[MD] Putting SOM back into the MOQ by excluding SQ, let's not do that say some of us

[David Morey]

Hi DMB

dmb says: Actually, your response makes it quite clear that I didn't help 
you at all.  You should have more
self-confidence, it is a shame really, you could go far otherwise!

DM: Charmed to have your opinion as usual, obviously there is nothing 
nonsensical about "pre-conceptual static quality",
obviously my definition of SQ is not the same as yours or maybe even 
Pirsig -obviously it does means that I am challenging or
questioning the definition it does not make it nonsensical, are you sure you 
would not impress me and everyone more
if you at least pretended you had some intellectual integrity. Now there may 
be good reasons for rejecting my definition
and sticking to yours, I expected you to be able to give me some good 
reasons seeing how committed you are to
this definition, but I have seen nothing yet to really impress me. Just to 
be clear I am suggesting SQ should be seen
as conceptual at the highest level but that it is pre-conceptual in 
experience at a lower level. You seem to want to call
everything hat is non-conceptual by the name  of DQ, but why? Are all 
patterns conceptual? If you think so let's here your arguments
and case.

Now as I have intellectual integrity and have looked back a bit I saw this 
quote by you of Pirsig from ZAMM?

"Quality is shapeless, formless, indescribable. To see shapes and forms is
to intellectualize. Quality is independent of any such shapes and forms. The
names, the shapes and forms we give Quality depend only partly on the 
Quality. "

{DM-in what way exactly do they depend, flux feeds patterns without actually 
being a pattern?
that's what I would call a pre-conceptual pattern, you want to call it DQ 
still?}

"They also depend partly on the a priori images we have accumulated
in our memory. "

{I'd call images pre-conceptual or proto-conceptual, would you call them 
conceptual?}

"We constantly seek to find, in the Quality event, analogues
to our previous experiences. If we didn't we'd be unable to act. We build up
our language in terms of these analogues."

-yes analogies take us to language, but where does the pre-conceptual 
pattern
end and the conceptual pattern start, language is mentioned here, which 
seems
reasonable cut off to me.

Now this is interesting as it says to see all shapes and forms is to 
intellectualize.
Now this says nothing about concepts or the pre-conceptual, only about 
intellectualizing.
Does it mean we can intellectualize about shapes and forms without concepts? 
I certainly
assume that shapes and forms can be seen without concepts, I also usually 
think of intelllectual
as implying culture, language and words. But is Pirsig saying that there is 
something intellectual
going on in shapes and forms before we get to words and concepts? Well, this 
is pretty close
to what I mean by pre-conceptual SQ, it is the shapes and colours and 
patterns we see,
smell, hear before we do any conceptualising in words, culture and ideas. 
Now are you
saying that where Pirsig says intellectualize he also means concepts? That 
is not clear
from the above.  Is a prior image a concept for Pirsig? Now there is of 
course some sense
in saying that where we see patterns and shapes there is something 
intelligent going on,
it may not need a prior images though, what if I stick up two fingers at you 
(come on you've
got to enjoy my jokes!) can't you see the pattern right under your nose 
without a prior
images or concepts? Now I am seeing concepts as words, ideas, cultural 
artefacts, if
you and are saying that when you see my two fingers being waived under your 
nose
you recognise the patterns of two fingers but when you do this there must be 
something
involved that is proto-conceptual then I think our disagreement here is only 
really about
the meaning of conceptual. Now to clarify, imagine that my two fingers are 
pretty smelly,
and that you recognise the pattern that they both smell the same, do you see 
this
pattern recognition as involving a similar smell concept? I assume yes, 
whereas I think me
and probably most normal use here we see smell recognition as 
non-conceptual, and
I would call this pre-conceptual SQ, but are you insisting on saying that in 
some sense
all experiencing of patterns is conceptual SQ because you see concepts in 
all patterns?
- i.e.Whether or not we have added any formal words or ideas of cultural 
artefacts to our
thinking about them? Well if that is all you have meant all along why didn't 
you say so?
For you then I assume that there is no such thing as a pre-conceptual 
pattern? See, it
is possible to sort these things out if you can find the right words. You 
are seeing
a very low level sense of the term conceptual and I am working with only a 
higher
level sense of the word conceptual. So in your sense all SQ is conceptual, 
with low
level patterns, smells, shapes embodying very simple conceptual connections.
pretty unconciously even, with higher level word and ideas based cultural 
artefact
conceptions coming in later. Is that what you have been trying to say or 
not?

No need to apologies about all the SOM red herrings that you have kept 
raising,
I am going to cook them up and eat them for breakfast.

Now I have one remaining problem with this idea of yours (and Pirsig too so 
you
tell me, although he does not mentions concepts in the quote above). What is
the status of all the patterns in the cosmos? Do you think that all patterns
in the cosmos necessarily have a conceptual element in their existence,
do they have this irrespective of human recognition? If so this sounds
very Hegelian don't you think? Do you assume where a mouse or a baby
recognise patterns then there is necessarily a conceptual or 
proto-conceptual
experience involved for either the mouse or baby, or do you say you can't
know? And do you think there is any experience involved when inanimate
patterns interact or not? If yes, do you think that therefore there must be
concepts involved in their patterned interactions, or do inanimate level
patterns not have experience involved in their patterns interactions, eg
the interactions of hydrogen and oxygen to form higher level pattern of 
water?

All the best
David M