[MD] Some historical perspective

[mark_maxwell at talktalk.net]

Hi Platt,

 

'He [RMP] would have been less ambiguous if he had simply said, as you [Bo] do, that the intellectual level is occupied by subject/object metaphysics...'

 

squonk: The moq does not state, 'the intellectual level is occupied by subject/object metaphysics' because static intellectual patterns, which are said to be the intellectual level in the moq, are abstract symbols which include subjects and objects as well as 'other patterns' which are neither subjects or objects.

 


Examples of 'other patterns' include numbers and algebra which refer to other abstract symbols and form relationships with each other: 2 x 2 = 4 on their own terms regardless of what social context these ter
 ms exist in, and are therefore isolated within their own relationships as intellectual patterns.

 

Social patterns are imitated and require a social context.

 

Those philosophers who shoehorn 'other patterns' into the category of either subject and/or object are SOM philsophers, and those who do not shoehorn 'other patterns' into the category of either subject and/or object are not SOM philosophers.

The moq is not the only non-SOM philosophy, and in this regard it is similar to Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Hegel, James, Pierce, Nieztsche, Bergson, but not 'the same as' Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Hegel, James, Pierce, Nieztsche, Bergson.

 

It seems to me, and i may be wrong, that Bo introduces ambiguity when he 
 fails to recognise there are more intellectual patterns than subjects and objects?


 

All the best,

squonk

 

 

while his Quality metaphysics reveals a 
reality that comes before intellect and so can only partially be expressed 
in S/O language. Had he clearly limited his "intellectual level" to 
subject/object metaphysics,  the uniqueness of the MOQ would have 
been communicated more strongly and its "understanding" less obscure. 
In short, to understand the MOQ you have to escape the intellectual box 
of me-in-here, you-out-there. 








-----Original Message-----
From: plattholden at gmail.com
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Sent: Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:13
Subject: Re: [MD] Some historical perspective



Hi 
 Bo, 
Speaking of Pirsig's "ambiguity" you may recall this exchange in Lila's 
hild::
Platt: "So, I fully agree with Bo's insight the SOM and the intellectual 
evel are one and the same. To support it, to protect it, to avoid losing it 
nd sinking back to the 'anything goes' of irrationalism, or a 'because 
od says so' mentality, we need to recognize its vulnerability to attacks 
rom academic philosophers, social dogooders, spiritual evangelists, 
nd its own internal paradoxes. To this end, the MOQ is the best S/O 
nswer I've found yet."
Pirsig: Note 133. "I think this conclusion undermines the MOQ, although 
hat is obviously not Platt's intention.  It is like saying that science is 
eally a form of religion.  There 20is some truth to that, but it has the effect 
ismissing science as really not very important.    The MOQ is in  
pposition to subject-object metaphysics.  To say that it is a part of that 
ystem  which it opposes sounds like a dismissal.  I have read that the 
OQ is the same as Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Hegel, James, Pierce, 
ieztsche, Bergson, and many others even though these people are not  
eld to be saying the same as each other.  This kind of comparison is 
hat I have meant by the term, "philosophology." It is done by people 
ho are not seeking to understand what is written but only to classify it 
o that they don't have to see it as any thing new.  God knows, the MOQ 
as neve
 r had two better friends than Bo and Platt, so this is no criticism 
f their otherwise brilliant thinking.  It's just that I see a lowering of the 
uality of the MOQ itself if you follow this path of subordinating it to that 
hich it opposes."
I think Pirsig is pleading for "understanding" of the MOQ even though by 
ecessity it is presented in S/O intellectual (rational) ) language that 
annot convey its full meaning. He would have been less ambiguous if 
e had simply said, as you do, that the intellectual level is occupied by 
ubject/object metaphysics while his Quality metaphysics reveals a 
eality that comes before intellect and so can only partially be expressed 
n S/O language. Had he clearly limited his "i
 ntellectual level" to 
ubject/object metaphysics,  the uniqueness of the MOQ would have 
een communicated more strongly and its "understanding" less obscure. 
n short, to understand the MOQ you have to escape the intellectual box 
f me-in-here, you-out-there. 
As I indicated, by "locking" the beneficial aspects of S/O intellect in its 
wn level, it gets protected against the constant onslaught of social 
alues, just as the social level protects against the onslaught of 
iological values (lately with less and less success). Likewise by making 
t clear that S/O metaphysics is locked into the intellectual level, the 
OQ is freed up to soar into new, more revealing meanings of reality. 
ust as mathematics escaped from total depende
 nce on physical units 
six sheep, 40 centavos, etc.) the MOQ has escaped from total 
ependence on the subject/object division -- to the benefit of all. 
Platt      


n 17 Oct 2009 at 10:53, skutvik at online.no wrote:
> Platt, All 
 
 Oct 13. you wrote: 
 
 > An essay about Einstein, Oppenheimer and the rise and fall of nuclear
 > physics in popularity among media elites contains a passage which puts our
 > present discussions about the reality of subjects and objects in
 > historical perspective:
 
 This from Bertrand Russell on Einstein, Gödel and Pauli reminds me 
 of our MOQ Discuss, particularly about the problem of arriving at 
 common premises. 
 
     These discussions were in 20some ways disappointing, for, 
     although all three of them were Jews and exiles and, in 
     intention, cosmopolitans, I found that they all had a German 
     bias towards metaphysics, and in spite of our utmost 
     endeavors we never arrived at common premises from which 
     to argue.  
 
 IMO the most weighty quote was this
 
     Meanwhile, there remains philosophical work to be done. The 
     questions concerning technology that tormented 
     Oppenheimer, and the yearning for a philosophical resolution 
     of them, were not the imagined anxieties of a neurotic 
     individual but a sensitive manTMs reflection of perplexities that 
  =2
 0  run deep in American culture, sometimes shaping public 
     policy. In short, America needs a philosophy that is capable of 
     contextualizing the scientific adventure satisfyingly within the 
     American spirit.  
 
 A bit US-centered, I would say that all the world need a philosophical 
 resolution and that the MOQ is the resolution, but Pirsig's ambiguity 
 and the resulting ability to come to an agreement hinders its  
 application. And the intellectual level is and remains what all hinges 
 on. The way Dr McWatt presents it (intellect) in in his treatise  
 removes the revolutionary Quality from the MOQ.  
 
 Platt:
 > "As an example of the interdisciplinary and highly philo
 sophical tone
 > of Göttingen in the 1920s, Robert Jungk thus describes Born´s weekly
 > "Seminar on Matter": 
 
      "These debates were concerned more and more with the 
     most basic problems of epistemology. Had the discoveries of 
     atomic physics abolished the duality between the human 
     observer and the world observed? Was there no longer any 
     real distinction between subject and object? Could two 
     mutually exclusive propositions on the same topic both be 
     regarded as correct from a loftier standpoint? Would one be 
     justified in abandoning the view that the foundation of physics 
     is the close connection of cause and=2
 0effect? But in that case 
     could there ever be any such thing as laws of Nature? Could 
     any reliable scientific forecasts ever be made?"  
 
 "No longer any real distinction between subject and object". Phew, 
 that's the point. The intellectual level IS the S/O distinction, while it's 
 static "rank" means that this distinction doe not go further down than 
 the social level, the "real" distinction is the Dynamic/Static one. The 
 MOQ resolves it all in its gigantic metaphysical in-out-turn It's a bit 
 too much to call Jung, Born (Bohr?) Einstein - the lot - SOMists, but 
 all who don't know the MOQ are SOMists (exception for the Orientals 
 but they don't know they have transcend
 ed it) 
 
 But, the problem is that most people don't understand the initial in-
 out-turn, they want it presented in some arm-long article by a 
 physicist with as many titles and by Quantum Physics terminology. 
 The madman from an obscure school in MOntana who now lives  
 even more obscurely in New Hampshire is not convincing and a 
 discussion that has as many opinions on the fundamentals as 
 participants does not help.   
 
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