"Particles "prefer" to do what they do. An individual particle is not absolutely committed to one predictable behavior. What appears to be an absolute cause is just a very consistent pattern of preferences. Therefore when you strike "cause" from the language and substitute "value" you are not only replacing an empirically meaningless term with a meaningful one; you are using a term that is more appropriate to actual observation." PIRSIG
Sam: My point is that unlike atoms and genes etc, symbols have no direct relationship with value. It is the human judgement that has a relationship with value, and a human judgement which says whether a particular symbol has value or not. I can't see the point of building up a level on a derivative aspect, rather than the primary aspect. "Ph�drus went a different path from the idea of individual, personal Quality decisions. I think it was a wrong one, but perhaps if I were in his circumstances I would go his way too. He felt that the solution started with a new philosophy, or he saw it as even broader than that...a new spiritual rationality...in which the ugliness and the loneliness and the spiritual blankness of dualistic technological reason would become illogical. Reason was no longer to be "value free." Reason was to be subordinate, logically, to Quality." PIRSIG Sam: ...it's precisely what I object to. The idea of intellect being 'above' the emotions is, IMHO, incoherent - that's precisely why I object to the RMP account. "The MOQ resolves the relationship between intellect and society, subject and object, mind and matter, by embedding them all in a larger system of understanding. Objects are inorganic and biological values; subjects are social and intellectual values. They are not two mysterious universes that go floating around in some subject-object dream that allows them no real contact with one another. They have a matter-of-fact evolutionary relationship. That evolutionary relationship is also a moral one." PIRSIG "The MoQ says that science's empirical rejection of biological and social values is not only rationally correct, it is also morally correct because the intellectual patterns of science are of a higher evolutionary order than the old biological and social patterns." PIRSIG Sam: My premise is that there is an emotional element in the fourth level, that cannot be reduced to levels 2 or 3. Which I think the MoQ *does* deny - doesn't it? "But the MoQ also says that Dynamic Quality - the value-force that chooses an elegant mathematical solution to a laborious one, or a brilliant experiment over a confusing, inconclusive one-is another matter altogether. Dynamic Quality is a higher moral order than static scientific truth, and it is as immoral for philosophers of science to try to suppress Dynamic Quality as it is for church authorities to suppress scientific method. Dynamic value is an integral part of science. It is the cutting edge of scientific progress itself." PIRSIG DMB CONCLUDES: Sam rejects the MOQ's fourth level, saying its incoherent "without the determining influence of human judgement." But it seems to me that the MOQ describes a universe in which entirely saturated in judgements. In the MOQ, even particles have perferences and CAUSE is replaced by VALUE in our scientific descriptions. Sam complains that the intellectual level is an "inert" logic detector, but, as I understand it, the MOQ's aim is to fix the "value-free" sterility of SOM and does so by embedding it in an evolutionary web of values. From dirt to divinity, the she-bang is about judgements, at increasingly higher levels. At every level, the "choosing unit" is DQ, but the static forms of each level can only react in their own static terms. I suspect the search for the center of our intellectual decision making powers and to frame intellect so strongly around the concept of the autonomous individuals is a common sensical hangover from our subject-object world view. The MOQ's conception of the self is more like a bundle of perferences than a bag of skin. I suspect that what Sam is really objectiing to is the same thing Pirsig objects to, the "spiritual blankness" of SOM reason, the "value-free" logic of scientific materialism, and its other Spockish qualities. This is the kind of intellect that Pirsig condemns for its blind attack social values, points to as the source of our "terrible secret loneliness", of that feeling of having to "drink life through a straw", and the like. This alienation from our world and the estrangement from our own lives is, i think, partly derived from our view of our selves as subjects and is very much a SOM thing. I think the MOQ would say that this idea of self is good enough in most cases, but that ultimately, this self is fiction. In the end, the MOQ is a kind of mysticism. But there's plenty of room for human judgement and judgements of all kinds, even for subatomic preferences. Thanks. MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_focus/ MF Queries - [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from moq_focus follow the instructions at: http://www.moq.org/mf/subscribe.html
