[MD] LC Comments

[Mary]

Hi Magnus,

>[Magnus referring to Pirsig's comments in LC] 

> P.13 (probably 13 years ago), I was discussing A.I. and if the MoQ
> allowed it. If it didn't, I probably would have left there and then,
> but
> I thought I devised a cunning way around the obvious obstacles.
> 
> I wrote:
> if it is possible to get intellectual patterns of value into a
> computer,
> 
> Pirsig commented:
> Both hardware and software are formed by intellectual patterns of
> value.
> 
> Then I wrote:
> this would be utterly impossible because it involves skipping not only
> one but two static levels.
> 
> Pirsig commented:
> I don't recall saying you can't skip levels, but in this case none are
> skipped.  The hand that taps the computer keys is biological.  The
> school that taught the computer programmer how to program is social.
> He
> had to learn  programming from somebody through social interaction
> unless his name is Von Neumann.  But Von Neumann didn't grow up in the
> jungle.  Social institutions had to educate him.
> 
> Then I mentioned a team of (real) six-legged robots that were supposed
> to work together as a team and help researching on remote rocks like
> Mars. I argued that the team of robots could be seen as a social
> pattern, because some robots had special abilities in much the same way
> a city has special organs for police, school, government and so on.
> 
> So I wrote:
>  From now on, I'll assume that this team really is a social pattern of
> value.
> 
> Pirsig commented:
> This assumption destroys the system of classification set up by the
> MOQ.
>   Social patterns are subjective.  Robots are not.
> 
> 
> Ok, let's stop here and have a closer look. His first comment about
> both
> hardware and software being *formed* by intellectual patterns, is
> somewhat subsumed in the 2nd. There, in the 2nd comment, he first
> doesn't acknowledge that the the level inter-dependency must mean that
> you can't skip a level. But how can a pattern of, say, the 3rd level,
> be
> dependent on the 2nd level, and at the same time just skip it?? Doesn't
> make any sense at all.
> 
> Then, he continues with something, I don't know what to call it without
> sounding disrespectful, but the word lame is what I really mean.
> Anyway,
> "The hand that taps the computer keys is biological."?? Come on! We're
> trying to be serious here but *that's* disrespectful!
> 


[Mary replies]
I don't think Pirsig is trying to be disrespectful.  I think he is
expressing some underlying assumptions we might not agree with (or, as in my
case, I tend to feel it's more like I don't understand him than that I do
understand him but disagree).  I think it's common to perceive stuff we
don't understand as disrespectful when it's not intended that way at all.  

It seems like Pirsig is following the line of reasoning he put forth in the
SODV paper where he divides the levels into something akin to the 'material
or objective' (Inorganic and Biological) and the 'mental or subjective'
(Social and Intellectual). But maybe not, because while you are puzzled
about his statement, "The hand that taps the computer keys is biological",
for myself, I can get comfortable by extrapolating that into, "the hand that
built the computer is biological, shaped by social, and refined by
intellectual" and be ok with it, but then start to have difficulty with his
other statement, "Social patterns are subjective.  Robots are not."  I mean,
I tend to agree with him that robots are not social patterns, but since he
groups Social and Intellectual patterns into the subjective category, then
he seems to be saying they aren't Intellectual patterns either - leaving
what?  Inorganic?  It seems so.

He tells us all Art is endeavor, but makes clear that not all endeavor is
Art.  Are we to take that to mean that works of endeavor (building a
computer or robot could be seen as Art, I think) is a manipulation of
objective reality by subjective reality?  That leads to one place, I think.
The 'material' levels (Inorg and Bio) can be manipulated for 'subjective'
purposes, but their fundamental nature is unchanged.  So these 'material'
patterns are affected by the higher Quality of the subjective patterns while
at the same time being products of patterns of value in and of themselves.
I think this fits in a weird sort of way. 


[Magnus]
> Look, take a house. It has social value, right? But to have that it
> must
> depend on biological patterns? Using the same reasoning as Pirsig, the
> house is built by people, i.e. biological patterns. Ok, fine.
> 
> *BUT*! Take the series of caves at the southern tip of Spain where
> Neanderthals lived some 20-30 thousand years ago. They were carved by
> the sea, but were used just like a house and had just as much social
> value for them as houses have for us. I bet they even reserved the
> biggest and finest cave to the most important member of the clan.
> 
> So, how did that happen? If some of you don't think a house has social
> value, I can come up with thousands more examples to show the same
> thing.
> 
> A house *has* to have a direct line of dependency through all levels
> down to the rock bottom of the level ladder. Every pattern has to have
> that, otherwise it falls apart and is *not* such a pattern it was, it
> dies.
> 

[Mary replies]

I agree that houses have social value. I think Pirsig would say they only
have that value in the 'minds' of people, and this is as SOM as SOM can be.

[Magnus]
> Take a police house. Does it have social value because it's built by
> people? No, it has social value because the police who keeps order in
> the city work there. When the police moves to another building, which
> has happened in my city twice over the last 20 years, the old building
> has not the same social value it had.
> 
> When looking at what kind of patterns something is made of, it has
> nothing to do with who built it, or made it. It's "metaphysically
> irrelevant".
> 
> I'll rub it in some more. Take that computer that according to Pirsig
> only supports intellectual patterns because it was built (formed) by
> intellectual patterns. Ok, what happens if we remove some parts from
> that computer, the keyboard? No, it still supports intellectual
> patterns. Ok, the graphics card? Nah, we can still access the
> intellectual patterns through the ethernet/WiFi connection. The memory
> chip! That's it, now the computer can't run at all because it must read
> its program from the memory while it's executing it, so now it can't do
> anything. It's broke and doesn't support intellectual patterns anymore.
> How did this happen? We destroyed it. Ok, that's cheating because we're
> intellectual patterns and of course we can un-build what other
> intellectual patterns once built. But what if the memory broke by
> itself? It *does* happen from time to time. Then if I were to call my
> computer techie Bob Pirsig on the other end, he would still claim, "no
> it supports intellectual patterns because it was built by intellectual
> patterns to support them". ???
>


[Mary replies]

Pirsig would probably say the inorganic patterns of value that comprise the
computer were manipulated into their present form by Intellectual patterns
of value and, __whether the computer is working or not__, are still an
inorganic set of patterns of value that have been 'enhanced' by Intellectual
patterns of value.  Or in other words, the Intellectual patterns of value
are not an attribute of the thing, the thing was created by the intellectual
patterns of value.

[Magnus] 
> Doesn't the MoQ allow things to spontaneously break all by itself? Or
> even better, doesn't the MoQ allow for things to spontaneously *mend*
> themselves??? I mean, it's hardly unheard of that computer components
> are sensitive to both heat and moist, so the memory chip might fail if
> it reaches 85C, and then it works fine again after cooling down. If
> it's
> over 85C, the computer *doesn't* support intellectual patterns, but if
> it's cooler, it *does*.
> 
> Now, please Robert Maynard Pirsig or anyone else, can you explain that?


[Mary replies]

The questions posed are the same ones any person viewing the situation from
a S/O perspective would raise.  The computer 'has' attributes of operating
temperature and such, so it must also 'have' Intellectual Value patterns
too; and if it 'has' these intellectual values, then when it is broken it
must no longer 'have' them.  For Pirsig (and us here) though, it is
understood that this is not the case;  we see instead that the Intellectual
Quality that created it 'has' the computer.  So if the computer breaks or
fails to work beyond a given range of operating temperatures, that just
indicates that an 'imperfect or incomplete' set of Intellectual Value
patterns were used to create it.  These subjective intellectual patterns of
value need to go back to the drawing board to refine the intellectual
pattern of values otherwise known 'objectively' as a computer.  



[Magnus]
> 
> I'm not being overly obnoxious about this. I'm just exploring what the
> levels really are and how they relate to each other. But to claim that
> a
> computer is supported by biological patterns just because a hand is
> tapping the keys is, well, more like a child's riddle than metaphysics.
> 
> 
> Oh, we haven't even touched the 3rd comment yet. First of all, I
> obviously disagree with him about the social status of the robot-team.
> But also, he says that social patterns are subjective.? Isn't the very
> core of MoQ's message that "subjective" is *not* something we can just
> end a discussion with? In SOM, we can, because in SOM, subjective is
> that which every one of us has a unique and personal viewpoint of. So
> to
> say that something is subjective means that everyone is entitled to her
> own view of it.
> 
> I can guess that Pirsig has had to revert to using those terms because
> he probably get endless questions about it, and to say that
> intellectual
> and social patterns are subjective, and biological and inorganic
> objective is probably the easy way out. But it's WRONG! And I hoped he
> at least would have talked to us in MoQese, but I guess not.
> 

[Mary replies]

I don't like this formula either, but maybe I dislike it for different
reasons than you?  In one way, he's right to divide the levels into
objective vs subjective.  It's what everybody sees and understands
intuitively, so when you start off explaining the MoQ to anyone new, that's
probably where you have to start (and for most everyday people is probably
also where it ends ;) ).  We object to it because we see the Universe as DQ
expressed as SQ, so the subjectivity/objectivity thing rankles.  I wonder if
Pirsig is taking it in a more forgiving bigger picture sense though?  

If all is SQ derived from DQ, then surely SOM is also SQ, so to see the
Universe in terms of subjects and objects is a Quality perspective too -
just not the 'best' or 'most fundamental' perspective.  If you explain the
levels to anyone in everyday conversation, they will immediately jump to the
conclusion that the lower levels are 'material' and the upper levels are
'mind'.  From a SOM perspective that will always be so and you can probably
argue until you are exhausted with someone planted in a SOMish worldview and
never convince them otherwise.  


[Magnus] 
> That will have to do for now, must charge some batteries, both my
> laptop's and mine. :)
> 

[Mary replies]
Me too, but thank you for the stimulating conversation!  A pleasure. :)

Best,
Mary