[MD] On Pirsig's letter to Paul Turner

[Dan Glover]

Tuukka, all,

On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 3:35 PM, Tuk <mail at tuukkavirtaperko.net> wrote:
> Dan, Adrie, all,
>
> I've thought of things and yes, some things in the pattern language (thanks
> for the concept, Adrie!) I'm proposing need to be reformulated.
>
> The discussion between Dan and me has uncovered some problems in the pattern
> language I'm proposing. Dan proposes that biological patterns are identified
> as such by virtue of containing DNA. Pirsig proposes life is carbon
> chemistry. I've tried to develop an alternative view featuring some kind of
> sense-based behavioral heuristic, of which I'm not sure how it exactly
> works.
>
> I did that because neither Dan's nor Pirsig's approach seemed to describe
> what biologicality is in a way that matches the immediate experience of
> being human. Only on a car ride today did I realize that the pattern
> language works even though it doesn't explicitly describe biologicality. It
> may simply state that "the distinction between inorganic and biological
> patterns is an intellectual pattern" without stating exactly what pattern
> that is or which patterns qualify as that.
>
> That is to say, we don't need to resolve this issue in order to have a
> pattern language that is, apparently, complete in the sense of addressing
> all currently pressing issues. Of course some other issues might turn out
> pressing later.

Dan:
And yes so then in our quest for knowledge, in any search for knowing,
we are using our senses to make sense of the often-times inscrutable.
Yet that doesn't mean we give up. We simply need to recognize, to
realize, that we are inherently limited in our outlooks upon the world
that we imagine is out there separate and apart from us and yet in a
real way is inside us all, a shared dream, if you will, or nightmare,
depending upon of course our imagination, or lack of it.

Language is of course a pattern too. Me, I am limited to the English
language though I do at times incorporate other tongues mostly in my
writing and yeah sometimes in my speech but then I am never quite sure
how to sound out certain words in German or French or even Spanish and
so I'm a little reticent in using those particular words, at least in
speech, fearful of being the idiot, though most times people I'm
talking with have no idea how to pronounce them either, the words.

But anyhow, so far as resolving issues, no, I doubt that's even
possible. Instead, what we ought to be doing, what the MOQ seeks, is
to expand our reach into the unknown, to continue the journey even
while knowing there is no end to the search. That no matter how smart
we are or become, what we know is but a grain of sand upon an endless
beach of unknowns.

>
>
>>>
>>> Tuukka:
>>> Pirsig writes that the ancient Egyptians were social whereas the Greek
>>> were intellectual, but the MOQ wasn't invented back then. So I guess
>>> rocks were inorganic and dinosaurs biological, too.
>>
>> Dan:
>> Remember the gravity analogy from ZMM? That pertains to this point
>> too. When we begin to mistake the map for the territory, when we take
>> concepts as concrete reality, well then it only seems common sense to
>> think biological and social patterns existed before Robert Pirsig
>> invented the terms for his MOQ. Just like gravity existing before
>> Newton's laws of gravity. If we think about it, however, the only
>> conclusion we can make is that like gravity, biological and social
>> patterns did not exist before they were invented.
>
>
> Tuukka:
> In any case, once Pirsig's letter to Turner was published the ancient
> Egyptians became social and the ancient Greek intellectual. That's the
> notion I'm trying to grasp here.

Dan:
Well, I think Mr. Pirsig answered the questions put to him as best as
he could rather than deferring. Check it out:

"Dear Paul Turner

"The question you raise about the intellectual level has troubled me
too. When I answered Dan Glover in Lila's Child, I remember being a
little annoyed that anyone should ask what the intellectual level
is-as though he were asking me what I mean by the word, "the." Any
definition you give is more likely to complicate understanding than
simplify it. But since then I have seen the question grow because the
answer I have given is inadequate.

"First of all, the line that, "Biologically [Lila's] fine, socially
she's pretty far down the scale, intellectually she's nowhere. . ."
did not mean that Lila was lying on the cabin floor unconscious,
although some interpretations of the intellectual level would make it
seem so. Like so many words, "intellectual" has different meanings
that are confused. The first confusion is between the social title,
"Intellectual," and the intellectual level itself. The statement,
"Some intellectuals are not intellectual at all," becomes meaningful
when one recognizes this difference. I think now that the statement
"intellectually she's nowhere," could have been more exactly put: "As
an intellectual Lila is nowhere." That would make it clearer that the
social title was referred to and the dispute about her intellectuality
would not have arisen.

"Another subtler confusion exists between the word, "intellect," that
can mean thought about anything and the word, "intellectual," where
abstract thought itself is of primary importance. Thus, though it may
be assumed that the Egyptians who preceded the Greeks had intellect,
it can be doubted that theirs was an intellectual culture."

Dan comments:
See, notice how he qualifies his answer by first stating how difficult
it is to answer. The question. How by doing so may in fact only sow
more and greater confusion, especially since this language, English,
is prone to alternate meanings even given the same word and sometimes
even the same context. But on the other hand, he decides to do it,
damn the torpedoes and all that.

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.


>
>>
>>> Maybe, if an inorganic pattern accumulates value as the extension of a
>>> biological pattern, it simply retains the value.
>>>
>>> Come to think of it, even in my current model the inorganic level can
>>> have
>>> more value than the biological if the biological level has negative value
>>> and a biological pattern uses an inorganic pattern to do something good.
>>> Perhaps I have to measure value here so that it never has negative value.
>>> Yeah, that would seem to work.
>>
>> Dan:
>> If there is no negative value, then what impetus drives progress and
>> evolution?
>
>
> Tuukka:
>
> What I meant is that we have to measure value without negative values in
> this context because of the following problem:
>
> Suppose a biological pattern Jane of a value of -5 playing a guitar of 0
> value so that 3 units of value are accumulated. In this case the biological
> level would have a value of -2 whereas the inorganic level would have a
> value of 3. This makes the pattern language contradict Pirsig because Pirsig
> says the biological level has more value than the inorganic level.
>
> We can resolve the contradiction in the following way:
>
> Negative value and positive value accumulate as biological patterns make
> choices. However, we have to store the negative and positive value to
> different variables. If we sum these variables, we get the relative value of
> the pattern. The aforementioned problem features relative values. However,
> if we sum the absolute values of these variables, we get the absolute value
> of the pattern, which would be 3 for the guitar and 7 for Jane. When Pirsig
> writes that the biological level has more quality than the inorganic level
> he means that it has more absolute value.
>
> Relative value drives progress and evolution.

Dan:
The way I understand it, there are no absolute values in the MOQ. You
seem to be arbitrarily assigning value to patterns and then making
assumptions on those values arbitrarily assigned and then saying, see!
Here is a contradiction.

>
>>
>>>>> Do you see what I'm aiming at? In everyday life it doesn't matter
>>>>> whether
>>>>> an
>>>>> article of clothing is made from synthetic fibres or human hair. It's
>>>>> still
>>>>> an article of clothing. It's an object. It doesn't walk around on its
>>>>> own
>>>>> and it doesn't breathe, and so on. I just think this kind of a division
>>>>> between the inorganic and the biological is more in accord with
>>>>> everyday
>>>>> common sense use of language than focusing on the point that clothes
>>>>> made
>>>>> of
>>>>> human hair contain DNA. Who cares about that? And why?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Dan:
>>>> First of all, it is okay to use subject/object terminology as long as
>>>> it is remembered that those terms stand for patterns of value. Second,
>>>> we are discussing the MOQ and its terminology, which may or may not
>>>> differ from everyday terminology. Is blood a biological pattern? It
>>>> doesn't walk around and breathe. How about organs awaiting transplant?
>>>> A heart, or a set of lungs? Kidneys? Are those biological patterns?
>>>
>>>
>>> Tuukka:
>>> Well, they're *parts* of a biological pattern.
>>
>> Dan:
>> So is a baby part of a biological pattern too?
>
>
> Tuukka:
> Whichever it is, the pattern that decides that is an intellectual pattern.

Dan:
Ah. So we throw up our hands?

>
>>
>>>> Who cares? Well, maybe no one. On the other hand, people still seem to
>>>> be reading Robert Pirsig and discussing his work. So maybe a few
>>>> people care. I know I care enough to be working out this reply to you.
>>>> I mean, I could just say the hell with it. I've got better things to
>>>> do. But I care. And too, it has been my experience, sometimes sad)
>>>> that common sense ain't all that common. Truthfully.
>>>
>>>
>>> Tuukka:
>>> You can't seriously believe I, out of all people, intended to
>>> trivialize metaphysics.
>>
>> Dan:
>> You asked the question. I take it that it was rhetorical. The question.
>
>
> Tuukka:
> It meant: "Why do you care?"

Dan:
Me? Personally? Well, let me see if I can explain it in terms others
might (or might not) understand. Recently I suffered, though no,
suffer might not be the proper word. Experienced. Let's say I
experienced the need for emergency surgery. Which to me, someone who's
never been in a hospital other than to visit others who are in
hospitals, was rather disconcerting.

But so anyhow yeah there I was in some weird room, when I woke up,
alone, and above me was a ceiling, which in itself was not all that
surprising since I pretty much knew I was in a hospital and what had
happened to me, the preconditions that were set in place to
necessitate my hospitalization, and most all rooms, at least in this
part of the world, have ceilings.

No, what was rather awe-inspiring were all the words written in the
blazing white ceiling in a small and cramped and black cursive sort of
writing and as I lay there I could just about but not quite make out
the words on that ceiling and yeah a part of me knew those words
weren't really there, of course, but on the other hand, laying there,
it seemed to another part of me that if I could read those words,
which I couldn't quite manage no matter how I squinted, well then I
might or might not learn something I didn't know. Before.

I am a writer. Not that you would know that, and not a good one,
apparently. A writer. Me. Not a writer that enough people read to
enable me to write full time. Nope. Instead, I have to work a job to
keep the lights turned on and so forth and so on. Nevertheless, I
can't help but think I have it in me to write something good. Not
withstanding the fact I have yet to do so. Write anything good.

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?

>
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Dan:
>>>> Yes, I can see that. But can't we say the same of social and
>>>> intellectual patterns?
>>>
>>>
>>> Tuukka:
>>> The volition of social and intellectual patterns manifests via biological
>>> patterns.
>>
>> Dan:
>> I would say rather that biological patterns manifest at the behest of
>> ideas, or intellectual patterns.
>>
>>
>
> Tuukka:
> Because the notion of "biological pattern" is an idea? I get that, but what
> are you trying to do here? Turn everything into an idea? Remember the hot
> stove. That's not an idea.

Dan:
The hot stove experiment is meant to point to direct experience
without intellectual mediation. That chair you stub your toe on while
crossing a darkened room isn't an idea at first. It isn't anything.
Not until you intellectually realize you just stubbed your toe on it,
the chair. Then, it becomes a chair. But the idea comes first. Same
thing with the hot stove. Same principle.

So no, I am not trying to turn everything into an idea. That response
seems a knee-jerk reaction from someone who hasn't a good handle on
the MOQ. In my opinion, of course. Which means little. My opinion. It
just seems so. To me.

Thank you,
Dan

http://www.danglover.com