[MD] Reductionism

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi John  

You said:

> I hope it's not tiresome for you to explain this to me in simple
> language. I don't quite get the meta-meta, Quality??/??concept.  What
> does the slash represent?  The quality of the concept Concept or the
> concept of Quality? 

"Simple language" Hmmm. Language can be simple or complicated 
dependent on one's being familiar with the underlying premises. 
Medieval times' disputes (f.ex. over number of angels on 
needlepoints) are mumbo-jumbo to us while our times' (f.ex. scientific 
articles) are plain going (at least we are convinced that the authors 
understand) The former is an example of social premises while the 
latter is intellect's (SOM) and now that I try to introduce the MOQ's 
premises the same problem is encountered.  

I had said:

> >  I must repeat that the greatest goof was to introduce a 
> > Quality/Concept "meta-metaphysics"  which is playing straight into
> > SOM's hand. 

My point is that Pirsig originally presents a rock solid metaphysics 
(the MOQ) that replaces the ruling metaphysics (SOM), but then 
suddenly (in the "Summary") he presents another - what I call a meta-
metaphysics - which says that all arrangements of Quality (i.e. all 
metaphysics) are just concepts and thus fall short of the goal, the 
REAL arrangement is Quality/Concepts 

This is outrageous (just introduces a new arrangement) and sends us 
straight back into SOM-land of an objective yet ineffable reality that 
we just can make conceptual theories about. Why Pirsig and his 
acolyte DMB don't see this violation of the MOQ is more than I can 
fathom.    

> > As Krimel points to there is nothing outside of language ...IF ONE
> > ACCEPTS SOM's of an objective reality "out there" fundamentally
> > different from our conceptual language .... and so Pirsig and you
> > obviously have done. Good Grief! 

> Ok here is where I am with you, I think.  It's just as unprovable that
> "out there" DOESN'T match our "in here" as it is unprovable that it
> does. Concluding fundamental difference on such scant empirical
> evidence doesn't sound very empirical to me.  In fact, it sounds more
> like the snit of a cynic - a disillusioned idealist - we can't PROVE 
> it one way so we'll CON CLUDE that it's other. 

The "out there/inhere" schism  is SOM and its shortcomings - for 
instance that qualities are created subjectively by our senses - are so 
trite that I don't bother to comment, but are what Pirsig calls 
"platypus" and what he claims that the MOQ (dis)solves. And it 
DOES, but then he goes and creates a platypus of his own that nullify 
it all.  

> > Concepts are formed by language so those are identical,
 
> Well here Bo, I might differ.  It seems to me that there is something
> that goes down in my brain that is a discrete (relatively)  "concept"
> that I might not have the language for.  Different languages use
> symbols to represent basic and common human conceptualization.

Sure, things go on in our brains that can't be expressed by words (you 
just understand intuitively) and for ages creatures with no language 
lived by intuitions. Smell, taste, touch, hearing and sight, these have 
an immense impact. Remember Marcel Proust and his mystical 
rapture after tasting a particular tea & cake?  The age when 
SENSATION ruled  was MOQ's biological level, but it has been 
overlaid by two more static layers.  

With the social level - EMOTIONS - took over as the chief 
expression, and when language entered the scene the silent kind we 
call "thoughts" lodged on top of biology's sensations, an individual 
could "say" to himself: "I'm afraid", "I'm happy" ...etc. and these 
emotions-as-thoughts could be conveyed to other people, they could 
be made to feel the same if the story-teller was good.

With the intellectual level the "objectification" of both sensation and 
emotion occurred, these became SUBJECTIVE phenomena with no 
OBJECTIVE ground. Intellect's expression - REASON - took over. 
But the lower levels are there under intellect and we live as much at 
these levels as we do on the intellectual, hence your ......" It seems to 
me that there is something that goes down in my brain that is a 
discrete (relatively)  "concept" that I might not have the language for".   

You concluded:     

> Does that seem right to you?  Then it would be likely, even provable
> that all words are concepts, but not all concepts can be reduced to
> words. 

That language is conceptual and as such subjective is obvious seen 
from intellect's S/O point of view, and that "everything that comes to 
mind" is subjective is as obvious, but everybody will agree that sense 
impressions can't be conveyed by words (one can only describe a 
taste by referring to another taste or a concept like "sour", "sweet" 
..etc) nor can emotions, hunches, insights, but then, these aren't 
"concepts" - not in my dictionary.    

Anyway THE issue is that whatever we want to express - even that of 
something not expressible in words - must be expressed by words. All 
efforts to avoid language is futile .... SEEN FROM INTELLECT - and 
is why I'm so aghast at Pirsig's applying intellect's criteria to the MOQ 
(it being just concepts [i.e. subjective] in contrast to Quality which is 
outside of language [i.e. objective])   

Bodvar