[Bo] But I could not leave it and the right hand subsection (objective) eventually dissolved and I was left with the insight that "All is Language" or (for your benefit) "language is experience itself". This pulled the rug under objectivity (for me) ... under subjectivity too, under the very subject/object distinction.
[Case] I am not sure if you mean this to be as extreme as it sounds. While I would not for second underestimate the importance of language, I do not think "language is experience itself". Language is how we communicate about experience but I do not find that language plays that great a role even in my memory. I remember feelings, vague impressions of the past not narratives about what I did yesterday. If asked I will supply a verbal response but that is not how I recall things internally. Furthermore Pirsig's notion of Quality being prelinguist or prerational does not strike me as a big deal either. Much of what we experience is nonverbal and not rationalized to any great extent. In fact rationalization and verbalization are frequently just word salad tossed out to give voice to feelings and impressions we have no real understanding about. An example I have cited before comes from split brained patients studied by Sperry and Gazzaniga. Patients where able to perform tasks based on information received only through the non-verbal half of their brains. When asked to explain why they had acted in the manner they did they spun elaborate but nonsensical tales to account for what they had done. Human reason abhors a vacuum and rather than settle for a simple I don't know, we will tell the most outlandish whoppers and believe them whole heartedly. [Bo] You say that the levels is the messy part of the MOQ. I believe this looks so (to you) because you haven't grasped the initial transition from the subject/object dualism to the dynamic/static one. What I have concluded is that insisting on a Quality outside of the dynamic/static split is what hinders this understanding. Comparing my language epiphany with Pirsig's Quality one and hearing Heather Perella [or SA] insisting on her "Analogies" (which is language in a different guise) and reading (in ZMM) about Henri Poincarè's "Harmony" and Pirsig's feeling of identity with his Quality, it's clear that there are many canditates for the "ALL IS ..." role, but what's common is the DynamicIStatic split and that is the real MOQ. [Case] As I have mentioned I do not regard the levels as particularly significant. I think you can make up whatever levels you want anytime you want. From Kant to Freud to Wilbur writers love their levels. I see them as occasionally convenient fictions and in many cases totally inconvenient fictions. The lack of clear distinction between the social and intellectual levels is a case in point. I think Pirsig made a major advance by splitting the world into the dynamic and static. This seems to me to follow Taoist metaphysics and is very much in keeping with cutting edge thinking in math and physics. Pirsig's contribution is largely squandered however with the insistence that dynamic means some kind of touchy feely undefined whatever. [Bo] It's better to discuss such things with a skeptic than those who regard all efforts to weed out the inconsistencies as "hurting" Pirsig. [Case] I recently reread Lila again and you know I am always taken by what a great writer he is. Both of his novels are stunningly well written. Those books stand on their own. Many of my criticism have been not so much what he says as the fact that sometimes the way he says what he says allows for some rather bizarre interpretations. In fairness I would include my own interpretations in this category. Rather than being hurt I rather envision Pirsig as finding all hashing and rehashing of his work amusing. But as Platt says, "I could be wrong." [Bo] It bears some resemblance with Quantum Physics. When it was young the physicists believed that it was some "hidden parameter" that caused its weirdness and when discovered it would re-unite it with reason (nobody knew - or knows - any SOM) Einstein was the last rationalist and formulated his famous thought experiment that would decide once and for all that "God didn't play dice". This experiment became possible in the eighties (by Alan Aspect) but the outcome proved that Quantum reality is the only reality, there is no objective world "out there". And by now physicists have dropped all pretentions of understanding, they just use the Quantum-based equations, they always yield the correct results. That's what the MOQ also does: whatever it is the directed at all SOM paradoxex (platypus) dissolves ....by the SOL interpretation that is, the way orthodox MOQ solves (for instance) the mind/matter enigma is lame. [Case] Quantum physics is one of those fields that leave non-physicist scratching their heads and scrambling for rationalizations as I alluded to above. Complexity Theory is every bit as weird but at least it is about things we experience in our everyday lives. Uncertainty is a fundamental fact of life. It has been celebrated in story and song throughout history. The advent of the computer has allowed us to explore randomness and dynamic systems in ways that could only be imagined even 50 years ago. These are areas where the MoQ has much to offer. 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.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
