dan: >> I suggest you endeavor to artfully write a book without doing it >> intellectually and then get back with me on this. >> >> > Jc: writing without intellect is certainly doable. I don't think it would > be valuable but anti-intellectualism is definitely a movement with a strong > following but I despise it all and would rather not discuss it. Dan: Well, I've read some people who say Kerouac wrote his On The Road in a sort of fever pitch stream of conscious style but I found out later that he'd been working on the manuscript for some time before he actually wrote it, intellectualizing it, so to speak. I have read some manuscripts written seemingly without intellect. They are garbage. What is the sense of writing something that no one else understands? Even books like Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake are intellectual excises even if they boggle the mind. >John: > As for me writing anything, artfully or otherwise... I don't know. I can't > give it much thought right now. Dan: You gotta make the time. Don't think about it. Don't plan on doing it later. Just make the time and do it. > >>> Dan: >>> Craftsmanship can be an artistic endeavor. >>> >> >> Jc: On a relative scale, art is dynamic and craftsmanship is static. If >> you approach your craft, too dynamically, you'll end up with something > that >> doesn't function. Craftsmanship can be done artfully, like intellect, but >> it's not the same thing. > > Dan: >> So you're saying the title to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle >> Maintenance is wrong too? >> >> > Jc: No, because looking at mechanics artfully, is a good thing to do, a > freeing exercize. But erasing the distinction between art and mechanics > completely would be low-quality because there is a different attitude we > bring to mechanical problems. If you thought the carbs would look better > on the exhaust manifold, for instance, because of an artistic urge for > aesthetic quality ... > > Maybe I'm looking at it wrongly. This is the way "I" do things and my > concepts are based upon my experience. Or do you think the MoQ obviates > individuals? It seems we may have wrangled over this in the past, but I'm > not sure I remember our conclusion. Dan: No, I do not think the MOQ obviates the individual. Experience is as individual as you get. Let me put it this way: I remember you talking about a man who built a mirror so that anyone looking into the mirror could see themselves exactly like everyone else saw them. I objected. If we understand what the MOQ is telling us, we are made up of all four levels of quality. Each of us has evolved a different history over the course of our lives. When we look at someone--anyone, even our own self--we use that personal history to make an intellectual and social (cultural) judgement on what our sense perceptions are telling us. Phaedrus talks about the green flash of the sun in Lila and how he had never seen it until he read a book that basically told him: hey, look up into the sky and see it! Same thing here. What we see, what we hear, taste, smell, and touch are all mediated by our past experiences, our collection of patterns of value built up over a life time. > > > >> > >> > >> > >> >> > John: >> >> > Is following a blueprint the same as creating a blueprint? >> >> >> >> Dan: >> >> Both can be artistic endeavors. >> >> >> >> > John: >> >> > Is a >> >> > chinese craftsman copying the Mona Lisa, brush stroke for brush >> stroke, >> >> > himself as artistic as Leonardo DaVinci? I don't think so. >> >> >> >> Dan: >> >> If I copy Hemingway word for word, am I the artist that Hemingway was? >> >> Of course not. >> >> >> >> >> > Jc: what we call craftsmanship, is not somebody reading a blueprint or >> > following written instructions - but they are following a pre-determined >> > pattern for a long time so that its internalized. Their craft is defined >> > by their perfect lines with everything fitting so its exactly like the >> > things made before it and the things made after it. Machines are capable >> > of craft, but only humans do real art. >> >> Dan: >> I don't think machines are capable of craftsMANship. If there is no >> art or craftsmanship to reading blueprints or following instructions, >> you seem to be implying anyone can do it. I disagree. Like anything >> else, there is a certain skill set involved, acquired over time, and >> expanded upon with experience. >> >> > Jc: What I mean is, that craftsmanship is relatively static - it comes > from lots of repetitious practice and its constrained to defined outlines > and specifications. Perfect craftsmanship implies an absence of the human > - a robotic perfection almost, that is different in my experience, than art > which is freed from all that external restraint, and comes from a vision > within. Dan: I always enjoyed watching Little House on the Prairie. I know, it's hokey. And since I haven't had a tv for like a hundred years it's one of those shows I remember watching in the prehistoric days when I did watch it. Anyway, Charles is a handy guy. He starts making these beautifully handcrafted tables and everyone likes them so much he sets up shop in town and begins to manufacture them. Since he puts so much time and caring into each table, he has to ask a premium price for them. One day a well-dressed fellow walks into the shop and purchases a table. Not long afterwards, Charles customers start balking at the price he's asking and suddenly he cannot sell his tables. Walking by a store, he sees a table similar to his for sale at a fraction of the price he's asking. The man who bought his table copied it and by building them assembly-line style the price dropped dramatically. Is it the same table? No! It's cheap knock off. But no one cares. In a hundred years, which table will still be around? Charles table? Or the cheap knock off? >John: > And you can't say my reality, isn't the real reality because that would > break the rules of pragmatism AND the MoQ. Dan: We all have our own realities. That's why we don't always agree on quality. > >> >> >>> > John: >>> > I think Art is >>> > more tied to DQ and craftsmanship to SQ. >>> >>> Dan: >>> I think anything done with great peace of mind and caring is artistry. >>> >>> >> Jc: Sure, I've heard you can take a crap, artfully. But here I'm going > to >> attack that definition of "art". Even tho it's widely in use. >> >> I'm not talking about subjective experiences of artful endeavor the >> ubiquitous self-declared genius of the 20th century. I'm not talking > about >> objective artistry as in something that only resides in certain things > like >> paintings or sculptures. I'm talking about art as in meaningful and >> revolutionary. I'm talking about art as the closest we can get to DQ. > Zen >> isn't so much about practice, as breaking practice and art is thinking >> outside the box. Craftsmanship is making a perfect box. > > Dan: >> You seem to be going out of your way here to make some sort of point >> but I'm not sure what it is. You are throwing around "DQ" like it's >> some sort of goal or object of desire. I'll have to respectfully >> disagree and leave it like that. >> >> > > Jc: Ok, fine. But DQ, I think of in the aspect of "the dynamic". Change > fore the better, is a goal - an object-of-desire. Dan: Well, if I understand change for the better, we cannot always say what it is before hand, only after the fact. So in essence there is no goal. > >> Jc: Then why does MD have a hard time saying that the 4th should be >> helping the 3rd, rather than "competing with it"? You don't compete with >> your foundational support, you build it. > > Dan: >> I haven't talked to MD so I'm not sure how to answer you here. Lila >> specially states the four levels are often in opposition. Is that what >> you mean? >> >> > Jc: Yes, that is what I mean. I feel its been over-construed to indicate > inherent conflict - especially between the 4th and the 3rd. This seems > very wrong to me because properly, in a good world, 4th helps come up with > new social patterns and when you consider artistic trends as 4th level, as > I do, this is obviously true. Dan: I tend to think of art as caring. Take my writing, for example. I know most folk think I'm weird and they're right. I am. They would rather watch their television shows and have a good time talking about them to all the other people who watch them while I'm whiling away my time writing. Every once in a while I'll get a few dollars ahead and buy some copies of my books and hand them out to people I know... folk I work with, mostly. Sometimes they actually read them... not often, but that doesn't matter. Sometimes. Perhaps my words might influence them in some small way. Maybe they might see the world just for a few seconds in the way I see it. That to me is art. > >> >> >> Dan: >> >> I don't think I am conflating anything. It is the MOQ that states that >> >> the levels are often in opposition. I am pretty sure I already offered >> >> a quote to back up that assertion so I take it you believe it is the >> >> MOQ that conflates the old against the new. >> >> >> >> >> > Jc: yes, I reckon I do. I see a specific problem with the idea and I >> > don't often argue with the author, but I guess I am now. I agree his >> words >> > made sense at the time they were written, in the context of a story. But >> > Conflict, is not a story you want to continue into the future, ad >> > infinitum. The story of evolution does not point to one species, >> standing >> > on a dead earth with everything else killed because competition is the >> goal >> > of evolution. These ideas are all outmoded. >> >> Dan: >> So you're saying we as human beings have evolved so much during the >> last twenty some years that we are now at harmony not only with our >> fellow people but with all of nature. > > > Jc: No. I am saying that all those conflicts you mention are social in > origin and aspect. Nobody argues over the relevance of Kant, there. But > they do fight for wealth and celebrity and that their group, which favors > Ecology, beats the industrial social pattern which values ROI. I have a > heard time of even imagining the concept of "competition" between the > levels. Competition is a human term that doesn't work well in nature. > Lions don't compete with gazelles and gazelles aren't in competition when > they're running from a lion. They are just running. Dan: I don't know... if I'm a gazelle and a hungry lion is chasing me, I'm running for a reason. I may not be running from the lion but I'm running fast enough that I'm not the gazelle at the rear of the pack. That is competition. That is how evolution works. >John: > Second, society promotes and supports intellectual patterns, all the time. > In the form of universities and art museums and grants and love. Pirsig > had a hard time early on, with society but later on, he found fame and > fortune etc. So is it right to say that the nature of relationship between > social pattern and intellectual, competitive or conflicted? I disagree > with the MoQ, as understood by many. Fortunately I don't believe in a MoQ > of fixed or static nature. But the open-ness to Value, leaves room for > growth and improvement. Dan: Of course there is room for improvement. I am not arguing otherwise. However, society does not support intellectual patterns that seek to free us of restrictive social patterns. Quite the reverse. Look at the civil rights movement and how long and hard a fight it was and indeed is, as it is still ongoing. Look at the gay movement now, the fight for equal rights in marriage. The entrenched social patterns fight any perceived threat to their dominance. > > > Dan: > > > > >> There is no longer any conflict >> going on... indeed, conflict is outdated, Pirsig and Darwin be damned. >> I beg to differ. >> >> > Jc: Sure there's conflict. Always has been. Social conflict. The > simplest society is the web of patterns and relations that starts with just > two. Until two, you can't have a society. > > This is why I wonder if SOM isn't inextricably connected to social > interests - the powers that be which wish to keep the status quo - subjects > and objects as metaphysical fundaments yields absolute control. If so, its > not enough for the MoQ community to attack SOM intellectually. SEE? I do > have a point here. The MoQ community also has to act socially. > > That's my perspective anyway. Dan: I prefer to look at this from what I consider a more expanded point of view, one offered by the MOQ. The IDEA that gays should have the same right to marry as heterosexuals is a relatively new idea. It goes against the grain of established social patterns. This has nothing to do with subject and object metaphysics... it is about values. > > >>> >>> Dan: >>> I think that is short sighted. Children need to be under control >>> because they don't yet understand the dangers in the world. As >>> parents, we compete with biological urges of our children that we know >>> are not in their best interest. It happens all the time. >>> >>> >> >> Jc: I just can't buy they conflation of compete and control. It sounds >> like you'd have to use Freud to make your point, or some subtle >> psychological thing but I never competed with my kids biological urges. I >> directed them appropriately but all biological urges are rooted in real >> needs. They aren't to be repressed, or fought, or competed with. They > are >> to be directed and guided as socially useful. That's been my human >> experience and if you've had a different, then I'm sorry. > > Dan: > >> Apology accepted. >> >> > > Jc: Heh. Sorry is an ambiguous term with the possible meaning of regret > for your unfortunate circumstance. Dan: I know. :-) > > > > >> > >> >>> Dan: >> >>> To be in opposition to something does not imply war. Instead, look at >> >>> the higher levels as seeking to free the lower ones. >> >>> >> >>> >> >> Jc: I definitely see it as "freeing" but I can't see freeing as >> >> opposition. >> > >> > Dan: >> > >> >> We all have a comfort level where we tend to settle into. Unless >> >> something which opposes that comfort comes along and shakes us out of >> >> our complacency, we stagnate. >> >> >> >> >> > Jc: Anthropomorphising a particular psychological pattern onto all the >> > levels and eternal conflict with society does not seem an appropriate >> > move, imho. Let's just there is a tendency for all levels, to value >> > staticity. I agree. Much of that time, that's fine. But when a certain >> > point is reached, where life demands a change, those who attach TOO much >> > value to staticity, can't change without some harsh external force. But >> > not everybody is like that. Buddhists, for instance, learn to shun >> > attachment. :) >> >> Dan: >> Isn't that what I just said? >> > > Jc: Sure! You think every sentence I write is disagreement? I guess I > should have included the communicative emoticon for nodding my head up and > down. oops! :) Dan: Okay. Then we seem to agree that freedom relates to adverse circumstances. > >> Jc: I've come to believe that Robert Pirsig has greatly penetrated the >> academic and commercial world. Even tho he is very little understood. >> And the problems of SOM, are much bigger than merely intellectual. SOM is >> the quintessential social- operating system, par excellence, at least in a >> militaristic, conflict-paradigm. > > Dan: >> Wait a minute... I thought you said conflict was outmoded? >> >> > Jc: Theoretically, it is. The MoQ should reduce conflict because > categories are not objective/static. But alas, here we are. Conflict is > greater than ever before it seems, between people and nations, between > people and their government. but its almost like being conflictual is > "being in the camp of the enemy". All conflict is SOM at root, for it > takes a certain reification of self and other, for there to be conflict in > the first place. Dan: I would say conflict is the result of the differing sets of value we hold. I keep reading about Russia and how terrible it is that they want to take back Ukraine. Sanctions have been put in place and now Russia is threatening to back out of our mutually profitable space exploration enterprises. Bad news for all of us. I don't have any answers but it seems to me that Ukraine is one of the poorest places on earth. A friend of mine hails from there. From the stories she tells, it is a place where most people who live there can't leave soon enough. She had to wait seven years to get visa to travel here and she swears she would never go back, not even to visit. We in the US seem to be overlaying our values onto a system quite unlike our own, one that most of us have no way of comprehending, unless we live on an Indian reservation or in one of the inner cities of our decaying metropolises like Detroit or even Chicago. > > > > >> > >> > Which is a very good reason, to leave that paradigm behind. >> >> Dan: >> Subject and object metaphysics is a collection of intellectual quality >> patterns. >> >> > Jc: Ah, well now at least I know where Bo gets it. Didn't you just say > the 4th level is SOM? Dan: Of course not. I said subject and object metaphysics is a collection of intellectual patterns. John: > Or no, you're saying that SOM is a subset of the 4th level. Gotcha. > Maybe, but it's a lower quality collection of intellectual quality > patterns. It reifies too much, and the wrong things. Dan: The MOQ expands upon the way we order experience. There is no need to get rid of subject and object metaphysics as long as we understand that it is a system of values and not objective and subjective reality. > > > > Dan: > Curious. You accept the analogy but reject its meaning. > > Jc: Or more pragmatically, I give the analogy a meaning that meshes with > experience. Dan: With your personal history, in other words. I can appreciate that. > > Mine. > >> >> Jc: I don't think of experience as "just the moment". I think of it in >> Roycean terms of a past, a present and a future, all cognized and >> harmonized. I think of DQ as anything BUT the past, and thus I do >> distinctify between DQ and experience. >> >>>> Dan: >>>> Intellectual paradigms of society does not correspond to social > patterns. >>>> >>>> >>> Jc: Then they should try harder. The goal of all intellectual analysis >> is >>> conformity with the object of its attention. >> >> Dan: >>> That depends. If a person is starving to death, then the goal of >>> intellectual analysis is to find something to eat, conformity be >>> damned. >>> >>> >> Jc: If a person is starving, the object of attention is food and thus the >> goal of intellectual analysis. > > Dan: > Really! Are you going to intellectually analyze the food? Or eat it? > > Jc: If it's unfamiliar I'm going to scrutinize it with all my analytical > ability. If it's in a fritos bag, I'd probably just scarf. But I'll think > about where I'm getting more, while I'm chewing. and how to get out of this > situation. I won't be treasuring or focusing on the moment. I know > Buddhism advocates quieting the monkey mind, but I let mine chatter. Keeps > me entertained. Dan: Well, the point I was trying to make is that there are circumstances in which the intellect responds differently than others. In the comfort of our homes we have the time to intellectually ponder metaphysics whereas if we are lost in a forest our intellectual objectives would be directed toward finding something to eat. > > >>> Dan: >>> I think a metaphysics is a collection of intellectual quality >>> patterns. Social patterns arise out of biological patterns. >>> >>> >> Jc: I thought social patterns were discrete, in your view? When a new >> metaphysics is grasped and adopted by a group of people, a new society is >> born. I don't know if that is MoQ correct, but it is obvious to any >> thinking person. > > Dan: > I think you might want to look up the term 'metaphysics' and then make > an effort at another reply here. > > > Jc: no... I don't need to look it up, I've done that before. I should > restate my former postulate tho: When a new metaphysical outlook is > adopted, society is changed. Dan: Okay. Then if you don't mind, I will: metaphysics: "Metaphysics is a broad area of philosophy marked out by two types of inquiry. The first aims to be the most general investigation possible into the nature of reality: are there principles applying to everything that is real, to all that is? – if we abstract from the particular nature of existing things that which distinguishes them from each other, what can we know about them merely in virtue of the fact that they exist? The second type of inquiry seeks to uncover what is ultimately real, frequently offering answers in sharp contrast to our everyday experience of the world. Understood in terms of these two questions, metaphysics is very closely related to ontology, which is usually taken to involve both ‘what is existence (being)?’ and ‘what (fundamentally distinct) types of thing exist?’ " http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/N095 Dan comments: I see nothing here about society or how metaphysics can change it. Rather, it appears (to me) as an intellectual pursuit aimed at ordering reality. > > >> >>>> Dan: >>>> The MOQ states that experience and Dynamic Quality are synonymous. >>>> >>> >>> >>> Jc: Then the MoQ is wrong. Experience is generated by Dynamic Quality, >>> but that doesn't make them synonomous. Any more than a father is >>> synonomous with his child or electricity with a dynamo. A certain >>> correlation exists, sure. But equality? No way. >> >> Dan: >> >>> Static quality arises from experience. Remember, the MOQ begins with >>> experience. To say experience is generated by something is to go >>> against that, and we are no longer talking about the MOQ. >>> >>> I could offer myriad quotes to back this up, but I have a feeling it >>> wouldn't do any good. Would it? >>> >>> >> Jc: No, not really. I recall myself the quote and I agree with your >> reading. I guess my point is "begins with" is certainly not synonymous >> with "is synonymous with" and thus Pirsig is making my point. But do you >> really think asking what generates experience is wrong? It seems a good >> question to me. > > Dan: > How is asking what generates experience a good question when the MOQ > starts with experience? > > Jc: Because asking what generates the MOQ, is also a good question. Dan: What? You mean who, right? The author's name on my copy of Lila is Robert Pirsig. How about yours? :-) > > Dan: > > That would imply something that comes before > experience. Anyway, I get the distinct impression that we are not > talking about the MOQ here. Are we? > > > Jc: We are certainly talking about it in different terms, but isn't that > to be expected? Dan: I would hope we can reach some common ground. > > > >>> Dan: >>> But that is what we as human beings do... we define boundaries. The >>> temporal nature of reality has nothing to do with that. >>> >>> >> Jc: Yes! It does. Because the boundaries of the past are not > necessarily >> the boundaries of the future. On a related note, I don't believe the MoQ >> should be only static. > > Dan: > Okay. What should it be then? > >John: > Dynamic, as well. Growing, evolving, living. Dan: Ah, but it is! I do not disagree. Each time we involve ourselves in the MOQ we are working at growing it. Thanks, Dan http://www.danglover.com 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
