[MD] The Edge 2006 Annual Question

[ian glendinning]

Thanks Bo. I'm glad I promted you into that, it is really useful in
revealing what I had hoped ... All I ever asked you to do was to
confirm that you were disagreeing with my point about the MoQ being
self-defining and evolutionary. Everything else it is, we seemed to
agree on.

I'll summarise rather than insert point by point again.

(1) Subjectivity / Objectivity - we can tie each other in knots about
who meant what when, and as I think Scott pointed out their meanings
have changed so much as to even be reversed over history. So no value
in that debate. We do agree that SOMism in MoQ4 is about the
intellectual distinction of S's and O's. (I said a couple of years
ago, I agreed with your analysis of that situation - our disagreement
has only ever been about - so what next ? I never accepted that
therefore that is all the MoQ4 is.)

(2) I do believe intellect can define itself (in fact did define
itself). I do believe the MoQ can include its own definition (in fact
it does). So we disagree there. As I pointed out months ago, our
difference is indeed you being unconfortable with this recursion.
Recursion is a good thing in my book. If it can define itself, it can
re-define itself.

(3) I do believe MoQ (being an evolutionary framework) defines its own
evolvability. You ask, what if it is superseded by something, as a
result of this evolution ? No problem in my book. Firstly the easy
part - its supersession is not tantamount to declaring the MoQ
"nonesense". That's just you being pejorative. Secondly, unless there
is a completely independant (and better quality) Metaphysics creeping
up behind us (**) - evolution of the MoQ produces sons and daughers of
the MoQ - keeps the MoQ line going. As is traditional in happy
families, the MoQ name is carried forward too. (Darwin got a lot
wrong, but neo-Darwinism ploughs on, strengthened.)

At some point a completely new post-MoQ species may emerge, but it
will still be an evolved development of the MoQ - it's fittest
features will remain, it's redundant ones may not, new improved ones
may appear or be exaggerated. Nothing in the 4 layers (species) of
it's evolution so far has been retrograde, nor has it removed the
validity of the previous layers, it has simply built on them. How can
this be anything but a good thing (assuming we find the MoQ
essentially good to start with) ? What do we call this new improved
MoQ+ (anything you like, by any other name) ?

(** That hypothetical better quality metaphysics is of course easily
accommodated in MoQ4, in my MoQ anyway.)

Ian
PS please stop using epithets like Klan and Acolytes and Apostles,
unless you're going to make a valid point about it - suggesting where
I've got a view here that I've swallowed from someone else without
thinking it myself. It stinks.


On 1/16/06, skutvik at online.no <skutvik at online.no> wrote:
> Ian and Klan.
>
> I had written
>
> > > Phew, are we back at square one again. We have been
> > > discussing intellect for aeons and I had the great feeling that the
> > > "mood" has slowly swung from the source of all confusion - the
> > > initial "mind-definition" - to a more Quality-like one, namely that
> > > ZMM is about the social-intellectual transition. If so the above
> > > cited passage from ZMM is how intellect's "O" looks on its "S"
> > > represented by the Sophists. This ought not be difficult or
> > > controversial, it's SOM!
>
> On 13 Jan. you responded
>
> > [IG] - If all your telling me is that Plato represents the
> > intellectual ascendancy of "O" over the Sophists "S" then it's hardly
> > news. We're at square one because you've taken us back to ancient
> > Greece. I still don't get your point, your specific point - ie why
> > you're telling me this, not what your telling me. That I can read.
>
> The Sophists are not seen as "S"-ists, but as Aretê-ists by ZMM
> and as mystics by DMB, but I'm happy if this is plain going with
> you. My "specific point" will hopefully emerge in the next
> paragraph.
>
> > > It's agonizing difficult but one point must be clarified. There are
> > > two views that intermingle and create confusion if not kept apart. I
> > > have presented the ZMM experience as the 4th level rising above the
> > > 3rd and that it may be seen as objectivity-out-of- subjectivity, but
> > > this is the two views mixed. The first is MOQ's the latter is SOM's
> > > (the inter-intellect one).
> >
> > [IG] You may have presented it that way and "it may be seen as", but
> > that doesn't make it so. In fact that is what we're arguing about. You
> > see level 4 as "objectivity out of subjectivity".
>
> I don't see level 4 as "objectivity out of subjectivity" THAT is
> intellect's own self-congratulating view of itself. The MOQ view is
> that the 4th level is the S/O distinction itself  -  IMO at least!
>
> > I say level 4 got a
> > big boost that way thanks to Plato and Aristotle, but they didn't
> > define level 4, the MoQ does.
>
> The SOL says that ZMM's story of SOM is the  emergence of the
> 4th level! And yes, we must not let intellect define itself - that
> makes for SOM - but let the MOQ define it, and no-one has come
> up with a credible definition other than the SOL. The initial mind-
> definition created problems and the symbol-manipulation
> definition is clearly just a definition of language.
>
> > In the MoQ, level 4 can be far more than
> > "Objectivity".
>
> Yes, it is the subject/object distinction and all possible derivatives
> thereof.!
>
> > In fact I maintain it should / must be far more than
> > that - MoQ gives it a framework in which to evolve further, into the
> > MoQ itself. This is the point you seem to either miss, or refuse to
> > acknowledge, even by disagreeing.
>
> It's the "far more" which is the source of all difficulties. An
> intellectual level that once "contained" pre-somish world-views,
> then SOM and now the MOQ is impossible. I don't miss this point,
> I only see it too well.
>
> > > To complicate things further the MOQ view has gone through two
> > > stages, first the one represented by ZMM's moq where the Plato
> > > vs Sophists struggle is the valueless SOM conquering the value-
> > > filled past. Then MOQ itself where "the past" becomes the social
> > > level and SOM becomes the intellectual and only now the final Q
> > > overview occurs wherein the social level has nothing to do with
> > > "subjectivism" or intellect with "objectivism", both are the 4th
> > > level's creations and its value.
>
> > [IG] I don't want to argue the detail in that paragraph, but this is
> > you describing how the MoQ represents the evolution of intellect and
> > knowledge up to and including Plato. Fine, genuienly fine, I agree
> > already.
>
> If you agree with this you really agree with the SOL, but you try to
> evade in a way much like Pirsig's in the Paul letter. He said that
> "the Greeks developed intellect" (meaning SOM) but then opened
> the Oriental issue to show that intellect can have a non-S/O
> content in another culture. Here you likewise imply an intellect
> that only with the Greeks got the S/O content, before it had
> allegedly had what  ...if not the ancient (in MOQ) social content
> and it turns into a "Metaphysics of Intellect".
>
> > But what about thousands of years of improvements since ? I
> > say it describes that too.
>
> Yes, the MOQ describes the 4th level's evolution from its Greek
> origin  through various "improvements" - the Cartesian where it
> got the mind/matter form - to the modern times when its values
> began to dominate the Western political scene.
>
> > (Not to mention where it might go in the
> > future - it's an evolutionary framework, not a fossil record of past
> > evolution.)
>
> I just wonder. If this open-ended intellect developed the idea that
> the MOQ is nonsense, would that still be the 4th level of the
> MOQ?  Would there be a MOQ at all?
>
> > > This has the consequence that the social past (which in ZMM was
> > > identified with Aretê ) only looked attractive for Phaedrus because
> > > it is non-dualistic (the same reason that Barfield looks to
> > > "original participation" as his Golden Age). Unless this second
> > > phase is completed the MOQ will remain in limbo. Either shunning ZMM
> > > because it stands out like a sore thumb or - like DMB - find some
> > > outlandish explanation about the Sophists being religious mystics
> > > and disappearing into that foggy land.
>
> > [IG] - What do you mean by "this second phase" ? Again I can see what
> > you say, but not why?
>
> The first phase was the current (SOM) view of the Greeks being
> re-described by ZMM, the second phase was ZMM being re-
> described by LILA as above that the ancient times weren't DQ,
> but social quality, only Golden Age-like for being non-dualism
> ...etc.
>
> > Whatever you identify Aretê with in ZMM, we
> > know it went further in Lila.
>
> Yes, it got DQ/SQ divided with the said consequences.
>
> > It sounds suspiciously again that you
> > want to see the MoQ as complete for all time, (and dare I say, as
> > dualistic)
>
> "The MOQ complete for all time" is a sensitive point, but when a
> theory is forwarded it will present itself as the final word, anything
> else is impossible and we are sure that Pirsig has found the
> answer. The notion that the MOQ can evolve and still be the
> MOQ is impossible.
>
> > whereas I say - what a waste that would be. (I'd like to
> > see some indication that you understand this difference, even if you
> > disagree.)
>
> I don't see that an open-ended MOQ is possible. Again, if this
> leads to a rejection of the MOQ...what then?
>
> Bo
>
>
>
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