[MD] MD FW: The intellectual level and rationality

[Joseph Maurer]

Hi David and Bo,

Bo's experience feels true!  Knowledge/fact feels mechanical.  Truth feels 
more like understanding.  Faith as the truth of what is true is embodied is 
Bo's position.  Consciousness in the place of dogma.  Knolwedge is 
mechanical.  Truth is conscious.  Faith is the remembering of a new faculty 
which sees a fault line when one bases his actions on the truth that only 
the mechanical is true.  Consciousness is also true i.e. the truth of the 
true.  The realization that only an evolved consciousness of human 
creativity that sees the truth of the true and embraces arete, quality, 
love, beauty, good as behavior suited to a sentient being is a further 
evolution.  This realization cannot be based in mechanical behavior, but 
only in conscious behavior.  Two evolutions 'S' and 'O'! 'Conscious' and 
'Mechanical'!

Joe


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David M" <davidint at blueyonder.co.uk>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Friday, January 06, 2006 11:59 AM
Subject: Re: [MD] MD FW: The intellectual level and rationality


Hi Bo

> You (still) seem to believe that the MOQ looks on science as true
> or objective in a somish sense,

DM: No idea where you got that from.

the idea is that the MOQ looks on
> the SOM (the subject/object aggregate as a static value.

DM: I agree with Pirsig that it replaces SOM.

One that
> wasn't known before, and this new way of looking on things is the
> dangerous aspect of the MOQ. Your "doubt" about its objectivity
> is merely newageism.


DM: Really, I am not vastly familiar with current philosophy of science
then!

>
>
> OK, over to your 4 Jan. post in this thread.
>
>> DM: Pirsig calls it the intellectual level not the S/O level, you have
>> not convinced me to change this yet, S/O looks too narrow to identify
>> all cultural patterns that go beyond social values and relate to
>> intellectual values. They are not simply S/O values. Yes objectivity
>> is an intellectual values, so is honesty, truth, empirical evidence,
>> logic, reason, clarity, simplicity, consistency, universal
>> applicability, etc.
>
> I don't claim that the terms "subject(ive) or object(ive) occurs in
> all intellectual patterns,  but can you imagine any of the
> mentioned phenomena without it?

DM: Yes, things change you know.

"Objectivity" is meaningless
> without "subjectivity". "Honesty"? It's no intellectual value, social
> reality surely knew that virtue, but TRUTH in the Socrates sense
> meant something else.

"Empirical evidence" is of course as S/O-
> ish as it comes.

DM: No you just use concepts to describe patterns of experience, that's
the MOQ approach suggested by Pirsig.

"Logic"? If you mean the ability to draw
> conclusions from observations it's not an intellectual value, but
> logic in the Aristotlelian - dialectics - sense is S/Oish ...as are the
> rest of you examples.

DM: You can do logic with reference to a non-empirical reality,
so that surely is not connected to any SOM at all.


>
>> Pirsig talks about the 2 lowest levels cover
>> object patterns and the 2 higher subject patterns, no talk about a
>> subjective description of all patterns (idealism) or an objective one
>> (materialism)
>
> After the SOM is solemnly rejected Pirsig introduces subjective
> and objective as applying to the MOQ. It's this atrocity I protest.
> And you have obviously not read all of Pirsig's annotations in
> "Lila's Child where there's plenty of "subjective descriptions". I
> feel like a fireman that must put out all the SOM flare-ups that
> Pirsig himself ignites, and all I get is ingratitude   ...sob!

DM: Or you could be wrong and everyone might be right.


>
>> I think I know what you mean but there are a number of
>> thinkers who do not try to move to one of these poles of the common
>> but not universal dualism of our intellectual culture, so S/O is too
>> narrow a way to define the intellectual level, a part? Yes , the whole
>> of the 4th level? No.
>
> The VALUE of the 4th level is the S/O! There is no lack of
> thinkeres who wants to transcend SOM, but these are not
> moqists.

DM: So are they thinkers of the 4th level? Non SOM ones?
Therefore the 4th level cannot have very good SOM only
border guards.

In the MOQ - and that is the only thing that interests me
> - the 4th level must be kept clean. Its the MOQ itself that
> transcends intellect.

DM: Well it is not clean and you can't do anything about it.


>
>> DM: OK, ideas are intellectual static patterns, like SOM. Why is the
>> MOQ any different?
>
> Ideas? When a Stone Ager looked on the starry sky he surely had
> ideas about the lights being gods and goddesses. No, the
> intellectual level is a very particular IDEA, namely that of the said
> "starry sky" having an OBJECTIVE explanation and the god-
> explanation was SUBJECTIVE.

DM: I talk of SOM and you have to go back to cave men to clutch at straws.
Maybe we should say naturalistic explanation. Pirsig grounds knowledge
in experience, this is the rejection of SOM, objectivity implies that you
can explain experience in the language of nature or god, I of course accept
the aspiration of examining the anthropomorphism of our experience/
knowledge/explanations but you cannot get away from our all too human
experience of being. Look my main problem with the S/O distinction is
that it turns into SOM or it drops the 'S' and becomes materialism. To avoid
these evils I think we need to proceed via a description of experience and
stick
totalking about patterns rather than entities with properties, because all
we
experience is the patternsno entities.


>
>> The only thing I can think of is that the MOQ gives
>> us a way to value DQ where as SOM is overly obsessed with SQ and too
>> often tries to describe the top 2 levels of SQ in terms of the bottom
>> 2, this is what I mean by materialism.
>
> Forgive me David but this is well-meaning nonsense. The SOM
> knows no DQ, it sees existence through it S/O filter.

DM: What is a silly cow? SOM says a cow object, MOQ says a SQ cow pattern.
Therefore what MOQ calls SQ pattern, SOM calls object, if you can't follow
that
I am lost for hope in your ability to think.

DQ came to
> be with the MOQ


DM: %^%$£^??????? What!!!!??? The idea-concept surely! Did DQ create atoms
before Pirsig
was born or not in your idealist world Mr Bo?

 which sees existence by its DQ/SQ filter, the
> thing is that it takes over the metaphysical 'M' from the SOM
> which is left behind as the value of the S/O distinction.

DM: Ye, left behind, you should leave it behind too, so that the 4th level
can grow beyond S/O which only dominates when it is an SOM.


>
>> If we say MOQ=a new level of
>> values beyond the somewhat dry intellectual ones, that's good point,
>> it puts values in a new perspective, it puts DQ at the topof the value
>> table -good. What else?
>
> Now you talk sense, but the MOQ as a static level is not correct,
> it's rather the meta-reality that contains/rurrounds the "dry" static
> universe.

DM: It is a metaphysics, and therefore can domiante the 4th level like
SOM did and to a large extent still does, but times are a changing,
listen to the wind.

>
>> DM: Yes MOQ rejects substance, SOM does not. That's exactly the good
>> intellectual 4th level idea the MOQ is putting forward, spot the
>> problem with your S/O 4th level idea?
>
> The problem is your standing with one leg in the SOM

DM: Better than your 2!


and one in
> the MOQ seeing the 4th level as mental compartment where
> ideas reside

DM: You're the one with that vision, I see SQ patterns on the 4th level,
same non-SOM status as the patterns on all the other levels.

 (as "intellectual pattern" to make it sound more
> moqish). Yes, the MOQ's rejects substance, but that is a minor
> adjustment after the major Quality reorientation is made.
>
>> The MOQ takes the M out of SOM
>> but then it says that S and O are not separate substances they are
>> both just patterns, and there is also something else SOM has been
>> masking from our understanding i.e.
>
> You have this gift of one moment sounding the staunchest
> MOQist -

DM: I suspect that is because I'm right. Just a hunch. You just sound
stuck with a good and useful idea that just does not quite work -all
things considered.

even SOList - and the next absolutely  ....remote.  Yes,
> the MOQ takes over the 'M', but not "..saying that S and O are
> not separate substances" rather that the S/O distinction is the
> highest static value.

DM: Now you really are struggling. Surely we drop the idea of
substance, the distinction is lost and we replace it with DQ/SQ.
Go on make the leap! Only the truly great give up on their own
ideas when they fall apart. We can simply enjoy experience
with no S/O split. There are SQ-patterns in our experience.
Where is the S/O split in experience?


>
>> DQ (of course the idea of DQ has
>> always shown itself a bit in religious and idealist and vitalist and
>> eastern and artistic thought).
>
> Yes, there has always been something that didn't fit the S/O
> scheme,


DM: At last you are getting it!

and now - from the MOQ - we can see the reason,
> namely that the SOM was a faulty metaphysics, which serves
> better as MOQ's 4th static level.

DM: And hey presto the 4th level opens up, reduces the
S/O dominance, and re-discovers all the things that did not fit
but many have tried to raise.

>
>> DM: It should not be, what do you think an absolutely necessary
>> order is? See Charles Taylor on objectivity and subjectivity in Hegel.
>
> OK you may have a point about "objective idealism". SOL says
> that the 4th level is the S/O distinction, meaning that there aren't
> just "objective" intellectuals but "subjective" ones as well.

DM: That's right.

The empiricism of the eighteenth century were convinced that that
> qualities are created by ourselves was objectively true.
>
> However, the point about the S/O distinction is that this schism
> came to be with the 4th level. Idealists may claim that mind is the
> creator of it all - objectively seen - and the materialists may claim
> the opposite, the point - again - is that this was not known at the
> social level. Among the proverbial Stone Agers there were no-
> one that asked; "Is this about gods objectively true or is it just
> subjective nonsense. Nor were there another one who said
> "Listen Gork, it may be subjective, but subjectivity is objectively
> all there is  ...blah blah. "

DM: I have no argument about the great rise and dominance of
SOM, dominance is not exclusivity. Can we agree on that?
>
>> DM: See the discussion of Hegel's overcoming of dualism in
>> Ivan Soll's book on Hegel. I give Hegel his due (are you in any
>> positon to comment, read all his stuff have you?), & long before I
>> read any Pirsig.
>
> No, I haven't read Hegel, you surely have read ten times as much
> as I, but when one comes across a philosophy that assimilate
> everything it's a great relief, Have you read all Medieval
> philosophy? Surely not, the past gets compressed into one page
> by the present.

DM: Even I have not read everything.


>
>> Did DQ only come into existence when Pirsig invented
>> it? Funny how all the levels got here without Pirsig's invention!
>
> You too with this silly objection? How did the universe manage to
> work without Newton's gravity. This is exactly the same point. All
> great theories create a universe run by their new premises.  The
> MOQ created a Quality Universe.

DM: I accept that new metaphysics uncover new realities, but they
also attempt to re-explain the past too in new terms. So we can tell
a whole cosmic narrative in DQ/SQ terms. We have to.


>
>> How
>> do you imagine Hegel puts evolution and dialecticinto his system
>> without fishing around in the activity of what Pirsig calls DQ? That I
>> claim as obvious, no more. Clearly what Pirsig identifies as DQ is
>> more than others that came before him. Not seeing this looks like
>> cultism to me.
>
> OK Point taken, I promise to look into Hegel to refute this.
>
>> DM: Why? DO you have any good reasons, your attempt at clarity
>> seems to leave reality behind. You are not wrong to attempt it,
>> but it does not fully work, maybe for 90%ish of intellectual
>> values, but certainly not 100%. And if the MOQ is taken up
>> this percentage starts to drop even more.
>
> The issue here was that you see the 4th. level as mostly S/O, but
> not all. Can't you get it that the static levels are incomplete for the
> very reason of not being dynamic .

DM: I see levels as consisting of SQ, DQ cannot form levels,
it is always on the move.


I am convinced that we agree
> hadn't you been so hell bent on NOT understanding.

DM: Funny, that's my view of your position.

 The 4th > level is STATIC - the S/O does not cover all existence's dynamic
> aspect. If we look back on the social level it was not complete
> either and DQ worked itself out of that. This goes for the
> biological and inorganic too.
>
>> DM: & you're being too simple. Is Augustine an intellectual
>> or not? Did Galileo believe in God and try to read his mind
>> via nature?
>
> Intellect's S/O did not spring ready-made into existence its just
> from the present we can see the trend,

DM: Do you see a SOM rising stright line, I see an SOM bell chart
on the 4th level.

Augustine was an
> Aristotelian and as such a SOMist, but had God as his objective
> reality, so did Galileo yet subversively working for God's demise.
> Kepler, Bruno, Copernicus all worked inside the religious
> framework, even Newton looked upon himself as a religious
> thinker and the "Principia" as some secondary thing, but their
> search to demonstrate God's hand in the workings of the universe
> had the S/O distinction built in, already God had become a
> outsider who had to tend to the universe lest it would stop.
>
> This is about as much as I manage, I have made my point over
> and over and another time won't  make a difference.
> I maintain that you are on the brink of understanding the SOL, but
> my famous ability to sound so cock sure may not be very
> productive.
>

DM: I have no doubt I understand it but have a slightly different take on
it.
What do you think. I think we have made some progress. If you drop
the S/O exclusivity and accept there is a future for non-S/O based
thought on the 4th level we have a deal.

A pleasure.
David M

> Bo
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