Mark, Mark 03-03-07: Hi Mati, Again, i feel the same feeling of, 'What's the problem?' The context you describe above is distressing and i sympathise with you. However, symbolic manipulation is the answer: a. Social symbols are imitated behavioural patterns. Example: Going to church because other people do it. b. Intellectual symbols do not stand directly for social or biological or inorganic patterns. They are self referencing and behave according to rules.
Mati: With all due respect I see a lot of problems left. (And I like to think of myself is the guy who sees the glass half full. :-) Where to start? MOQ views values, social and intellect value levels, as "distinct" value structures which functions are different from each other. Now lets take an example such as art. We have the earliest caveman drawings in France to modern day art. Is all art a social value based creation or are some an intellect based creation as well. How do you tell the difference? You are a doctoral student who wishes to analyze the social or intellect values of paintings. How would you go about it? In your analysis of the data (paintings), what are the "rules" of analysis based on and the precepts of MOQ that you would use? Would those rules have any inter-rater reliability, or is it just a matter of interpretation of the individual that uses it. Mark 04-03-07: Hi Mati, You introduce the example of Art in order to explore the demarcation between the social and the intellectual. Fair enough. Here is a response: 1. Your description of 'Art' is inadequate. 2. All human creative activity is art, not merely painting. (That you assume this to be so is supported by your provision of a second example, 'Literature' which you hold distinct from 'art' as visual representation.) 3. What describes 'Art' as 'human creative activity' in moq terms? Answer: The interplay between DQ and four levels of sq patterns. With respect to visual representation: 4. Visual patterns are inorganic and biological patterns of value + DQ 5. Representation is both of these (the materials used - in the case of Video installations, the TV and media are inorganic, the artist is biological...) and social and potentially intellectual values + DQ 6. Now an analysis of visual representation may begin. A. In the case of early French cave paintings: The visual representation is a static representation of DQ. There are no intellectual patterns as the symbols are what they are. Animal/men creations, etc. are social representations of DQ. B. Modern art. A high degree of intellectual value is presented in visual representation. In the case of books and print media, electronic media visually represented on VDU's, etc. intellectual values may dominate. Ok if Art is too nebulous, then how about literature, architecture, or lets look at politics or policy. Mark 04-03-07: There is nothing nebulous about visual representation. An intellectual repertoire married to a social context may be required, but that is a matter of sophistication. This reaches its peak in Universities and other academic institutions where intellectual values run riot. I think this 'running riot' is what your term, 'nebulous' is attempting to convey, if you will forgive me for placing words in your mouth Mati? The moq brings a degree of order into this riotous forum. Mati: We can go on and on. Now is their any problems that you might see from an individual who wishes to use MOQ in the world of academia? Remember Pirsig's claim that MOQ is a superior method of metaphysically of seeing the world than the current SOM based methologies. I agree that it is but preaching "symbolic manipulation" is one thing, practice is another. Don't get me wrong I spent 2 years trying to utilize MOQ as a superior metaphysical looking glass into the world because of my belief in the validity of MOQ. I failed. Maybe I wasn't smart enough, but that is what blows me away. MOQ is so simple that even child could be taught to understand the world around him in a more clear way, yet knock on the door of general academia, and you got your work cut out for you. For arm chair philosophers (myself included) it is one thing, dealing with the real world is entirely different ball of wax. Mark 04-03-07: Don't worry, Anthony McWatt failed also. Perhaps the lesson to learn is to bow to the accepted before advancing something better. And the more one looks the more one may discern that the moq is unoriginal, which is a bonus. However, although the moq is unoriginal, it may be regarded analogously to the DNA difference between Humans and the Great Apes: The DNA differential is very small, but that small differential makes an incredible difference. Mark: Once the concept of truth is worshiped in its own right language isn't dominated by social arte privileges anymore, and so the intellectual level begins to break free from the social level: Abstract symbolic manipulation. Structures of all kinds from music to poetry now have a new dimmension - new differentiation's which begin to replace the old social differentiation's of the Good. Mati: I would be very careful about the idea of "worshiping" truth. Worshiping is a social tradition not an intellect one. "Abstract symbolic manipulation" is just that, abstract. I would respectfully suggest that by you definition that basic math calculations utilize "Abstract symbolic manipulations" that have nothing to do with the social values, and yet they have been around for along long time. Too long, well before 3000-2000 B.C. This creates a timing problem for the advent of intellect that Pirsig has himself has suggested that the advent occur between 1000 to 600 B.C. Enough nit picking, but I feel the definition that both you and Pirsig have suggested make it near to impossible to advance MOQ beyond be an interesting metaphysical approach that has no real inherit value in society. Again I note that overall I am a pretty optimistic guy most of the time. Mati Mark 04-03-07: I fully acknowledge worship to be a social pattern, and i intended for this to be understood; intellectual patterns need social sanctioning, and at the time of geometric invention, the beauty of it must have been so dynamic as to suggest divinity, thus worship. I did not suggest that the intellectual level began with geometry invention; i believe it began very much earlier, but had little social sanctioning to help it along. By the way, i don't recall Pirsig emphatically stating the intellectual level was created at the time you provide, merely that early Greek thought provided the social context for intellectual patterns to reach par and then begin to excel the social dominance. Love, Mark 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/
