John, On Wed, May 21, 2014 at 2:29 PM, John Carl <ridgecoy...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Dan, > > My most patient friend, :) > > On 5/20/14, Dan Glover <daneglo...@gmail.com> wrote: >> John, >> >> On Mon, May 19, 2014 at 1:49 PM, John Carl <ridgecoy...@gmail.com> 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! >> > > I hate weddings. I like marriages, but the traditional ceremonies > performed to celebrate them are stupid, imho. > > Maybe its just because of the standard saying "it's the bride's day" > that the whole thing appalls me but it seems to be what girls like and > if girls didn't like it, there'd be no more babies. So I guess we > gotta put up with it, but for most, the whole thing is trite and > overdone, with a sad lack of creative symbolism. > > Unless it's a, as my deceased mother-in-law used to call them, a > "you-ness, me-ness, us-ness, we-ness" wedding. Which are out of > fashion, these days, and to tell the truth, they didn't do much for me > neither. > > I'm a picky old codger, is what I am. > > But I do think this wedding is going to be better, than most. I > should describe it more, in a different post.
Dan: Seems to me that my family only comes together these days for weddings and funerals and since I prefer the former to the latter, I like weddings. >> >>>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. >> > > Jc: Easy to say, mr. avoids-his-own-weddings. But I've got a nice > camper again. Very snug, very tight and it gets wi-fi. I may have my > own writing cabin, and that's gotta help. Dan: Great! I've discovered all kinds of excuses for not writing too. In fact, I'm thinking about writing a book about it. Hey! You might get your own chapter! :-) > > > > >> >> Dan: >> No, I do not think the MOQ obviates the individual. Experience is as >> individual as you get. > > Jc: Ok, I agree. But I'm somewhat flumoxed on making a logical > argument for the individual, since mainly those who need the argument, > believe in a definition of reality, that obviously makes > individuality, "unreal". > > I hope you see the problem. Dan: I don't see it, no. > > Dan > >>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. >> > > Jc: In that case I was referring to, "as other's see us", means > simply physical appearance, at a glance. With no other judgments or > recognitions involved. Individuals as Images. Now I realize that > what we see in an image is NOT an individual, but an image or > imitiation of an individual's appearance Dan: Well then, you haven't grasped what the MOQ is telling us. All our senses are mediated by not only our cultural values but our own histories. There are no perceptions, even of physical appearances, that are without judgments and recognitions. If that were so, we wouldn't have the means of recalling them. > >> 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. >> > > Jc: Yes, that sounds right. Experience is always mediated by the > triad of recognition, projection and mediation but the important part > is mediation - interpretation. What Pirsig deems "Quality" I believe. Dan: Interpretation is always a static memory of Dynamic Quality. > > Dan: >> >> 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? >> > > Jc: Truth? Both. An exact copy is as good as an original, in > physical terms. A man can spend a lifetime perfecting a perfect > design that can be copied by a chinese laborer in 5 seconds and > welcome to the modern age. When you copy exactly an object, you get > an identical object. R&D be damned. Welcome to the New World. Dan: I think you may have missed my point here. No one can exactly copy an object in an artful manner, least of all a craftsman. You should know that. > >>>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. >> > > Jc: Because what is good for me, is not necessarily good for you. > Yes. This doesn't mean that Good is relative, but that it's > expression is. DQ is absolute. SQ relative. Whaddya think? Dan: I think Dynamic Quality becomes synonymous with experience in the MOQ. I know... I've said it before but it's worth repeating. There are no absolutes in the MOQ, including Dynamic Quality. >John: > Altho to be sure, Royce defines Absolute, as the past. Whatever has > been done, has been done forever and permanently and thus SQ = the > past and thus SQ = the absolute. So I need to work on it, I know. > But isn't that what we're all here for? Dan: I disagree. The past is always being altered. > > >>> 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: We can say there is no specific goal, but there is an urge for > betterness. We don't know what exactly in which that betterness will > inhere, but we want it all the same. Dan: Well, if you mean the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, no. That is the danger of desiring something better. Once we obtain the fruits of that desire, we often times discover we are wrong. Just do what needs doing. > > > > >> >> 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. > > Jc: I think there is a two-fold process, that goes back and forth. > There is a social conflict of some kind, that we internalize and deal > with artistically/intellectually and we express that to our society in > the hopes of resolving the conflict. That's why I think society and > intellect are not in conflict, but in intimate relationship. Make > love, not war. Dan: Again, it isn't that the MOQ sees society as a group of people but rather a collection of values. When I hand out copies of my books I am sharing my values. I am not interested in resolving any conflict. > > > >>> 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. > > You are simply running. That's sort of "being the present" doncha > think? You're running without thought, instinctually, and as hard as > you can. Period. Dan: Like I said, I don't know... I am not a gazelle. But evolution can only progress through survival. The gazelle at the rear of the pack is probably going to be the lion's dinner and will not survive to propagate its genes. > >> >>>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. > > > Jc: Ok, there is a social immune system that fights "strangeness" And > like a biological allergy, can fight against things that it shouldn't. > I agree. New Ideas have to be aware of those patterns, and overcome > them to a large extent, in order to "be". In order to be born into a > social matrix which accepts them and grows into ongoing life. Dan: I don't like this. I get the feeling you are still thinking that social patterns are a collection of people and not values. > > Dan: > > 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. >> > > Jc: Sure, tribe fights against tribe, and nation against nation. All > these conflicts are social. Conflict is inherently social because it > presupposes an "us" vs. a "them" or a "me" vs. a "you." the basic > duallity of conflict is therefore a plurality of interest that > considers social ideas such as strength in unity and dominance and > control. They are distinct from 4th level concerns which only > consider the truth. Dan: Again, I see you falling into the trap of thinking about social patterns being the equivalent of groups of people. No. That is not how the MOQ views social quality patterns at all. What I was pointing to with my examples is the entrenched social patterns that permeate our Western culture, not the people that hold them. The MOQ does not presuppose an us vs. them as holding competing social values... it points to the values themselves. > >>> 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. > > Jc: It's about social values. Marriage is a social concern, unless > you are talking in pure biological coupling, which doesn't need any > social ticket or paper. Dan: I think the MOQ would say marriage is a social pattern. No one can look at two people and tell if they are married. The value of marriage resides in the non-physical realm. > John: > Intellectually speaking, it's not a big > issue, except that if everybody was homosexual there would be no more > people, unless you wanted to evolve into some new species where > spermata and ovum were socially and scientifically manipulates and > controlled in a matrix of utility. Dan: Again, that is the standard social argument against gays. And believe me, I don't care one way or another what anyone's sexual orientation happens to be... I was merely using it as an example of intellectual patterns conflicting with social patterns. > >> Dan: >> Okay. Then we seem to agree that freedom relates to adverse circumstances. >> > > Jc:, Yes, I'd say that absolutely. Just as "adversity" relates to betterness. > > >> Dan: >> I would say conflict is the result of the differing sets of value we >> hold. > > Jc: Yes, but pointing out that your "we" is social, Dan: No! Our values are personal. Social patterns have nothing to do with groups of people! > John: > then we see that > conflict is social and society is conflictual and some society's are > intellectually-oriented while other societies are socially-oriented > and it could be said that "intellect conflicts with society" when > "intellect" and "society" are mere labels for the orientational goals, > of the individual societies. But in the end, all conflict is social. > If academics didn't have a society, they wouldn't be academics. Dan: So you are saying there is no conflict between the levels, only within the social level itself. But you seem to be basing that notion on the erroneous assumption that social patterns are made up of people. Until you get past that roadblock, you are going to be stopped from any understanding of the MOQ. > >>> 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. > > Jc: Yes, This is also Roycean. Dan: That is surprising to learn. Do you have any quotes to back this up? > John; > What we are doing here is philosophy > and all philosophy is conceptual with some metaphysically valuistic > basis. Dan: I think it is simpler to say philosophy is a collection of intellectual quality patterns too. > >> >> 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. > > Jc: Sure, altho I'd rather say subject object "paradigm" than > metaphysics because I think of metaphysics as ultimate meanings. You > can't get any deeper than metaphysics. A S/O metaphysics, precludes > all other meanings for value and being, than subjects and objects. > But an S/O paradigm, allows the co-existence of other paradigms and > greater ones as well. For intellectual conceptualization is > theoretically unbounded. creative conceptualization has no finite > limit, which is why its not really definable either, you see. Dan: Of course intellect has limits. It grows from social patterns. > >> 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. > > Jc: Yes, the way I see it is that since intellect is > conceptualization, it differs with the object of it's intent or > caring. You can intellectualize bioligical patterns, or inorganic or > social or even intellect itself. That's what makes the level so > powerful, it is ultimately unbounded. > > And if unbounded, equivalent to Quality itself. Dan: Well, only if you say static quality. Quality with a capital Q relates to Dynamic Quality which is synonymous with experience. > > > >>> 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. > > Jc: first of all, the society is implicit. Dan: Perhaps according to subject and object metaphysics but not to the MOQ. > John: > It ordered the > conceptualizations of language which formed the structure of the > questions. It formed the intellect which out of the social/biological > matrix, arose. It's already got a pre-patterned agenda, in order to > continue and thus "be" that shouldn't be forgotten or abstracted from > the understanding of what "intellect" is. Dan: Again, you are using society as a sort of thing, an object, a collection of people that creates structure. This has nothing to do with the MOQ or with the definition of metaphysics that I offered. >John: > I think the deepest understanding that Pirsig's 4 levels bring, is > that they are. Together, in all we do., Sure the build upon a basic > core, but they don't leave or forsake what they build upon, any more > than a building leaves its foundation. The foundation is implicity in > the structure and society is implicit in intellect. Dan: You are mixing metaphors here and creating confusion. That confusion does not arise if we follow the tenets of the MOQ. The levels are not continuous. They are discrete. > > >> >> >>> >>> >>>> >>>>>> 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? :-) >> > > Jc: No, close, but not quite. The interesting question is what > generates Robert Pirsig to generate the MoQ. And that's obviously the > right question because its the same question the Author asks himself; > all through his work. Dan: By asking "what generates Robert Pirsig to generate the MOQ" we are essentially falling into turtles all the way down trap. What generates that which generates Robert Pirsig to generate the MOQ? And is it that generates what it is that generates that which generates... oh, you get the idea. Instead, isn't it easier and far more profitable to examine the MOQ itself? I think so. The MOQ starts with experience. When we begin asking what generates experience we are caught up in subject and object thinking which the MOQ is designed to encompass in a more expansive perspective. > > >>> >>> 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. >> > > Jc: Yes, that is the goal. To float off in space, but land on common > ground. I don't believe we achieve unity by focusing upon the literal > words of Pirsig's MoQ, but we achieve unity by focusing upon the > generator of Pirsig's MoQ. > > Whew!. How's that for dramatic and grandiose? But there I stand, I > can do no other. Dan: I fear my hopes are being dashed against the rocks of confusion. > > > >>> 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 >> > > Then you and I see it the same, and are at least MoQ brothers. Thank YOU, > Dan. Thanks, John, 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
