[MD] Idealistic static value patterns

[Tuukka Virtaperko]

Thank you for your kind words, Matt!

I have tried to send this e-mail twice, but it hasn't gone through, so 
now I'm trying to split it into two parts.

> Matt:
>
> 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:
Yeah... I hope I'll find similar company later. Maybe I should check out 
lesswrong.com.

> Tuukka said earlier:
> 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:
This is otherwise good, but the classical/romantic split is either more 
fundamental or on the same level as the static value patterns, so that 
should be taken into account, too. I think your initial idea of not 
using the word "fundamental" is better. "Bottom pattern" is simple 
enough, and "pattern system" isn't that hard to grasp, probably.

> Tuukka said earlier:
> 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:
This is a good question. Generalizing LILA's pattern system results as 
the normative patterns. This is because the act of "generalization" 
means removing specific assumptions from a theory. This makes the theory 
less specific, that is, more "general". The removed assumptions must be 
such that the theory has some interesting, useful properties even after 
the assuptions are removed.

The theory we call "LILA's pattern system" can be generalized in such a 
way, that the assuption that the bottom pattern is inorganic is dropped. 
If this is done, the bottom pattern becomes something entirely 
nonspecific, with the exceptions that it is a pattern, that it is static 
quality, and that it is classical quality.

After that, we can add a new assumption. We can add the assumption that 
the bottom level is mental, and see what kind of mental emergence there 
is to be had. This results in the idealistic pattern system.

We can also add the assumption that the bottom level is normative, which 
means it does not describe any sense-data or romantic quality. As a 
result, we have a theory that cannot be used to describe sense-data or 
romantic quality, but can be used to describe and ontologically contain 
mathematics and formal logic. It can also be used to assess the value of 
formal constructs. This results in the normative pattern system.


> Tuukka said earlier:
> 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:
No. I take it for granted the Metaphysics of Quality should be 
differentiated from texts authored by Pirsig, because he begins 
annotations in Lila's Child with: "If I understand the MOQ correctly... "

With the "ontology of the MOQ" -thing I was only saying that the MOQ is 
more than just the four static value patterns. This is actually very 
simple. The MOQ could be said to be the static value patterns and the 
SQ/DQ-split, and the romantic/classical-split. But I was speaking like 
the MOQ could be reduced to the four static value patterns, which was a 
mistake. The ontology of MOQ has many aspects, and I was speaking like 
only one of those aspects (the static value patterns) would truly 
qualify as ontology, which was wrong.

By saying that "static value patterns" becomes an ambiguous concept I 
meant the following. Let us have three pattern systems: idealistic, 
normative and physicalistic. Now, if we use the concept of "static value 
pattern", without further specifying what it means, we risk confustion. 
Let's suppose we say: "the most valuable pattern". If we have three 
pattern systems, this concept means the practical pattern, the control 
pattern and the intellectual pattern.

But not all people know of my idealistic and normative pattern systems. 
So if I spoke about "the most valuable static value pattern" to them, 
they would think I mean the intellectual pattern. This means if I want 
to refer to a certain static value pattern in a certain theory, I must 
specify the theory, or call the pattern by its name. In the former case, 
I would speak of "the most valuable physicalistic pattern" to refer to 
intellectual quality. In the latter case, I would just say: 
"intellectual quality".

I suppose my variant of the MOQ needs a name to distinguish it from 
Pirsig's work. I call it "recursive patterns". To recap, this is how I 
perceive ZAMM:

http://moq.fi/ZAMM-1.png

This is how I perceive LILA:

http://moq.fi/LILA-1.png

And this is recursive patterns:

http://moq.fi/RP-1.png


> Tuukka said earlier:
> "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:
Okay. This is a key difference. The normative patterns do not include 
any references for emotions, for example, because emotions are either 
romantic quality or descriptive abstractions of romantic quality. The 
normative patterns do not have a descriptive realtionship to romantic 
quality. Hence, they only contain formal constructs such as axiomatic 
math and formal logic. The idealistic pattern system also contains 
sights, smells and auditory observations. These are absent from the 
normative pattern system.

I could construct a theory that does not mention Pirsig or the MOQ 
anywhere, but I'd like to help the MOQ community to improve its 
credibility in the eyes of those who think very logically and 
systematically. I am aware that such efforts to help can be perceived as 
detrimental by those I'm intending to help. My attitude towards this 
situation is neutral. I do not insist that I should be perceived as 
someone who can help. I may also have made mistakes in my work. However, 
I do not know of any reasonable way for constructing the MOQ in a 
systematic fashion, other than the one I'm presenting here.

I will take the liberty of introducing recursive patterns as the only 
systematic way in which I am able to perceive the MOQ, even if the rest 
of the community were to disagree with me. But my initial expectation 
is, that recrusive patterns should generally be accepted as an addition 
to MOQ by the community. And one reason why I came here is that I'd like 
to find out whether this expectation is correct.

If my work has a mistake, I'd like to know about it. My additions can 
also be denied, or even declared as not understood. I will not 
necessarily become upset and leave, if my theory is not adopted as a 
more or less official addition to the MOQ. I will surely want to stay, 
if the discussion here interests me anyway. Actually, I value good 
discussion over social prestige anyhow, but I don't like to state my 
true intentions first. I find it tasteless to always do so.

However, even if you, Matt, were to not include the normative patterns 
in your conception of the MOQ, your conception of value patterns would 
still be, in at least one way, better than what Pirsig introduced. Given 
that you do include the idealistic patterns.

[see part 2]