[MD] On Pirsig's letter to Paul Turner

[Robert Warlov]

I'm intrigued by an enquiry into a guitar's relationship to the MOQ. That it has any relationship to the non-material; I.e.; The "social" and "intellectual" realms seems facially absurd. It cannot "objectively" fit into the "biological" either. 

To discover the value of a guitar is to discover its purpose-  the purpose of music, the purpose of song.

The guitar itself is a material objects but that does not make it biological. A chemistry teacher, ( itself a material object) left out on a rock will eventually resort to his constituent chemical origins. It is the normal disolution of "patterns" called entropy, the opposite of the orgain(ism)isation of patterns. 

But aren't values from each realm invested in the guitar? Yes, but the guitar exists as a technological object, beyond the four realms. Technology is an extention of intellect. Can it be said that it exists as a pattern of value? Yes- just like a motorcycle or a toaster or a rocket. Quality creates technological value patterns called guitars. I'd rather think it is the earth itself that has done this, and, as it's greatest achievement, sends emissarys called "Machines"  to other planets.

When machines become self-replicating and begin to "exploit" intellect, it will become obvious that this is the fifth realm, and it will be of greater value ( or "more Moral"  ) for a machine to destroy an idea than for an idea to destroy a machine.


On August 1, 2016, at 11:59 PM, Dan Glover <daneglover at gmail.com> wrote:

Tuukka,

On Sat, Jul 30, 2016 at 9:19 AM, Tuukka Virtaperko
<mail at tuukkavirtaperko.net> wrote:
> Dan, all,
>
>
>
>>>>>> is also
>>>>>> biological, although not all biological patterns are social; so every
>>>>>> intellectual pattern is social although not all social patterns are
>>>>>> intellectual. Handshaking, ballroom dancing, raising one's right hand
>>>>>> to take an oath, tipping one's hat to the ladies, saying "Gesundheit
>>>>>> !" after a sneeze-there are trillions of social customs that have no
>>>>>> intellectual component. Intellectuality occurs when these customs as
>>>>>> well as biological and inorganic patterns are designated with a sign
>>>>>> that stands for them and these signs are manipulated independently of
>>>>>> the patterns they stand for. "Intellect" can then be defined very
>>>>>> loosely as the level of independently manipulable signs. Grammar,
>>>>>> logic and mathematics can be described as the rules of this sign
>>>>>> manipulation."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Dan comments:
>>>>>> I think this paragraph answers your questions about guitars and
>>>>>> clothes and how they can be strictly inorganic patterns or inorganic
>>>>>> and biological patterns simultaneously depending upon the origins of
>>>>>> materials used to construct said patterns. Also it shows how social
>>>>>> and intellectual patterns, although discrete systems in their own
>>>>>> right, cannot exist without the underlying inorganic and biological
>>>>>> patterns that uphold them. In essence, when we walk out of a room, it
>>>>>> cannot be said to exist or to not exist. The room. The story ends. And
>>>>>> yeah, then we can perhaps walk back into the room and reassure
>>>>>> ourselves that it does indeed exist. The room. Or not. If something
>>>>>> has occurred in our absence to destroy the room.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Tuukka:
>>>>> The room will keep existing in our memory, just like hairs are
>>>>> categorized
>>>>> as biological in our minds even though we haven't tested the hairs we
>>>>> encounter for DNA.
>>>>
>>>> Dan:
>>>> Whether the room exists in memory or not has nothing to do with saying
>>>> the room exists or not. Map and territory.
>>>
>>>
>>> Tuukka:
>>> Remind me why we're talking about this?
>>
>> Dan:
>> It has to do with underlying value levels. But feel free to drop it.
>
>
> Tuukka:
> I don't want to drop it. I just still don't know what's your point. First
> it's about rooms disappearing when we're not looking at them and now it's
> about underlying value levels. These two topics seem to have little to do
> with each other.

Dan:
Okay. I've been unclear. My apologies. Let me try again. I reproduce
part of an earlier email:

More from Robert Pirsig's letter:
"When getting into a definition of the intellectual level much clarity
can be gained by recognizing a parallel with the lower levels. Just as
every biological pattern is also inorganic, but not all inorganic
patterns are biological; and just as every social level is also
biological, although not all biological patterns are social; so every
intellectual pattern is social although not all social patterns are
intellectual. Handshaking, ballroom dancing, raising one's right hand
to take an oath, tipping one's hat to the ladies, saying "Gesundheit
!" after a sneeze-there are trillions of social customs that have no
intellectual component. Intellectuality occurs when these customs as
well as biological and inorganic patterns are designated with a sign
that stands for them and these signs are manipulated independently of
the patterns they stand for. "Intellect" can then be defined very
loosely as the level of independently manipulable signs. Grammar,
logic and mathematics can be described as the rules of this sign
manipulation."

Dan comments:
I think this paragraph answers your questions about guitars and
clothes and how they can be strictly inorganic patterns or inorganic
and biological patterns simultaneously depending upon the origins of
materials used to construct said patterns. Also it shows how social
and intellectual patterns, although discrete systems in their own
right, cannot exist without the underlying inorganic and biological
patterns that uphold them. In essence, when we walk out of a room, it
cannot be said to exist or to not exist. The room. The story ends. And
yeah, then we can perhaps walk back into the room and reassure
ourselves that it does indeed exist. The room. Or not. If something
has occurred in our absence to destroy the room. [From Jul 18, 2016]

Dan comments:
I offered this in response to your earlier earlier email, part of
which reads thus:

"I'm back, and I have results to offer you. Today I participated to a
cocoa ceremony. During the ceremony we went to a pier where a woman
played the guitar and we sang. At that moment I realized the guitar is
an inorganic pattern whose value is the same as the value of the
calming and beautiful song. But when the woman stopped playing the
guitar ceased to have this value.

"An inorganic pattern has instrumental value when a biological pattern
uses it to actualize a choice it has made. Obviously, this doesn't
mean the guitar should be discarded after the song is over. Forgetting
the guitar on the pier and and thus exposing it to the elements
would've been a bad choice. But as far as we are concerned of quality,
the guitar inherently has none. The reason for bringing it back in and
taking care of it lies in the value of songs we'll play in the future,
but preparing for the future this way is an intellectual pattern. It
doesn't mean the guitar would inherently have quality." [Tuukka, email
of July 13. 2016]

Dan comments:
Hopefully, you follow me so far. Okay. Now, you wrote how when the
woman stopped playing, the guitar ceased to have value. I disagree,
and to that end offered how social and intellectual patterns cannot
exist without the underlying patterns of inorganic and biological
value. I take that to mean, in the MOQ, how even when the woman stops
playing, the guitar still retains value in that said guitar isn't
simply a collection of molecules, inorganic value. A guitar is a
collection of inorganic, biological, social, and intellectual
patterns.

Now, lets suppose the woman took the guitar home, left it in a room,
and walked away. In that event, the woman could no longer say whether
the guitar existed or not. She has no way of verifying the experience
of the guitar. She may imagine the guitar is fine and when she comes
back home it will be there waiting for her. But, and this seems
somehow related to your own investigation into the MOQ and how (human)
senses relate to value patterns, the moment the guitar is no longer
with her, the woman cannot be certain either way.

In summary, the underlying value patterns, call them objects, though
in the MOQ they are patterns of value, are required to sustain the
certainty that social and intellectual patterns place in them, the
inorganic and biological patterns, and once removed, the objects, that
certainty vanishes.


>
>
>>
>>> .
>>>
>>>>> Tuukka:
>>>>> Yeah, well I'm a pensioner so I have all day for this.
>>>>
>>>> Dan:
>>>> Ah. So the negative quality that tends to drive me, namely, the need
>>>> to earn a living, is absent with your life, though, of course, perhaps
>>>> it's debatable whether or not it is really negative quality, the need
>>>> to work every day. Some people, like me, enjoy it. The working. Even
>>>> though I'd rather not be doing it. The working. If I had my druthers,
>>>> that is. Which I don't. And maybe that's where the conundrum exists.
>>>> Interesting. I often wonder if I would be nearly as productive if I
>>>> wasn't driven the way I am. Instead my habit of working and writing
>>>> every single day, I might instead be tempted to take a day off now and
>>>> again. And that now and again might indeed grow into the habit of not
>>>> writing and not working every day. I'm just not sure.
>>>
>>>
>>> Tuukka:
>>>
>>> Work's a duty I thought to fulfill. Since Pirsig made academic philosophy
>>> seem like a waste of time I thought to become a machinist. Or a welder. I
>>> really liked welding although I didn't want to do that for a living. And
>>> the
>>> teacher said I was the best technical drawer he's ever had. I completed
>>> the
>>> assignments faster than my classmates and had nothing to do for most of
>>> the
>>> time. But a guy on our class thought I don't fit in and I had nothing to
>>> prove so one day I walked away for good.
>>>
>>> I'd be able to work a little. But I can't make much money or I'll lose my
>>> pension. Work isn't a kind of a "let's see what you can do" thing for a
>>> Finnish pensioner. It's a "let's see what the welfare state allows you to
>>> do" kind of thing. Since working feels like concession to begin with,
>>> having
>>> to beg to make that concession turns the whole affair so repulsive I
>>> don't
>>> want to have anything to do with it.
>>
>> Dan:
>> Yes, in a sense, working is a concession. I do enough to get by. To
>> keep the lights turned on and the internet connected. A roof over my
>> head is nice too. A decent car to drive. Not new, but decent. At least
>> it rolls down the road when I step on the gas pedal. My car. But yeah,
>> part of working is compromising the freedom I might otherwise enjoy,
>> which ruffles my feathers. But then again, when I ask myself what I'd
>> be doing if I didn't go into work and had no money to live the life to
>> which I've grown accustomed, well, it doesn't seem so bad. Working.
>
>
> Tuukka:
> I have a friend who tried to "live like me". He quit because he didn't get
> enough ideas. I know perhaps two people who "live like me". But their paths
> are different than mine.

Dan:
Interesting. I don't know of anyone who lives like me. Most everyone I
know as in plural are engaged in the active accumulation of wealth. I
get the distinct feeling they look down on me in what they must
perceive as my poverty. On the other hand, most everyone I know again
as in plural are also (or so it seems to me) actively engaged in
slowly killing themselves via stress while plying themselves with
alcohol and other drugs of recreational value and simultaneously
getting little to no physical exercise due (I imagine) to the time
demands put upon them by their upper echelon 80+ hour per week jobs
that pay them ten times what I make.

As far as ideas, I have no idea where they come from. I sit down in
front of a blank screen and in a while these words appear. I expect
they, the words, are in part a result of the millions upon millions of
words that I've read over the years, but the ideas, those I'm not sure
about. If I knew where they came from, I'd garner a lot more of them.
Ideas.

>
>
>>> I've spent more than I earn for years and one day I mightn't be able to
>>> do
>>> that anymore. Mentally, I cringe when I think of that day. My first
>>> reaction
>>> to the idea is that that's a day when I'll kill myself. But suicide
>>> doesn't
>>> really feel like my cup of tea. Suicide sucks because the one who dies
>>> that
>>> way tends to disgrace the things he stood for. Petri Walli was an
>>> ingenious
>>> Finnish rock musician who killed himself, and someone wrote that with him
>>> died the modern hippie dream.
>>>
>>> The near-impossibility of suicide makes me afraid of ending up living
>>> without wanting to live. I'm so bad at living that if I'm hungry I might
>>> just ignore it instead of eating. Pirsig wrote he lives out of habit but
>>> my
>>> habits suck. I'm too high-strung to be able to go for a walk in the park.
>>> I
>>> smoke because that's so addictive it's easy to do. And when I don't have
>>> cigarettes I go to my ashtray and roll my own from what's left in the
>>> butts
>>> there. At least those butts don't cost money.
>>
>> Dan:
>> I have what I guess they might call an addictive personality. Yeah, I
>> smoked for years. Did a bit of drinking. Well, actually a lot of
>> drinking. Several years ago I took up running. Miles and miles and
>> miles. The smoking and drinking stopped. Just like that. It isn't that
>> I like running. But now I am hooked on it. Running. I run at night on
>> account of it being cooler. That and no one can see me. Ha! Anyhow, I
>> was in the hospital not long ago and of course I couldn't run. While I
>> was in the hospital or when I got out. At least not for a couple
>> months. So now I'm basically starting all over again. Running. Not as
>> much as I used to run. But I'm getting there. Obsessively, you could
>> say. Same way with my writing. I'm getting back to it. Not quite there
>> yet, but I'm getting there. Obsessively. But yeah, habits... they can
>> go both ways, in doing things detrimental to the body and doing things
>> good for the body.
>
>
> Tuukka:
> I bought an e-cigarette. It's cheap to smoke and less harmful. And I resumed
> antidepressants and ADHD-medication. Took a hike yesterday, too.

Walking is good.

>
>>
>>> I have lots of respect for Robert Pirsig. He managed to have a job in
>>> addition to writing. I don't feel like I'm very good at writing. I used
>>> to
>>> be better but I kind of lost focus. I can still get good ideas but I
>>> express
>>> them when they're not finished because I've been at this for over a
>>> decade
>>> and this never seems to get finished anyway, although I wished that it
>>> would. But if this got finished now I don't know what else I'd do, so it
>>> doesn't matter.
>>
>> Dan:
>> When I wrote my first book, I could never finish it to my proper
>> satisfaction. I went ahead and wrote another one anyhow. And I could
>> never finish that one either. Properly. And so on and so forth. And on
>> and on it goes. It just seems as if when I go back to them, my books,
>> which I do from time to time, I can always make them better. I tell
>> myself, dude, just write one book. One really great book. And so
>> that's what I am working on at the moment. Some nights I think I might
>> even have something. Something if not great at least good. Other
>> nights, it all seems like junk. But I keep on. Mostly because I don't
>> know what to do if I stop. Writing.
>
>
> Tuukka:
> Wouldn't we all just like to write something perfect and then retire.

Dan:
Well now see I wouldn't retire at least not in the sense that I'd stop
writing. I suppose one day when the words no longer make any sense
I'll have to stop. Writing. Till then, onward.

>
>>
>>> I feel hard but brittle, like glass. And I want to feel young and supple.
>>> I've been trying to figure out what's wrong. Maybe I should live more
>>> communally so that the presence of other people would help in grounding
>>> me.
>>> It sure looks like I'm turning into some kind of a hippie anyway. There's
>>> life in that direction, life that isn't expensive. Unconditional love
>>> intrigues me because that's the antithesis of how I lived when my
>>> productivity was the measure of my worth. It's not peace and love I'm
>>> usually thinking about but I'd like to.
>>
>> Dan:
>> Yeah, I'm with you there. I think about maybe selling the homestead
>> here. It once belonged to my grandparents and when they died it went
>> to their kids and now they're all dead and so the place kind of fell
>> to me. I guess no one else wanted it. I think about selling out and
>> moving south or maybe west. Not north. Winter is coming and it is cold
>> enough here. So yeah, either south or west. Maybe sell out and move to
>> the west coast. Buy a little place and grow really good marijuana and
>> go down to the farmers' market every Sunday and trade my stuff for
>> other things I need. Like money. Or move to Florida and buy me a place
>> on the ocean and go beach-combing every morning. The whole free love
>> thing's sorta passed me by, though. At least that's the impression I
>> get. Most women my age, well, they're looking for someone to take care
>> of them. And that ain't me.
>
>
> Tuukka:
> Marijuana not being legal in Finland makes me so mad I think a couple of
> visits to the psych ward could've been avoided by the legalization of
> mind-altering substances.

Dan:
Marijuana is not legal here where I live either. Well, not
recreationally, anyway. Medicinal marijuana is available. But it tends
to make me so laid back that I get nothing done whatsoever so I rarely
blaze it these days.

>
>>
>>> I wish I had a girlfriend.
>>
>> Dan:
>> I'm sort of glad I don't have one. A girlfriend. At least most of the
>> time. But still, yeah, it does get lonely at times. Not often, but
>> sometimes. Holidays, mostly. You know, Christmas. Thanksgiving. Of
>> course you probably don't have Thanksgiving there. Lucky you.
>
>
> Tuukka:
> I kind of regret that sentence I wrote. It makes me sound lonelier than I
> really am.

Dan:
Eh. We all get lonely. Sometimes.

>
>
>>
>>>
>>>>>> So why do I care? I care on account of the possibility that those
>>>>>> words I saw on the ceiling in that hospital room really did mean
>>>>>> something. That those words are inside me, somewhere, waiting to be
>>>>>> born. And maybe these words right here are part of them. Those words I
>>>>>> saw but couldn't quite read. Or maybe this is all just a bunch of
>>>>>> silly shite and none of it means a thing. Either way, caring seems
>>>>>> better than not caring.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Dan:
>>>>>>>>>> But isn't that so for the universe in general? When the story
>>>>>>>>>> stops,
>>>>>>>>>> so does the universe.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Tuukka:
>>>>>>>>> Yeah. Quality is modeled by the mind, and the mind is biological.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Dan:
>>>>>>>> Ideas come first. Then comes the biological mind.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Tuukka:
>>>>>>> What do you mean? Intellectual patterns come first? In a temporal
>>>>>>> sense
>>>>>>> or
>>>>>>> in a priority order? Do you mean that the biological mind is an idea?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Dan:
>>>>>> What else can it be but an idea?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Tuukka:
>>>>>
>>>>> It can be the source of an idea. Pirsig writes biological patterns are
>>>>> the
>>>>> source of intellectual patterns.
>>>>
>>>> Dan:
>>>> Could you offer a quote where he, Robert Pirsig, says this?
>>>
>>>
>>> Sure. Chapter 13 of LILA.
>>>
>>> "When a society is not itself threatened, as in the execution of
>>> individual
>>> criminals, the issue becomes more complex.  In the case of treason or
>>> insurrection or war a criminal's threat to a society can be very real.
>>> But
>>> if an established social structure is not seriously threatened by a
>>> criminal, then an evolutionary morality would argue that there is no
>>> moral
>>> justification for killing him.
>>>
>>> What makes killing him immoral is that a criminal is not just a
>>> biological
>>> organism.
>>
>> Dan:
>> Ah! But doesn't this contradict what you said? That biological
>> patterns are the source of intellectual patterns? See, he says
>> specifically that the criminal is NOT JUST a biological organism. And
>> he goes on...
>
>
> Tuukka:
> No. I didn't make the asinine claim that a criminal is just a biological
> organism.

Dan:
I know that. You claim that intellectual patterns spring from
biological patterns. Not so, at least not according to the MOQ.

>
>>
>>> He is not even just a defective unit of society. Whenever you
>>> kill a human being you are killing a source of thought too.  A human
>>> being
>>> is a collection of ideas
>>
>> Dan:
>> See, a human being is a collection of ideas, not simply a biological
>> pattern.
>
>
> Tuukka:
> Why don't you tell that to Lila. I know it already.

Dan:
Hey Lila...

>
>>
>>> and these ideas take moral precedence over a
>>> society.  Ideas are patterns of value.  They are at a higher level of
>>> evolution than social patterns of value.  Just as it is more moral for a
>>> doctor to kill a germ than a patient, so it is more moral for an idea to
>>> kill a society than it is for a society to kill an idea."
>>
>> Dan:
>> When we see someone walking down the street, we see the inorganic and
>> biological patterns, the physical characteristics that make up human
>> beings. What we don't see, however, are the ideas that hold them
>> together. The someone we see walking down the street. And those ideas
>> we cannot see are at a higher level of evolution than are the patterns
>> we see. And so then we have this:
>>
>> "Mental patterns do not originate out of inorganic nature. They
>> originate out of society, which originates out of biology which
>> originates out of inorganic nature." [Lila]
>>
>> Dan comments:
>> So according to the MOQ, that collection of ideas that composes a
>> human being, they don't come from the biological brain. They originate
>> in social patterns.
>
>
> Tuukka:
> Well, Pirsig just wrote that a human being is a source of thought. What is,
> according to you, the relationship between biological and intellectual
> patterns? Is there any?

Dan:
Asked and answered. Social patterns are the relationship.

>
>
>>
>>>
>>>> I noticed these bits in Lila that might or might not pertain:
>>>>
>>>> "You made a statement in your book that everyone knows and agrees to
>>>> what 'Quality' is. Obviously everyone does not! You refused to define
>>>> 'Quality,' thus preventing any argument on the subject. You tell us
>>>> that 'dialecticians' who debate these matters are scoundrels. I guess
>>>> that would include lawyers too. That's pretty good. You carefully tie
>>>> your critics' hands and feet so that they cannot give you any
>>>> opposition, tar their reputations for good measure, and then you say,
>>>> 'Okay, come on out and fight.' Very brave. Very brave."
>>>>
>>>> "May I come out and fight?" the author said. "My exact statement was
>>>> that people do disagree as to what Quality is, but their disagreement
>>>> is only on the objects in which they think Quality inheres."
>>>>
>>>> "What's the difference?"
>>>>
>>>> "Quality, on which there is complete agreement, is a universal source
>>>> of things. The objects about which people disagree are merely
>>>> transitory. " [Lila, discussion between Rigel and Phaedrus]
>>>>
>>>> ",,, with a Metaphysics of Quality the empirical experience is not an
>>>> experience of "objects." It's an experience of value patterns produced
>>>> by a number of sources, not just inorganic patterns." [Lila, Robert
>>>> Pirsig]
>>>
>>>
>>> Tuukka:
>>>
>>> The later quote reminds me of the age-old story of a Westerner going to
>>> Japan and hearing that a certain temple is thousand or so years old. But
>>> the
>>> temple is made of wood, so the Japanese have to rebuild it once in one or
>>> two centuries, and the Westerner concludes that the temple is not the
>>> same
>>> as it was a thousand years ago because the planks (inorganic patterns)
>>> have
>>> been changed.
>>>
>>> Anyway, the discussion we're having here - at least this part of it -
>>> seems
>>> to be about whether biological patterns are intellectual or intellectual
>>> patterns biological. I don't know how we could speak of "emergence" if
>>> intellectual patterns weren't biological in the sense of emerging from
>>> biological patterns.
>>
>> Dan:
>> We are missing an important element here. I don't think it is proper
>> to say intellectual patterns emerge from biological patterns.
>> Intellectual patterns emerge from, or come after, social patterns, at
>> least according to the MOQ:
>>
>> "First, there were moral codes that established the supremacy of
>> biological life over inanimate nature. Second, there were moral codes
>> that established the supremacy of the social order over biological
>> life­ conventional morals- proscriptions against drugs, murder,
>> adultery, theft and the like. Third, there were moral codes that
>> established the supremacy of the intellectual order over the social
>> order-democracy, trial by jury, freedom of speech, freedom of the
>> press. Finally there's a fourth Dynamic morality which isn't a code.
>> He supposed you could call it a "code of Art" or something like that,
>> but art is usually thought of as such a frill that that title
>> undercuts its importance. The morality of the brujo in Zuni-that was
>> Dynamic morality." [Lila]
>
>
> Tuukka:
>
> Intellectual patterns don't emerge from biological patterns, but rely on
> *all* the levels below - not just the social level. The biological patterns
> merely execute intellectual and social patterns because those patterns can't
> do anything by themselves.
>
> This debate got started when I wrote that the mind is biological. But I
> didn't write that the mind isn't social or that the mind isn't intellectual.
> You sound like you think I meant to write that. But I didn't.

Dan:
Okay.

Thank you,
Dan

http://www.danglover.com
Moq_Discuss mailing list
Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
Archives:
http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
http://moq.org/md/archives.html