[MD] Static Patterns Rock!

[david buchanan]

In the thread titled "Static patterns are ever-changing?!?", Craig Erb said:

3 philosophers (an SO Metaphysician, David Morey & dmb) are hiking.  They come upon a rock and each try lifting it. They each have the same (i.e., analogous) experience. They discuss what a rock is. The SO Metaphysician says it's an object.  DM says it is an inorganic spov. dmb says it's a concept. The first 2 are talking about the same thing.  Is dmb?



dmb says:
Okay, so what we're talking about here is the status of "objects" in the MOQ. The way that Craig has framed the question is somewhat objectionable so let's just stick with that neutral and unloaded version of the question. What is the status of "objects" in the MOQ? The short answer is that objects are "a complex pattern of static values derived from primary experience". 
Usually, this is where I like to quote Pirsig's description of radical empiricism, wherein subjects and objects are described as concepts derived from experience. (Maybe it needs to be pointed out that a rock is an object and so, yes, the MOQ would say rocks are concepts derived from experience.) Apparently, this is an ineffective answer because those who pose the question do not understand this answer. So let's take a look at a more detailed description of how concepts are derived....

“If the baby ignores this force of Dynamic Quality [the flux of experience] it can be speculated that he will become mentally retarded, but if he is normally attentive to Dynamic Quality he will soon begin to notice differences and then correlations between the differences and then repetitive patterns of the correlations. But it is not until the baby is several months old that he will begin to really understand enough about that enormously complex correlation of sensations and boundaries and desires called an object to be able to reach for one. This object will not be a primary experience. It will be a complex pattern of static values derived from primary experience. Once the baby has made a complex pattern of values called an OBJECT and found this pattern to work well he quickly develops a skill and speed at jumping through the chain of deductions that produced it, as though it were a single jump…in a very short time it becomes so swift one doesn’t even think about it….only when an “OBJECT” turns out to be an illusion is one forced to become aware of the deductive process” …In this way static patterns of value become the universe of distinguishable things. Elementary static distinctions between such entities as “before” and “after” and between “like” and “unlike” grow into enormously complex patterns of knowledge that are transmitted from generation to generation as the mythos, the culture in which we live.”  (Lila p.119, chapter 9, just past the first use of the hot stove example)


dmb resumes:Here we see good description of the relation between objects and the primary empirical reality from which they are derived. The objects reached for are not primary realities but they are derived from and agree with that complex bundle of "sensations and boundaries and desires". They are derived from the "force of Dynamic Quality", from the "flow of perceptions".  Since the two main categories in the MOQ are concepts (sq) and reality (DQ), I think this is a fairly important point. I think it's especially important for Marsha and DM to look at this very carefully because is it a crucial aspect of the MOQ's radical empiricism. 

And this has all the realism you can eat, but without falling back into a metaphysics of substance or physicalism or scientific objectivity.

“The Metaphysics of Quality agrees with scientific realism that these inorganic patterns are completely real, ...but it says that this reality is ultimately a deduction made in the first months of an infant's life and supported by the culture in which the infant grows up.” SODV 

See?