[MD] Why are things called patterns?

[Dan Glover]

Hello everyone

On Sat, Mar 10, 2012 at 1:17 AM, David Harding <davidjharding at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Craig,
>
> How do you know that? It is known through experience yes, but what you are communicating to me now are ideas, not experience. It is only, our unique human minds which can recognise these patterns.  This is in line with Pirsig's quote that it is ideas which create what we know as inorganic patterns.
>
> "The MOQ says that Quality comes first, which produces ideas, which produce what we know as matter." - Lila's Child.

Dan:
Yes, David... this seems right. Robert Pirsig is reiterating here what
he says in LILA concerning the foundations of his metaphysics:

"Because Quality is morality. Make no mistake about it. They're
identical. And if Quality is the primary reality of the world then
that means morality is also the primary reality of the world. The
world is primarily a moral order. But it's a moral order that neither
Rigel nor the posing Victorians had ever, in their wildest dreams,
thought about or heard about.

"The idea that the world is composed of nothing but moral value sounds
impossible at first. Only objects are supposed to be real. "Quality"
is supposed to be just a vague fringe word that tells what we think
about objects. The whole idea that Quality can create objects seems
very wrong. But we see subjects and objects as reality for the same
reason we see the world right-side up although the lenses of our eyes
actually present it to our brains upside down. We get so used to
certain patterns of interpretation we forget the patterns are there."
[LILA, chapter 8]

Dan comments:
I think the key words here are 'patterns of interpretation' which
would seem to correspond to ideas... the idea that objects are real is
a high quality idea. But when we interpret reality in that way, we
forget that we are working with an idea... not with reality itself. We
are using lens like the ones in our eyes that we forget about.

Iron filings do not 'recognize' magnets... iron filings exhibit a
preference. We (as human beings) create intellectual patterns (ideas)
to recognize those preferences. Predators do not recognize patterns of
prey... they exhibit preferences. We create intellectual patterns
(ideas) to recognize those preferences. Ideas produce patterns to the
value that makes up reality.

Thank you,

Dan

http://www.danglover.com


> -David.
>
>
> On Saturday, 10 March 2012 at 4:55 PM, craigerb at comcast.net wrote:
>
>> [David]
>> > The reason we call them this is because they are only ever recognised as patterns *because*
>> > of our intellect. They only exist *because* of our intellect.
>> >
>>
>>
>> I don't think this is Pirsig's view. Inorganic patterns (iron filings) recognize other inorganic
>> patterns (magnets); biological patterns (predators) recognize the patterns of their prey.
>> Craig
>>




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