[MD] Reductionism

[Steve Peterson]

Hi Bo,
> Well you ignore all
> my arguments and bring a LC quote:...


Steve:
I don't mean to ignore your arguments. But it seems like you are  
using the MOQ language so differently from the way I am that it's  
hard for me to find a point of entry to argue with you.

Bo:
> What the heck has the mind/matter controversy to do with the MOQ?
> Its DQ/SQ distinction has replaced SOM's Mind/Matter and (as the
> only possible opening) has made SOM its own intellectual level.
>


Steve:
I wasn't trying to bring in any new controversy. I was just defending  
DMB's claim that DQ/sq amounts to reality/concept where reality  
simply refers to the conceptually unknown.


Bo:
> The true MOQ says that Quality is primary ("comes first") and its  
> first
> "product" being the inorganic level and then the biological ...etc.  
> and
> finally the intellectual level where the S/O split (and its many  
> offshots,
> mind/matter among them) are its static value patterns. Then Pirsig
> manages to say that "ideas" produces matter, if so ideas also produce
> ideas (mind) and all this goes haywire.

Steve:
Pirsig said that Quality produces ideas.


Bo:
> And then the reference to the
> "scientific community" (physics) that "..... invariably presumes that
> matter comes first and produces ideas" (mind) Sure, it's science's
> (intellect's) very business to presume that the OBJECTIVE part is
> primary and the SUBJECTIVE is secondary. Then he says " ..to
> further the confusion the MOQ says that the idea that matter comes
> first is a high quality idea". Yes, the intellectual level is the  
> highest
> static value, but its patterns are not IDEAS but the S/O split.
> Why this terribly convoluted way to arrive at something that the true
> MOQ clarifies so infinitely easier?

Steve:
It sounds like the BoMoQ's intellectual level contains a single  
pattern, the S/O distinction. I've harped on this before, but I think  
the difficulty lies in understanding what a pattern is. If you take  
"habit" as a synonym for "pattern" I think it might clear some things  
up. Distinguishing between subjective and objective knowledge is just  
one of many intellectual habits (habits of mind) that humans have  
dynamically evolved as tools for coping with the world. The MOQ  
itself is another of those tools.

>
> Well I only know too well, it's his misconceived mindish intellectual
> level that has concepts or ideas as its patterns.

I don't think the mind is a level. I think you can pretty much equate  
intellect with mind but you can't equate the set of all intellectual  
patterns (i.e. the intellectual level) with mind since mind has a  
dynamic component.

Best,
Steve