[MD] Distinguishing Levels

[Michael Hamilton]

Hi Steve,

You wrote:
> I think that Pirsig would say that the laws of physics are intellectual patterns of value that describe inorganic patterns of value. I say this because of the ghosts discussion in ZAMM where he says that Newton's Laws of Gravitation exist only in our minds. At that time he didn't describe them as referring to anything, but I think that is because he had not yet defined a type of experience called inorganic patterns of value. I think in the MOQ ideas do represent other types of experience. They can represent inorganic, biological, social, or other intellectual patterns of value.

Mike:
Now this is VERY akin to what I was trying to argue with Paul. Here's
a large snippet (I'm not sure how much of my argument I still stand
by):

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 12/22/05, Paul Turner <paul at turnerbc.co.uk> wrote:
> Mike,
>
> I'm unsubscribing but here is a reply anyway.
>
> Mike wrote:
> >By saying that matter is "redescribed" as inorganic patterns of value,
> >without emphasising the significance of the redescription, i.e. the
> >change of meaning, you risk losing that significance, which is:
> >inorganic patterns of value, such as the ones that form our living
> >bodies and are investigated by the natural sciences and are apparent
> >in sensory experience, are not the same as the objects that our
> >intellects deduce (or perhaps more accurately, induce) in order to
> >explain sensory experience from a third-person viewpoint. This act of
> >deduction (or more accurately, induction) is an act of creating a new
> >pattern of value.
>
> Paul:  I would argue that inorganic patterns are also deduced, which is what
> Pirsig says in SODV:  "The bottom box shows inorganic patterns.  The
> Metaphysics of Quality says objects are composed of "substance" but it says
> that this substance can be defined more precisely as "stable inorganic
> patterns of value."  This added definition makes substance sound more
> ephemeral than previously but it is not.  The objects look and smell and
> feel the same either way.  The Metaphysics of Quality agrees with scientific
> realism that these inorganic patterns are completely real, and there is no
> reason that box shouldn't be there, but it says that this reality is
> ultimately a deduction made in the first months of an infant's life and
> supported by the culture in which the infant grows up."
>
> Mike wrote:
> >So, the redescription is all well and good, but if we want to defeat
> >the materialist completely, we need to make absolutely sure that we
> >don't conflate static patterns of value that are postulated
> >intellectually (such as, "virus", "photon", "Proxima Centauri" and,
> >admittedly, "carbon"), with static patterns of value known empirically
> >(such as "fever", "blue", "bright point of light in the sky" and
> >"likes to bond with both metals and non-metals"). To conflate them is
> >to throw away the insight of Pirsig's revolutionary suggestion that
> >subjects and objects are deduced from Quality events, from
> >non-intellectual patterns of value.
>
> Paul:  I think you are slipping into a correspondence theory of truth here.
> You are saying that some words inherently correspond with reality more than
> others, as if they are in some kind of hierarchy of proximity.  This leads
> to all kinds of confusion, an example of which is in this thread where you
> previously said that carbon was known empirically but have now said that it
> is "merely an intellectual postulation."  Once you divide concepts up this
> way you have to define the point at which the merely intellectually
> postulated concept becomes the empirically given concept.  The history of
> philosophy has thus far shown this to be an ill-fated endeavour so I tend to
> side with the pragmatists and repudiate the idea of inherent correspondence
> and this putative division or hierarchy of concepts with it.
>
> Pirsig's revolutionary suggestion was indeed that the existence of subjects
> and objects is deduced from experience of Quality but in the context of LILA
> this means that the existence of all static patterns is deduced from this
> experience and subjects and objects become contained in the four levels.  I
> get accused of overcomplicating things but perhaps I can make a simple
> statement with respect to the ZMM insight:
> Subjects and objects are the product of experience and not the conditions or
> cause of it.  Thus, subjects and objects are still produced by experience
> but they are recognised as having a conventional, that is to say, static,
> reality and not a primary, fundamental or ultimate reality.  This is the
> same insight which the Indian tradition has carried for centuries while the
> west has persistently reified one or the other as the starting point of its
> metaphysics.
>
> >> Paul:  I gave my definition of matter in the first post in which I made
> >this
> >> argument.  Here it is again:  Something that has mass and exists as a
> >solid,
> >> liquid, gas, or plasma.  By this definition, do you still deny that
> >carbon
> >> is matter?
>
> >Mike wrote:
> >Remember, the "something" is deduced from the mass and the state (and
> >other things), which, I think, are inorganic patterns of value. And
> >the "something" (which, by your definition, could be classified
> >"matter") is an intellectual pattern of value.
>
> Paul:  Inorganic patterns of value are also deduced from experience and
> "matter" is only an intellectual pattern to the extent that "inorganic
> patterns of values" is.  I think you are conflating what I have described as
> thesis (1) and (2) of the MOQ.  In thesis (1), everything is recognised as a
> human invention; a pattern of knowledge.  But in thesis (2), the pattern of
> knowledge called the MOQ is laid out as a "plain of understanding" and IN
> THIS PATTERN inorganic patterns of values are independent of intellectual
> patterns and evolved prior to them.