[MD] knowledge

[Steven Peterson]

Hi Matt,

> Steve said:
> Yeah, lots of people have read it that way. I think when
> Pirsig says pre-intellectual, based on his support of idealism
> it goes without saying that we are also talking pre-social,
> pre-biological, and pre-static anything.
>
> Matt:
> Well, hold on--I'm not sure that anybody really has read
> "pre-intellectual" as "social/bio/inorganic."  Thinking about
> it that way, however, does tend to make us face what
> exactly we mean by DQ.  Pirsig did not say "DQ is
> pre-static experience."  There may or may not be an
> important reason behind this.  However, it does cause us
> to face up to the idea of what it means to be, say,
> pre-subatomic particles.

Steve:
Well "pre-intellectual" came from ZAMM, and he hadn't used
dynamic/static at that point, so if we read the MOQ back on ZAMM I
thought we got pre/post intellectual corresponding to ontological
dynamic/static.  Maybe not though.

I'm trying to sort out epistemology (Pirsig's idealism where quality
gives rise to ideas which gives rise to matter) from ontology (radical
empiricism, reality = quality cut into dyamic/static) and cosmology
(evolution of value patterns) in the MOQ. Maybe you can help? DMB says
that in the MOQ epistemology IS ontology and that radical empiricism
is epistemology, but I can't see how it makes any sense to say so
since epistemology and ontology are answers to different questions.


Matt:
> The notion of "pre-intellectual" has a long history in
> intellectual culture, and we think we kind of understand
> what it means--just drop out language.  Our brains must
> have a pre-linguistic processing component, since we're
> just animals and most animals, including our offspring for a
> few uneasy years, don't articulate linguistically.  Based on
> this kind of intuition, which Pirsig captializes on with talk
> about babies and time-lags, we think we know what it
> would mean to get back to this "pre-intellectual" stage.
>
> But what could it mean to be pre-electrons?  We might be
> able to extend our understanding of "pre-" to "pre-social,"
> getting back to biological instincts, but pre-lightwaves?
> What does it mean to be in touch with something that is
> before any "thing"?  Why is it we don't melt away when
> this happens?  How come we only talk about the
> nothingness of our culturally constructed "self" rather
> than the brief, or permanent, obliteration of our bodies?
> Why are descriptions of enlightenment not accompanied
> by on-looker reports of how the person faded away
> before their eyes?

Steve:
I don't think we can make any more intellectual sense of
"pre-intellectual" experience epistemology-wise than we can about
"pre-social" or "pre-subatomic particals." I take the pre/post
business to be about ontology. Epistemology is always "post" or the
process of defining Quality. (recall LC: "Dynamic Quality is defined
constantly by everyone. Consciousness can be described is a process of
defining Dynamic Quality. But once the definitions emerge they are
static
patterns and no longer apply to Dynamic Quality. So one can say
correctly that Dynamic Quality is both infinitely definable and
undefinable because definition never exhausts it.")

We always already know certain things...LC: "Since at the most primary
level the observed and the observer are both intellectual assumptions,
the paradoxes of quantum theory have to be conflicts of intellectual
assumption, not just conflicts of what is observed. Except in the case
of Dynamic Quality, what is observed always involves an interaction
with ideas that have been previously assumed."

In LC, Pirsig comes to find a lot of value in idealism which
presupposes that ideas comes first which gives rise to matter. Of
course, in the MOQ, Quality comes even before ideas, but I see that as
a metaphysical rather than an epistemological primacy. In epistemology
there are always "ideas that have been previously assumed" so knowing
is never pre-intellectual.

>From an epistemological perspective (knower/known) it is impossible to
sort out the dynamic and static aspects of consciousness (the process
of defining DQ). What is known is always a static pattern with the
capacity for dynamic change. The knower is also always a static
pattern with the capacity for dynamic change.

(As an aside, this issue calls to mind the highway full of nothing but
"you don't know how to drive!" image I applied to accusations of SOM
around here such as that DMB recently made on this point when I said
that doing  epistemology always involves supposing a distinction
between a knower and what is known. "That's SOM!" I don't think so
unless epsitemology is always SOM. I think is just a useful assumption
sometimes and is what is always assumed in doing epistemology.)



> Matt said:
> If you're not saying this above, Steve, you come close to
> using this formula in the third paragraph: "knowledge-that
> = intellectual know-how".
>
> Steve said:
> What I was trying to set up was knowledge-that as the
> static aspect intellect and knowledge-how as the dynamic
> aspect of intellect. By analogy, on the biological level, the
> static aspect is DNA encoding while the dynamic aspect is
> biological know-how.
>
> Matt:
> Hunh.  I guess I would need to know what, exactly,
> intellectual know-how is, as distinguished from
> knowing-that.

Steve:
I was trying to reconcile know-how/know-that with the MOQ, but it was
probably a bad idea at the start.

Matt:
> I think it might be better in general to drop the notion of
> "static" entirely.  What works better for Pirsig's purposes is
> a "pattern-pattern" tension, with the undulating tension
> being the dynamic bit.  We can isolate patterns, but the
> purpose of isolation will always be directed towards
> "where's the tension here?"  Finding the tension will be
> finding the dynamism, finding the sweet spot that can be
> broken.  Mark/Squonk liked to talk about coherence, but I
> think that conceptualizes the area in the wrong way.
> Your yin/yang reference, and the non-existence of a
> dynamic or static "in and of itself" is, I think, spot on, but
> once we reach that point, I think it might be time to hand
> in our "static" cards.  Dynamic Quality and patterned
> quality.  That's all we need.


Steve:
I agree, but I also think that is what Pirsig always meant, ie. that
"static patterns" was always a redundant term. He wanted to use the
static/dynamic terminology (which puts DQ in a positive light) as well
pattern-talk (where "unpatterned" would have merely been neutral) and
talk about "stability" and "latching" all to talk about the same
aspect of quality with different conotations.

I wish he had unpacked what he meant by "pattern" because the term is
usually just ignored by moqers. I've pushed an interpretation of the
notion of "pattern" as a habit rather than as a form (like a cookie
cutter). Habits are easily thought of as being more or less static
(and Pirsig wanted "static" to include a matter of _degree_ of
stability rather than a firm dynamic/static dichotomy) and habits go
back to the roots of pragmatism. It is also just as easy to see logic
as a habit of mind as it is to see gravity as a habit of rocks and
both as patterns of preference.

Pirsig also may have done well to talk about the the flip-side of
stability and patterning to unpack DQ as "unpatterned" and
"versitility" (a term Wim liked).

Using the train metaphor to describe epistemology instead of Pirsig's
use which I think is ontology, I see static quality as the track and
dynamic quality as the ever-present possibility of blazing a new path.
Both the stability of the track and the possibility for dynamic
improvement or skipping onto a different track are always present in
the now. The "dynamic quality = good" and "static quality = bad" view
misses the point that the goal of inquiry--the goal life--is always
better and better static patterns which are open to positive change
rather than some in-and-of-itself dynamism which is a no-thing.

Best,
Steve