[MD] SOLAQI, Kant's TITs, chaos, and the S/I distinction
Laird Bedore
lmbedore at vectorstar.com
Sun Dec 24 12:15:17 PST 2006
>> [Mark]
>> Hi Laird and Case,
>> Skutvik's ideas show a man who has an imagination and he can't be knocked
>> for that.
>> But the SOLAQI has a basic flaw Skutvik did not wish to contemplate.
>>
>> Skutvik's assertion is: The subject/object distinction is fundamental to
>> intellectual patterns.
>> It is very important to keep this central to ones analysis of Skutvik's
>> position.
>>
>>
> [Laird]
> Interesting... I think that is a problem with the SOL only if the S/O
> distinction is considered as an exhaustive characterization of the
> intellectual level.
>
> Mark 24-12-06: That's exactly what Skutvik asserts.
> So you agree Skutvik has a problem here. Me too.
>
[Laird]
Yes, a small problem easily fixed. Although the problem and the fix are
simple, the ramifications are significant. My goal is to test this
revision of the SOL to see if it holds water. But what you've suggested
so far is not to test the revised SOL at all - rather, to just throw it
out and replace it with a principle of static differentiation.
>
> Laird:
> That is to say, that the intellectual level consists
> only of patterns broken into S/O distinctions. As I mentioned, I don't
> buy that, but it's not enough to justify throwing the baby out with the
> bathwater. I'd just like to scrap the exhaustive part.
>
> Mark 24-12-06: Then you dispose of the SOLAQI and replace it with something
> better.
> Why introduce the SOLAQI in the first place if it's shut of so soon?
>
>
[Laird]
It's not shut off or thrown out- it's a minor revision to the SOL.
Evolutionary! :)
>> [Mark]
>> However, the s/o distinction is a particular type of a more fundamental
>> distinction which may be described as static differentiation's.
>>
>> There exist differentiation's at the social level and the intellectual level
>> simply evolves these differentiation's in a more complex and abstract
>> process.
>>
>> It may be observed that such processes are not reliant upon the s/o
>> distinction, but are reliant however upon static differentiation's.
>>
>>
> [Laird]
> This argument implies that the subject/object split occurs at the point
> of "static patterns" (but not upon all static patterns), which is
> inclusive of all the levels, not just intellect... That's not a
> refutation of Stutvik's assertion, rather an alternative assertion.
> Let's be fair and give each their own spotlight.
>
> Mark 24-12-06: I'm not implying s/o distinctions occurred at a specific
> point: i am explicitly stating the s/o distinction is a function of
> differentiation itself.
> This dissolves Skutivik's position.
>
>
[Laird]
Perhaps not a single, specific point, but nonetheless an 'earlier' point
in the overall process. It's still doesn't dissolve Skutvik's position,
it's a competing assertion. It doesn't provide anything in regards to
testing the revised SOL assertion.
Since they're competing, only one of these assertions can remain, and we
could throw out either one... To determine which one to throw out, we
must evaluate both based on their OWN assumptions and merits, not each
others' - doing so would be a misuse of logic.
>
>> [Mark]
>> This is a very simple argument and is consistent with the moq even though
>> it is not explicitly presented in Lila or McWatt's 'critical' analysis.
>>
>>
>>
> [Laird]
> Yes, that is also implied by Pirsig with his positioning of objective
> reality in the inorganic/biological levels and subjective reality in the
> social/intellectual levels. I think either assertion is consistent with
> the portions of the MoQ more fundamental than themselves, the question
> is where each assertion takes us.
>
> My "beef" with the static-differentiation (and Pirsig's drawing of the
> objective/subjective reality as on the Wiki) idea is that it makes
> subjects and objects into existents prior to any intellectualization
> taking place. This flies in the face of the MoQ's most basic principles
> and its own arguments about the mythos - that the hard subject-object
> distinction is culturally-derived (with a footnote to thank the Greeks).
> If the subjective and objective realities are prior or
> fundamentally-inherent to the static levels, how could culture
> (social-level, intellectual-level, or a bit of both) be the source of
> the subject-object distinction? To resolve this problem while
> maintaining the static-differentiation principle means throwing out the
> S/O cultural derivation and likely much, much more- pandora's box opens.
> If we keep both, it's a chicken-egg problem, and I scream mu!
>
>
>
> Mark 24-12-06: You've not addressed the question of differentiation.
> This is prior to all levels.
> The hard problem you refer to is generated by insisting 'things' exist.
> If differentiation is viewed as a process, then differentiation become
> evolutionary related.
>
>
[Laird]
Quite the opposite. I'm insisting 'things' don't exist until we create
them (exclusively within intellect) through an S/O distinction. Prior to
that we have static patterns of values which for our convenience we
place into levels, but even that is after-the-fact within intellect.
> Laird:
> The MoQ assertion that reality is made up of patterns of value rather
> than subjects and objects is threatened by the static differentiation
> principle.
>
> Mark 24-12-06: Static differentiation's ARE patterns of value Liard.
> You have failed to recognise this.
>
[Laird]
Are you suggesting that they are synonymous? That we can completely
replace the notion of "static patterns of value" in the MoQ with "static
differentiations"?
What's being differentiated, and into what? patterns of value into
levels, or patterns of value into subjects and objects? Or anything at
all? You wanted to look at it as a process, let's outline its process.
> Mark:
> Therefore, 'things' are patterns of value.
>
>
[Laird]
Well, I can read this two different ways... either it's an innocoous but
useless statement of basic principles (of course things are (a subset
of) patterns of value in one fashion or another), or it equates objects
and objective reality with patterns of value. So either it's saying 2=2
or it's shooting the MoQ in the foot. Neither gets us going anywhere.
> Laird:
> With the SOL, principal reality remains (exhaustively) patterns of
> value.
>
> Mark 24-12-06: Not so. If SOL is values then it would place them before its
> own distinction.
>
[Laird]
You've conflated SOL with principal reality. SOL says the S/O
distinction acts upon PoVs. The subject/object distinctions are not the
PoVs themselves.
>
> Laird:
> Subjects and objects only exist as analogues to these patterns,
> and the S/O distinction takes place exclusively within the intellectual
> level. The distinction doesn't do anything to the patterns of value -
> they're just analogues. Among other things, all of SOM resides within
> these (intellectual) analogues.
>
> Mark 24-12-06: Lions are not intellectual but leaders of Lion packs are
> differentiated.
>
>
[Laird]
Sure, they're differentiated by other lions through use of their own
brains (intellect). They're not differentiated by amoeba or snails or
birds (unless you've got some really smart birds!). We differentiate
them intellectually. There's no fundamental MoQ process distinction of
leader lions from other lions until you reach intellect.
> Laird:
> When things happen exclusively at, say, the social level in your analogy
> below, two or more patterns are interacting (presumably with some degree
> of DQ - at least enough to bring the patterns into contact), and they
> can interact all they like. Social authority pattern can work with
> celebrity leader pattern with no subject-object distinction - those
> distinctions are merely what we call our intellectual observations of
> the patterns.
>
> Mark 24-12-06: By intellectual observations you mean intellectual
> differentiation's.
>
>
[Laird]
I mean the S/O distinction.
>> [Mark]
>> Now, if we read static differentiation's back into the SOLAQI then it may
>> be observed that the s/o distinction already existed before intellectual
>> patterns; social authority relies upon the celebrity leader being
>> differentiated from those who follow, for example.
>>
>>
> [Laird]
> Sticking an alternative assertion inside the original assertion will of
> course create paradox, but it doesn't really say anything about either
> assertion other than the already-known fact that they're competing
> assertions.
>
> Mark 24-12-06: The paradox is dissolved.
>
>
[Laird]
But you can't use the conditions of assertion A to evaluate the outcome
of assertion B when A and B are competing assertions. Back to misuse of
logic above.
-Laird
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