[MD] MD FW: The intellectual level and rationality

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi Joe

On 6 Jan. you wrote:

> 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.  

Glad to see that you're still around this place, but I also notice 
that your inputs are cryptic and I'm not always sure how to 
interpret them, yet it looks as some agreement.

> 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'!

Subjective=conscious, objective=mechanical. Maybe a very good 
comparison. Keep thinking and posting. 

Bo  



> 
> 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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