[MD] On Pirsig's letter to Paul Turner

[Dan Glover]

Tuukka,

On Thu, Jul 21, 2016 at 10:26 AM, Tuk <mail at tuukkavirtaperko.net> wrote:
> Dan, all,
>
>
>
> On 20-Jul-16 9:25, Dan Glover wrote:
>>
>> Tuukka, all,
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 3:35 PM, Tuk <mail at tuukkavirtaperko.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> Dan, Adrie, all,

>>>>> 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.
>
>
> Tuukka:
>
> But what is Lila inorganically? Flesh and bone aren't inorganic according to
> you,

Dan:
Oh but they are. Inorganic. They, flesh and bone, are made of molecules.

> so do you mean that Lila inorganically doesn't exist, or that she
> inorganically consists of some compounds that are part of her body but don't
> contain DNA? How about cells, then? Only their mitochondria contain DNA. So
> are only mitochondria of cells biological whereas the other parts of the
> cell are inorganic?

Dan:
If we check out Chapter 12 in Lila, we find:

"In this plain of understanding static patterns of value are divided
into four systems: inorganic patterns, biological patterns, social
patterns and intellectual patterns. They are exhaustive. That's all
there are. If you construct an encyclopedia of four topics-Inorganic,
Biological, Social and Intellectual-nothing is left out. No "thing,"
that is. Only Dynamic Quality, which cannot be described in any
encyclopedia, is absent.

"But although the four systems are exhaustive they are not exclusive.
They all operate at the same time and in ways that are almost
independent of each other.

"This classification of patterns is not very original, but the
Metaphysics of Quality allows an assertion about them that is unusual.
It says they are not continuous. They are discrete. They have very
little to do with one another. Although each higher level is built on
a lower one it is not an extension of that lower level. Quite the
contrary. The higher level can often be seen to be in opposition to
the lower level, dominating it, controlling it where possible for its
own purposes.

"This observation is impossible in a substance-dominated metaphysics
where everything has to be an extension of matter. But now atoms and
molecules are just one of four levels of static patterns of quality
and there is no intellectual requirement that any level dominate the
other three." [Robert Pirsig]

Dan comments:
So Lila can be and is all four levels at the same time.

>
> Anyway, the above Pirsig quote inspires me to modify the model.
> Unfortunately my attempt to do so produced a jungle of hypotheses that has
> been too complicated to understand so far. I spent the last day in that
> jungle and this day, too, and haven't come up with a complete solution. I
> won't be home for the weekend so I won't have time to think this through
> soon, if that's even possible. Maybe I should break down as a list what I
> have so far.
>
> Tentative value and pattern definition: Firstly, let us define "value" as
> something that's either inorganic, biological, social or intellectual, and
> "pattern" as a data object that may have an inorganic, biological, social
> and intellectual attribute. Values are not patterns and patterns are not
> values. In the context of programming we also want to say that variables
> have values or that functions return values, but these are "improper
> values". "Proper values" are either inorganic, biological, social or
> intellectual.

Dan:
You are making this harder than it has to be.

>
> Tentative biological pattern definition: The biological value of a
> biological pattern is the sum of the decisions it has been affected by,
> including its own decisions. Lila is biologically fine because she's a
> sexually confident woman.

Dan:
No, she's not. Lila is growing older and she understands how she will
soon lose whatever it was that once attracted men to her.

> The social value of a biological pattern is the
> sum of how its decisions have affected everyone, including itself. Lila is
> pretty far down the scale because she breaks marriages. Its intellectual
> value is determined as the value of justifications it can express. Lila is
> nonexistent as she can't express intellectual things.

Dan:
Now you sound like Rigel. Again, from Lila:

"She didn't want to get involved with him, though. She didn't want to
get involved with anybody. After a while they want to get involved,
like Jim, and that's when the trouble begins."

Dan comments:
See, Lila didn't wreck Jim's marriage. Jim wrecked Jim's marriage. And
it isn't simply Lila's biological beauty that draws men like the
Captain, Rigel, and Jim to Lila. Beauty has as much to do with
cultural values as it does with biological values. Justifications,
like beauty, are also culturally anchored, as described here:

"Descartes' "I think therefore I am" was a historically shattering
declaration of independence of the intellectual level of evolution
from the social level of evolution, but would he have said it if he
had been a seventeenth century Chinese philosopher? If he had been,
would anyone in seventeenth century China have listened to him and
called him a brilliant thinker and recorded his name in history? If
Descartes had said, "The seventeenth century French culture exists,
therefore I think, therefore I am," he would have been correct."
[Lila]

Dan comments:
And then so sure in a subject and object dominated world, black and
white, right and wrong, it is easier to assign value, positive or
negative, to 'things' but when we move to the MOQ, where things are
now patterns of value, we face a greater challenge in that a 'thing'
can be evaluated in both positive and negative aspects and at the same
time.

>
> Tentative social pattern definition: Social patterns are the power set of
> the social values of biological patterns. The social value of each social
> pattern is determined according to how the decisions made by the members
> have affected the members of the pattern. This way, even though getting
> wounded decreases a soldier's biological value it doesn't decrease his
> social value as it wasn't his decision.

Dan:
As long as it is understood how social patterns are not a collection
of biological patterns.

>
> Tentative intellectual pattern definition: When a decision is made, its
> justification accumulates as much value as is the social value of the
> decision for everyone affected by it.
>
> Questions:
> 1. What is the inorganic value of a biological pattern?
> 2. What is the inorganic value of a social pattern?
> 3. What is the inorganic value of an intellectual pattern?
> 4. What is the biological value of a social pattern?
> 5. What is the biological value of an intellectual pattern?
> 6. What is the social value of an intellectual pattern?
>
> On a hypothetical inorganic pattern definition: Perhaps it's possible to
> combine the notion that serving as the extension of a biological pattern
> accumulates inorganic value with the notion that identification accumulates
> inorganic value. After all, a guitar cannot be the extension of a guitar
> player unless identified as such. This means that the notion of
> identification being the cause of inorganic value accumulation makes
> redundant the notion that serving as the extension of a biological pattern
> is the cause of inorganic value attribution. But if we define inorganic
> patterns as identifications, how does value accumulation work so that the
> inorganic level doesn't end up having more value than the biological one?

Dan:
Unsure where you are going with this.

>
>>
>> "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."
>
>
> Tuukka:
> Here "intellect" means improperly or proprely intellectual whereas
> "intellectual" refers to properly intellectual.
>
>>
>> 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.
>
>
> Tuukka:
> In effect, I get the feeling you're suggesting I should regard my results as
> preliminary instead of speaking of "resolving issues".

Dan:
If your results are falsifiable, then they may lead to greater awareness.

>
>>
>> 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
>
>
> Tuukka:
> Why does he use the word "level" here instead of "pattern" like in the rest
> of the text? Just a meaningless rhetorical convention?

Dan:
I would say so, yes.

>
>
>> 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.

>
>
>>
>>
>>>>> 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.
>
>
> Tuukka:
>
> That's exactly what I'm doing because I'm developing a pattern language and
> I don't want the pattern language to contradict Pirsig. My goal is a system
> in which I can't do "arbitrarily assigning value to patterns and then making
> assumptions on those values arbitrarily assigned and then saying, see! Here
> is a contradiction." And it seems to me I just reached that goal regarding
> negative values by introducing the notion of absolute value.
>
> If you don't like the notion of absolute value, the goal apparently can also
> be reached with a MOQ that has no negative value. Looks like you want a MOQ
> with negative value but without absolute value. And I'm curious how you're
> going to get that, because I don't know how to do that without leaving room
> for "arbitrarily assigning value to patterns and then making assumptions on
> those values arbitrarily assigned and then saying, see! Here is a
> contradiction."
>
> I think there's a name for "arbitrarily assigning value to patterns and then
> making assumptions on those values arbitrarily assigned and then saying,
> see! Here is a contradiction". The name is "reductio ad absurdum".

Dan:
And so remind me again why we are talking?

>
>
>>
>>>>>>> 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?
>
>
> Tuukka:
>
> I meant that I don't particularly want to discuss this because I'm not very
> sure of how this thing goes, but there are other things of which I'm more
> sure and they seem all the more important for me when you question their
> importance by questioning whether it is even possible to resolve issues.
>
> But I can answer the question anyway. I think the baby is part of a
> biological pattern before birth and a biological pattern in its own right
> after birth.

Dan:
So before birth the baby is part of mother and after baby is a
separate and independent being. Is that what you're saying?

>
> 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.

>
>>
>> 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?

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]

Thank you,
Dan

http://www.danglover.com