[MD] Idealistic static value patterns

[Matt Kundert]

Hi Tuukka,

I think you're beyond me in systematic comprehension.  You've made 
a large start on a systematic metaphysics that incorporates much of 
Pirsig's philosophy, which is impressive, but it is also beyond my 
abilities to properly appreciate.  I'm not tempted by it, but I also do 
not have any philosophical reasons for thinking it a wrong direction to 
move in.  Below I've simply recorded replies to particular points, 
doubts, or confusions.

Tuukka said:
First of all, I admit that it's misleading to use the concept of 
"fundamental ontological category" in the sense I did. Static quality 
and Quality are both more fundamental categories than inorganic 
existence. I tried to use that expression to refer to "the bottom 
pattern, from which other patterns emerge". Apparently there is no 
pre-existing concept for that?

Matt:
I introduced the distinction between "conceptual" and "temporal" 
priority to house the two senses of "fundamental" that it seemed to 
me you had going.  Conceptual priority would refer to "static quality 
and Quality are both more fundamental categories than inorganic 
existence."  Temporal priority, I suggested, would encapsulate the 
idea of one pattern emerging from another.  If this does capture 
what you had in mind, then it disambiguates the situation without 
much creative originality (to warrant the idea that we're coming up 
with a new concept).

Tuukka said:
It seems like Pirsig is the inventor of patterned ontology. But he has 
not generalized the notion of static value patterns, so for him, "the 
bottom pattern, from which other patterns emerge" is just "inorganic 
quality".

Matt:
You use this notion of "generalizing" again later, but I'm not sure I 
understand what you mean.  In this context, I'm not sure either 
what the consequence of such a generalization of the notion of static 
patterns would entail or the deficit implied by Pirsig's not so 
generalizing the notion.

Tuukka said:
Likewise, it's misleading to speak of the "ontology of the MOQ" as if 
that were to only contain LILA's static patterns and nothing else. 
Rather, LILA's patterns are more like a subontology of the MOQ.

If the normative patterns and idealistic patterns are valid constructs, 
also "static value patterns" becomes an ambiguous concept. We will 
not know whether they refer to LILA's patterns, or a more 
generalized notion of value patterns.

Matt:
This is that opaque notion of "generalizing" again, but more 
specifically, does "LILA's patterns are more like a subontology of the 
MoQ" refer to the idea that the Metaphysics of Quality should be 
differentiated from the texts authored by Robert M. Pirsig in which it 
is elaborated?  It seems like a useful enough distinction, but if that's 
not what you meant, I have no clear understanding of what you 
meant to impart here.

Tuukka said:
"Pattern system" refers to such a set of patterns, that every pattern 
emerges from exactly one of the patterns, and the set goes "all the 
way up". This means that LILA's patterns form one pattern system, 
normative patterns for another pattern system, and idealistic 
patterns form a third pattern system.

"Bottom pattern" refers to the pattern from which other patterns 
emerge. Existence pattern is the bottom pattern of normativity, 
mental pattern the bottom pattern of idealism and inorganic pattern 
LILA's bottom pattern.

Matt:
It appears, based on this and the pictorial schematic you provided, 
that we do have different ways of carving up the conceptual terrain.  
I do not make a distinction between what you call "idealistic" and 
"normative"--before I basically treated them interchangeably.  I see 
you do not.  Though I'd rather not use the language of "subjective" 
and "objective" (and rather replace them with "first-personal" and 
"third-personal"), with adding "normative" (which you might just 
have called "intersubjective") between them, at the very least your 
schematic doesn't run afoul of any of my philosophical instincts 
about "this way danger lies."  It's also not immediately obvious to 
me whether or not the schematic runs afoul of any Pirsigian 
strictures.

Tuukka said:
My first intuition is that stating Quality to be normative can only be 
true if it means, that because everything is by definition Quality, the 
property of being Quality is normatively defined. This can be a valid 
thing to say. But it can lead to conflicting use of terminology.

If you were to say that everything is normative, and I were to refer 
to the descriptive pattern systems (idealistic and physicalistic) as if 
they were not normative (to distinguish them from the normative 
patterns) we would appear to disagree with each other. Apparently 
we don't, but our choice of words would make it seem so.

Matt:
Yeah, I suppose Quality ipso facto being normative isn't an entailment 
of the notion of value.  I treat it as such because I think the only way 
to separate value from normativity is to reinstate a faculty psychology 
with an epistemological power of intuiting values.  I have no use for 
such a notion of intuition.  Value is not sensuous the way pleasure is, 
and if it were, it would run afoul of Sellars' Myth of the Given.  I've 
put this into terms that should seem heretical to some of Pirsig's 
formulations, but this is a problem I have with some of Pirsig's 
formulations.  (Whether or not this particular heresy gets me thrown 
out of the Church of Pirsig is something I disagree about with other 
disciples.  I can't see that Pirsig would throw me out for it.)  

As for your juxtaposition of descriptive and normative, this indeed has 
been a problem in the philosophy of language.  For much of the first 
half of the 20th century, linguistic moral philosophy consisted in trying 
to reduce the normative/evaluative to the descriptive (the paradigm 
of which is emotivism).  Recently, however, there's been a rising tide 
of post-Fregeans (of which Robert Brandom is my hero) who have 
tried to show, rather, that the descriptive mode is a subset of the 
normative mode.  For Brandom, what this means is that the 
normative is conceptually prior to the descriptive.  This doesn't mean 
that the descriptive disappears or is reduced to the normative, or that 
we can't still understand the two of them separately (by contrasting 
them, which is the problem you specifically pointed out).  What it 
does mean is there must be norms already in place for there to be 
descriptions.  Brandom calls this "the primacy of the practical," and 
finds its source in Kant and its paradigmatic philosophical wellspring 
in the classical American pragmatists.

Tuukka said:
I consider "subjective quality" to be idealism, and "objective quality" 
to be physicalism. Pirsig is right in the SODV paper, if "Cartesian 
mind" is the union of romantic social quality and romantic intellectual 
quality, and "Cartesian matter" is the union of romantic inorganic 
quality and romantic biological quality. But the objective/physicalisic 
social and intellectual patterns cannot be Cartesian mind, and the 
objective/physicalistic inorganic and biological patterns cannot be 
Cartesian matter. This is because LILA's pattern system is a variant 
of emergent physicalism even though the rest of the MOQ isn't. But 
Cartesian dualism is inherently dual - not a form of emergent monism!

Matt:
I'm not sure I understand all of the distinctions you have in play, but 
let me ask you this: are you suggesting Descartes as a model for 
paralleling pattern systems?  I can't tell if you are, but your schematic 
wouldn't seem to for the simple reason of the normative pattern 
system between subjective and objective.  (I consider this a virtue, by 
the by.)

Tuukka said:
In any case, LILA features neither separate pattern systems nor a 
bidirectional pattern system, at least not in clear terms, so if their 
existence is to be stated clearly, that must be done in some other 
work.

Matt:
I still can't help but wonder whether you're still slighting the 
conceptual capabilities of the Metaphysics of Quality as Pirsig 
elaborated it in LILA.  I think the very notion of an "intellectual 
pattern" is capable of a lot more work then you might be giving it 
credit for.  I would consider, as an example, your elaboration of the 
normative dimension to be a static intellectual pattern.  Pirsig's goal 
wasn't to elaborate all intellectual patterns, or even all the ones he 
conceptually needs, but rather to elaborate the metaphysical 
dimension needed to hook in an evolutionary story of existence.  For 
such a _naturalist_ story, "inorganic" goes at the bottom.  But with 
"intellectual" at the top, it gives you the expressive power to add as 
many more as you need.  At the very least, it is a skeletal frame I 
haven't seen anyone seriously doubt.  (I don't count Bo Skutvik as 
having done so, and I also don't count myself and others who 
seriously considered the idea that the social/intellectual distinction 
had problems.  And besides, I've also come to think that that 
distinction is even needed.)

Matt