[MD] Reading & Comprehension

[Krimel]

[Krimel]
> First of all I think DQ and SQ correspond exactly to Yang and Yin. The
> point you seem to miss is that dividing the world is not mandatory. 

[Bo]
I think both dividing and the DQ/SQ division is mandatory (feel free to 
insert Lao Tsu and Yang/Yin). 

[Krimel]
I appreciate the effort to stay focused on the central issues. Clearly this
is one of them. You are not just saying that division is necessary but that
a particular kind of division is necessary. Maybe it is a translation
problem. Why do you think this is "required"? 

If you mean that humans, in virtue of their very nature, are required to
make divisions; I probably agree. But that would seem to put the recognition
of division squarely in the biological level. Again, I would agree with
that.

[Bo]
Look. Pirsig had the insight that Quality = Reality, but this meant 
nothing so he soon started on a dualism based on Quality. 

[Krimel]
The problem I see with this is that you have misunderstood not JUST what
Pirsig has said but something very fundamental about the nature of "saying".
The statement "Quality=Reality" means that these particular shapes on a page
and the sounds associated with then can be used interchangeably and that
when you produce one you might as well be producing the other. 

A further meaning of the statement "Quality=Reality" is that these symbols
point to a set of experiences I have had and I associate with them and that
I believe my experiences are of such a similar nature to yours that you can
make this association as well. Assuming that this actually is the case, that
our experiences are similar enough for this to work, is iffy at best. The
term I would use for it is "lossy" it is a computer term and means that
something is always lost in translation. The issue is how much is lost in
translation and how much does it matter? Have you ever attended a lecture or
meeting and recorded it? While you are there in person that sound of the
spoken words seems crystal clear and intelligible yet when you listen to the
recording you hear air conditioners, street sounds, whispered conversations,
rattling papers etc. In person you don't notice this because you are focused
on the "signal" or what is being said and you ignore the "noise", or all
those distracting background sounds. The recording device does not make this
distinction and listening to the playback is sometimes difficult. In
communication "signal" and "noise" come in a wide variety of forms
especially when we attempt to communicate about abstract ideas.

The genius of the Greeks was to try to use symbols that were as free of
noise and as precise as possible. They tried to created an ideal world of
pure signal and very little noise. Pirsig points to this when he speaks
about mathematics, you probably know where he does this better than I, but
he says something about mathematics being a set of symbols without
ambiguity.

This is the real chore of the intellectual level; reducing ambiguity or the
signal to noise ratio. I could go on about noise as entropy or signal as SQ
but I hope the point is sufficiently clear.

I find James' distinction between perception and conception extremely
helpful here. James maintains that perception is continuous. It is not
composed of individual elements. It flows like a "stream of consciousness".
In Ant's recent video it was absolutely hysterical to hear dmb expounding on
Pirsig's metaphor of "the cutting edge of reality" being the front end of a
train rolling down a track only moments after talking about the very essay
in which James explictly condemns the use of this metaphor, but that's
another story. 

Concepts according to James are the discrete units that we use to cut up our
continuous experience into manageable units, words, ideas, communicable
patterns of thought. This distinction between discrete and continuous I
would say is a metaphysical cut of the sort that Pirsig talks about in Lila.
It has some correspondence with Yin/Yang and SQ/DQ and I think it could be
argued that it has played at least as important a role in the development of
western civilization as the S/O, mind/matter spilt.

If you look backwards in time you see all those ancient civilizations. Our
evidence of them is not in what they said but in what they did. They built
things and by their ruins we know them. In order to build something that
lasts thousands of years you need architecture. Architecture depends on the
ability to carve continuous space into discrete units of measurement. What
unit you select to use is entirely arbitrary but as long as long as it is
unambiguous, replicable and transmittable to other workers you can construct
the marvels of the ancient world.

One of the next great advances in civilization comes from our ability to
carve the continuous flow of time into discrete units. Galileo was able to
work out some of the laws of motion using only his pulse as a measure of
discrete units of time. Without the ability to standardize units of time
navigation an mechanization were problematic.

What we see in present time is refinements in our ability to carve
continuous space and time into discrete units of such precision that we
build not only skyscrapers of nanobots. We can measure not just the cosmos
and land on Mars but we can reaching into the molecules of life and recode
DNA. All of this is the result of our increasing ability to amplify the
signal and reduce the noise. Or as one might say in MoQ terms to convert
dynamic quality into static quality.

This is all very useful, very pragmatic but it is not mandatory or even
required for communication. When Pirsig presents us with Plato's question:

And what is good, Phædrus,
And what is not good...
Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?

The answer is clearly, "No."

When I experience something of positive value, let's say sex because I am
2000 miles away from my wife right now and have been for a number of weeks
but that too is another story. But when we have a positive experience our
pleasure centers are stimulated and we have physiological response;
increased heart rate, changes in the electrical conductivity of our skin,
activation of small and large muscle groups. Converse responses occur when
we have negative experiences that stimulate our pain centers. Not only do
the changes occur in us automatically but we are able without conception to
recognize them in others. These are emotional responses. They are
biologically encoded and biologically decoded or biological communication.
This is a characteristic of mammals and in most species the signal to noise
ratio is pretty small. Ours may be the only species capable of altering this
ratio. We can lie and lying is a skill acquired by our best and brightest at
a fairly early age.

[Bo]
He posits Quality at the top of a "box" diagram that splits into Dynamic 
and Static. This leads to the false impression that there remains an 
unscathed Quality atop the DQ/SQ dichotomy, and made the latter-day 
Pirsig (in the Summary of 2005) say that the MOQ is the "static" part of 
a still greater Quality/MOQ meta-metaphysics. This is horribly wrong IT 
IS QUALITY WHICH IS DIVIDED!. Must be. To say that reality is 
something is useless. There were no metaphysics that said that reality 
was NOT Quality, it was just SOM that said that qualities were 
subjective.  

[Krimel]
Thus far I have tried to show that while conception is not mandatory; it is
useful and it becomes increasing useful as we become more precise in carving
things up. Again, you mistake the way we elect to carve things up for the
thing being carved. We have to carve to communicate. But it is error to
confuse conception with perception or the discrete with the continuous.
Pirsig's statement about the MoQ are static entities and he has elected to
do precisous little to elaborate on them. Your ideas about the MoQ and your
expression of them are constructed of static units. Quality is continuous.
"Quality" is discrete. Pirsig makes this pretty clear when he talks about
mystics being concerned with Quality and having distain for the
metaphysicians concern with "Quality".

Back to my earlier concern with lack of sex. If the experience of sex is all
that concerns you, you might as well masturbate. But if you want to have sex
with someone else, you are going to need to learn to communicate. How well
you communicate will play a major role in how successful you are. You are
confusing having sex with which words you would use to convince someone else
to join you. But at least you aren't proclaiming the virtue of flying solo.

[Bo]
Please apply your intelligence on this  ... 

[Krimel]
As a recent lurker I can say with confidence I would not have made it to
this point in so lengthy a post but please try and do the same.

p.s. I probably should proof read this a couple of times but I hear a baby
crying so alas, I regret whatever noise my shoddy typing has introduced into
the intended signal.



















> It is just useful. Making distinctions and creating concepts is what
> sets us apart from other animals but how we do it is entirely up to us. 
 
> [Bo]
> I accept every word, but you said that DQ/SQ corresponds to the 
> Yang/Yin and I agree. There can't be any Tao without the Yang/Yin
> arrangement and no Quality without the DQ/SQ. If the mere act of
> saying so is the sin, how do you avoid language? 
> 
> [Krimel]
> You have this backwards the Tao is the Tao regardless of how we elect
> to describe it. As I said, Lao Tsu does not use the terms. What he
> says is this:
> 
> Even the finest teaching is not the Tao itself. 
> Even the finest name is insufficient to define it. 
> Without words, the Tao can be experienced,
> and without a name, it can be known.
> 
> You can avoid language by not speaking but if you want to communicate
> you have to have concepts. You have to divide continuous experience
> into discrete units. How we choose to do that is what we are talking
> about here. This is where Pirsig is wielding his analytical knife to
> reslice Lao Tsu's pie. The task of metaphysics is to decide on the
> most fundamental units of this division. One way to do this would be
> mind/matter another static/dynamic. You could pick good/evil or
> natural/supernatural. Many ancient people chose earth, air, fire and
> water; or the three states of matter and the power that transforms
> them.
> 
> [Bo]
> But for Goodness' sake the MOQ "argues" that DQ is and will remain
> undefined. Again muster your resources and try to come to grips with
> this issue.
> 
> [Krimel]
> Quality is undefined. 
> 
> DQ and SQ are concepts we use to talk about it. They are definitions
> and they are both definable and specifiable. In fact the biggest
> problem I have with the AWGIs is their insistence that DQ is
> "betterness". DQ, change, can be disastrous. In fact disaster is a
> form of DQ. Even the Jews got this point. In Isaiah it is written: "I
> form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil,
> saith the Lord.
> 
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