[MD] A fine mess

[Ian Glendinning]

OK, so Bo, no place to hide ;-)
Picking up on that schizophrenia (agreeing and denying in the same
"apparent" logic).

(And leaving aside any personal name calling "the intellectuals", "the
menagerie", "the new-agers" .... we're all at it one way or another if
we're being honest ... it's called heated debate, it's rhetoric, it's
what "interested" people do. So ...)

Please therefore address the considered response to you on that
logical bind that leads to the schizophrenia.
(Reposted below, since you seem to have missed it.)

In your own time ....

[QUOTE]
Nice one Bo, progress. (and Steve & Andre) Certainly not water off a
duck's back to me. In fact you give me an opportunity to explain
myself at last, and it's way beyond any kind of "orthodoxy". Way
beyond "trust me, it's that ephemeral quality".

We get to the real root of the problem Bo. We use the term SOMist
about the focus on subjects and objects (yawn), but in fact a problem
is indeed in our adherence to "logic" when we use these objects. (NB
"logic when we use ...", not logic per se.) So.

You are right I do do "violence" to certain kinds of "SOMist logic" as
I have freely admitted. The argument is not simply logic vs faith as
you would have it, but belief in different kinds of logic. You are
just as wedded to your view of logic as you think I am to some other
mysterious kind of logic. Because the latter is mysterious to you and
the former isn't, you call the one logic and the other faith. But,
listen ... I really am an engineer / scientist / manager - I'm no
mysterian ...

In my kind of (dependent-arising / circular / recursive /
strange-loopy) logic, which is "mysterious" to you (ie not logic), the
basic tenets of your kind of syllogistic logic are not violated, it's
just that they have to be applied to the right levels of things (I
hesitate to say "objects"). So there is a reductionism required, a
"non-greedy" kind of reductionism, to explain all the processes (quite
logically) in the physical levels but that explanations at one level
are not simply "causes" in another. They are part of interactive
two-way-causal processes, not one-way causations - closer to quality
in fact, or inclusionality. The things we see as (as if) causes and
effects in the macro (non-reductionist) world are not governed by
simple logic in that world. The loops of interactivity cross levels,
and we get "emergence" or "dependent arisings".

When I talk about being "pragmatic" I am certainly not taking us back
to some time before the objects of science were available for logical
analysis. I'm just saying that in the macro, everyday world, the one
in which we need to make day to day decisions, we should not be
surprised to find breakdowns in simple logical relationships between
objects at this macro level. Probability based on experience needs to
plug such holes in strict logic (at this level). Avoid analysis
paralysis, and live. It's a "radical" kind of pragmatism, but a
post-MoQ enlightened kind, not an ignorant kind. In fact, it's wisdom
for want of a better word.

The sophists, rhetoricians and poets (and sages) actually get closer
to communicating this than I have, but enlightened science really is
converging on the same picture, without giving up it's logical tenets,
just its unfounded certainty in tangible objects in any given level,
to which it erroneously applies that logic all too easily.

Ian

On Sat, Nov 29, 2008 at 2:57 PM,  <skutvik at online.no> wrote:
> Hi Ian
>
> 29 Nov.you wrote:
>
>> That's how I look at it Steve.
>
>> (1) seeing the MOQ as an intellectual pattern that is superior to the
>> intellectual pattern known as SOM (2) as opposed to seeing all of
>> intellect as SOM (IOW Pirsig's MOQ) (3) and the MOQ as a single
>> pattern forming it's own new level (IOW Bo and Platt's revised SOLAQI
>> MOQ)?
>
>> Though I have to say I see (1) a the Pirsigian MoQ since as I have
>> said endlessly in this recent series of threads he never says anything
>> close to (2) "all of intellect being SOM" IMHO. He was just ahead of
>> his time in evolutionary explanations for (1).
>
>> (2) plus (3) are the Bo problem.
>
> Bo problem, my foot. The SOL is a solution of a problem that
> orthodoxy has imposed on the MOQ and if it is the to make it out of
> this faithful circle it can't be hampered with such a blatant violence of
> logic. It's useless to comment this - water on a goose - so I wait for
> Steve's, he is orthodox but seems susceptible to logic.
>
> Bo
>

On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 10:02 AM,  <skutvik at online.no> wrote:
> Hi Platt
> (seeking refuge from Ron)
>
> 2 Dec.you pointed to the low morals:
>
>> Just a follow up to Khoo's observation: "SOM may come to be the
>> 'universal human condition' but the world is a fine mess as a result."
>> >From Breitbart.com: "American teenagers lie, steal and cheat more at
>> "alarming rates," a study of nearly 30,000 high school students
>> concluded Monday. ...
>
> and concluded:
>
>> The inevitable fallout of morally bereft SOM? I think so.
>
> You alter between (agreeing with me regarding) SOM as the highest
> static good and as the cause of social decay. I believe the
> metaphysics issue is the fulcrum. Intellect is not SOM in a
> metaphysical sense, merely the distinction in a - um - pragmatic
> sense, and I believe that these two aspects can be kept apart.
>
> According to the MOQ intellect's purpose is to "tame" social patterns
> (that have free rein under anti-intellect conditions. For instance, Nazi
> Germany was a most law-abiding country only matched by Iran these
> days) and as SOM it did  that job, but like the sorcerer's apprentice it
> had learned the start formula but not to stop and this was what Pirsig
> lamented in ZAMM.
>
> That book looked upon SOM as "morally bereft" and longed for the
> Aretê era when morals were all. But in a MOQ context the levels are
> moral increases, Aretê is era when social value was leading edge and
> SOM intellect entering the stage. However their static quality prevents
> the levels from from understanding the Q context and thus not
> knowing when to stop taming their parents.
>
> And THIS is the reason for intellect's relentless persecution of social
> good, which is an earlier "taming" of biological license and if brought
> too far brings "dreadful nights" upon us. Only with the MOQ this
> context was revealed and intellect thereby "tamed" - not from inside,
> that's impossible lest it becomes something else than a static level, but
> by the MOQ.
>
> And - I can't resist kicking asses - this is why the "intellectuals" of this
> forum dislike Platt (most friendly of course) he looks to them as
> promoting social value, while he really promotes the Quality view a
> view they haven't understood.
>
>
> Bo
>
>
>
>
>
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