[MD] What am I doing here?

Thu May 31 04:47:02 PDT 2012

I doubt iconic old men like Einstein and Wittgenstein had much use for isms.
(I get your point - as I said - only professional philosophers care
about communicating with dusty old icons. The rest of us want to live
a good life. Use the MoQ, and sell the quality, not sell MOQ-"ism".)
Ian

On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 12:14 PM, Tuukka Virtaperko
<mail at tuukkavirtaperko.net> wrote:
> Ian, Jan,
>
> To Ian,
> isms could be boring to some. But you see, the iconic professional
> philosopher is a tired old man (not a woman) with a big ego. And he has the
> power, whether he deserved it or not. He will not understand the merits of
> the MOQ if they are not presented to him in a language he understands. He
> will not learn a new language from scratch because of his big ego. Isms are
> the words of the language the tired old man understands.
>
> To Jan,
> I'm already writing the book, and my thoughts have changed during the
> process. They are different from what they were when I came here. I'd like
> to find a reviewer. Nobody seems up for the task right now, but the book
> isn't yet even complete.
>
> Tuukka
>
>
>
>
> 31.5.2012 13:26, Ian Glendinning wrote:
>>
>> BTW - I should say, but I don't comment on the inclusion of both
>> idealism and materialism within MOQ because it's blindingly obvious it
>> does include all isms, past present and future - it would be a useless
>> metaphysics if it didn't.
>>
>> Isms are boring to talk about, unless you're a "professional"
>> philosopher I guess ?.
>> Ian
>>
>> On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 11:22 AM, Ian Glendinning
>> <ian.glendinning at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi Tuukka,
>>>
>>> Thanks for the reminder of Matt's comment - I'd forgotten - I admitted
>>> at the time I hadn't yet understood it (I never have enough time to
>>> follow-up all the avenues here). Two points
>>>
>>> (1) I'm pretty sure Matt was not suggesting those 5 levels - the
>>> quality outside (and pervading) the 4 levels is unpatterned - DQ in
>>> other words. The Inorganic level of SPV's is not "fundamental" - just
>>> the first division of static patterns emerging from the unpatterned
>>> background - Northrop's undifferentiated aesthetic continuum.
>>>
>>> (2) Bo's view was not "popular" - just a vocal and entirely
>>> "defensive" few (but then he was under attack). The defense never had
>>> anything to do with the arguments, and Bo sadly never listened to any
>>> arguments - just hurled around abuse like "acolytes" at anyone trying
>>> to engage in debate. He had (still has) a point, but he would never
>>> allow anyone who cared to elaborate how "we" solve it. (that's an
>>> inclusive we - him included).
>>>
>>> I'm still very concerned (primarily concerned) with the evolution of
>>> our future "intellects" beyond SOMism. The rest of the MoQ is history
>>> - literally. (By the way - note the scare quotes - if people want to
>>> reserve the word intellect for something narrower, then I'm OK with
>>> that - I just mean "good use of our human faculties" - which is where
>>> we all came in - what is good ?
>>>
>>> People mustn't confuse the quality of debate with the volume of the
>>> participation.
>>> As before, bye and take care, but stay in touch.
>>> Ian
>>>
>>> On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 11:02 AM, Tuukka Virtaperko
>>> <mail at tuukkavirtaperko.net>  wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Ian,
>>>> by speaking of a generalized "you" I spoke to the spirit of this forum
>>>> that
>>>> makes people express their support to me privately rather than publicly,
>>>> on
>>>> this forum. By doing so they could be doing me a favor. I don't want to
>>>> get
>>>> thrown out like Bo because my ideas were too popular. But there could be
>>>> some problem with the spirit of this forum if advocacy of new ideas is
>>>> best
>>>> kept secret.
>>>>
>>>> About attribution, then. On 1.1.2012 at 16:22 (UTC +2) I have written a
>>>> message, where I attribute the circular model to Matt, but I couldn't
>>>> find
>>>> the message in which Matt presents the suggestion. You seem to present a
>>>> somewhat similar idea on 23.12.2011 at 10:57 (UTC +2):
>>>>
>>>> "Interesting Tuukka,
>>>>
>>>> Since "information" is the root of physics - the availability of
>>>> something that can be patterned (or unpatterned) - I have no problem
>>>> with that. One reason I've always rejected the idea that physics has a
>>>> materialist base (except by convention).
>>>>
>>>> Similarly inorganic / organic split is confounded by our conventional
>>>> material world view. To me inorganic just means not living - patterns
>>>> that are unable to replicate and perpetuate themselves against the
>>>> slide back to entropy. Memetic, genetic - makes no difference what the
>>>> "material" is - so long as it's patternable information - hence no
>>>> need for any mind-material type of duality.
>>>>
>>>> Your picture is pretty much where I've been, so I'll need to
>>>> understand Matt's comment.
>>>>
>>>> Ian"
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Matt also said, on 23.12.2011 at 20:58 (UTC +2), that:
>>>>
>>>> "
>>>>
>>>> If I followed your critical argument correctly, then you were
>>>> suggesting that Pirsig needed to "develop a parallel system of
>>>> patterns that would be idealistic" to offset his isolated attention to
>>>> the
>>>> classic picture of the universe furnished by an ascending line from
>>>> physics to evolutionary biology to X (a placeholder for whatever it is
>>>> that furnishes a picture of the social and intellectual).
>>>>
>>>> I think that is, more or less, right.  Pirsig was lopsided in this
>>>> respect,
>>>> because what he needs alongside a picture of the universe that
>>>> develops from the Big Bang to life on Earth in the Year of Our Lord
>>>> Savior Jesus Christ 2011 (a "variant of emergent physicalism") is a
>>>> picture of the development of those vocabularies that allow us to
>>>> state that picture (a "parallel system of patterns that would be
>>>> idealistic").  This would be the balancing of, as Dan might put it,
>>>> materialism and idealism.  (And so people don't become confused,
>>>> these are special uses of "materialism" and especially "idealism,"
>>>> but I think we need a special sense of "idealism" to try and come to
>>>> grips with Pirsig's notion of the idea, or intellectual pattern, coming
>>>> before matter.)
>>>>
>>>> However, that being said, my point in suggesting that your criticism of
>>>> Pirsig is defused by Pirsig because, in the MoQ, it is a mistake to say
>>>> that an "assumption that existence is fundamentally inorganic" is at
>>>> work, is that I think you are wrong to think that "saying that
>>>> something is Quality doesn't mean much" in the MoQ.  True, it
>>>> doesn't explain anything about the patterns themselves when we
>>>> reach that level, but it precisely causes the assumption you stated to
>>>> be invalid_because it is_  "an informative metaphysical statement" by
>>>> telling us "what context we are thinking in."  That context, as I put
>>>> it,
>>>> is the context in which everything is already understood to be
>>>> normative, and so follow the rules of the normative.
>>>>
>>>> The_implications_  of that metaphysical stance, I think, are left
>>>> underdeveloped (or at least, there is a lot of room for further growth
>>>> in understanding how deep that stance penetrates and what
>>>> implications it should and should not cause to our thinking).  One
>>>> implication is a balance between two systems, as you put it.  But
>>>> Pirsig 1) does provide the conceptual resources for understanding
>>>> this to be the case and 2) does show cognizance of the need for the
>>>> two systems by virtue of the other philosophical work he performs in
>>>> ZMM and Lila.  ZMM, after all, is the genealogical unearthing of the
>>>> line of thought on the_idealist_  side of the equation that produces
>>>> SOM's_reductive_  emergent physicalism.  This is paralleled in Lila
>>>> by his discourse, for example, on anthropology.  The true
>>>> lopsidedness of Pirsig's extant philosophical work, perhaps, is that on
>>>> the idealist side, the side that deals with the history of humanity's
>>>> attempts to develop ideas, it is mostly_deconstructive_, whereas on
>>>> the materialist side, the side that deals with the nature of reality, it
>>>> is
>>>> both deconstructive and constructive (the deconstructive bits are his
>>>> arguments against taking certain philosophical positions and the
>>>> constructive bits are his metaphysical system-building).
>>>>
>>>> The special senses of "idealism" and "materialism" should be more
>>>> fully apparent now.  For if one uses a typical definition, it does
>>>> appear that I've just suggested that the system of the Metaphysics of
>>>> Quality, the "side that deals with the nature of reality," is
>>>> materialist.
>>>> But that's not the conceptual position of "materialism": so defined
>>>> here,_every_  philosophical system should, for comprehensiveness,
>>>> have an idealist side and a materialist side, and the materialist side
>>>> defines the_material_  of reality.  Descartes has two, res cogitans
>>>> and res extensa (mind and matter).  Pirsig has one: Quality.  The
>>>> material of reality in the MoQ is Quality, which means that it is
>>>> normative, which means that it blocks attempts to reduce the
>>>> normative to the non-normative ("reductive emergent physicalism")
>>>> by finding underneath_everything_  the normative.  _What this
>>>> means_ needs to be further explained, yes; but the conceptual
>>>> apparatus is already in place to block the inference that the MoQ
>>>> assumes that "existence is fundamentally inorganic."
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> If I understand correctly, this argument says the inorganic level is not
>>>> the
>>>> "fundamental category" of the MOQ, because, for example, static quality
>>>> is
>>>> definitely more fundamental. I was not being clear about what I meant
>>>> with
>>>> fundamental. Yet I do not find the MOQ to truly include a form of
>>>> idealism
>>>> because of the argument Matt presents here. The MOQ includes two
>>>> somewhat
>>>> separate theories: one of them is a general theory of emergence, with
>>>> the
>>>> static value patterns. Another one is more like a traditional
>>>> metaphysical
>>>> categorization, in which there are static, Dynamic, classic and romantic
>>>> forms of quality. In the latter theory, Pirsig presents arguments that
>>>> the
>>>> static emerges from the Dynamic, but the Dynamic also somehow has to
>>>> latch
>>>> to static quality, which means that opportunities for the manifestation
>>>> of
>>>> Dynamic Quality emerge from certain configurations of static quality.
>>>> Likewise, classic and romantic quality emerge from each other. This
>>>> gives
>>>> rise to an important difference between the general theory of emergence
>>>> portion of the MOQ and the traditional metaphysical portion of the MOQ.
>>>> The
>>>> latter cannot be used as a general theory of emergence, because it does
>>>> not
>>>> define metaphysical categories in which we could not only say what
>>>> emergence
>>>> is, but also what it is not.
>>>>
>>>> Therefore, the notion of emergence is largely irrelevant in the
>>>> traditional
>>>> metaphysical portion of the MOQ. That portion of the MOQ features no
>>>> category pair which could not be argued to emerge from the other. Only
>>>> the
>>>> theory of levels of static value does so. For example, we may not argue
>>>> that
>>>> the biological level emerges straight from the social, that is, that the
>>>> emergence would go backwards.
>>>>
>>>> This is why I don't find it satisfactory to say that the MOQ includes
>>>> idealism in the traditional metaphysical portion, and materialism in the
>>>> general theory of emergence portion. In order to include idealism in
>>>> such a
>>>> way that mental constructs can be compared to materialistic constructs,
>>>> the
>>>> constructs have to be defined within the same theory. This means they
>>>> should
>>>> also be expressed as levels of static value. The traditional
>>>> metaphysical
>>>> portion of the MOQ resembles, to some extent, a metatheory of the
>>>> general
>>>> theory of emerge portion of the MOQ, and those metatheoretic entities
>>>> cannot
>>>> be contrasted with the object level entities of the general theory of
>>>> emergence.
>>>>
>>>> Furthermore, when I included both materialism and idealism to the object
>>>> level theory (the general theory of emergence), that inclusion cannot be
>>>> contrasted with having materialism in the general theory of emergence,
>>>> and
>>>> idealism in the metaphysical theory. I presented the inclusion *within*
>>>> the
>>>> object-level theory, and the inclusion could not possibly retain a
>>>> similar
>>>> meaning if somehow "transported" or "expanded" to the metatheory level.
>>>> I
>>>> don't think the metatheory is idealistic or materialistic. In Pirsig's
>>>> lingo, the metatheory is about Quality, and I have no problem with that.
>>>> The
>>>> object level theory is about static quality. The difference is quite
>>>> clear.
>>>>
>>>> When I said that the MOQ should include both materialism and idealism, I
>>>> meant it should include them as static quality. What Matt seems to be
>>>> saying
>>>> there is that it includes them as Quality. That probably makes some
>>>> sense,
>>>> but I want to express both material and mental objects within a general
>>>> theory of emergence, and Matt's way of seeing things here does not
>>>> facilitate that. Surely he is not saying that there are five levels,
>>>> like
>>>> this: static, inorganic, biological, social, intellectual.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Tuukka
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