[MD] Annotations to LC

[Adrie Kintziger]

=>@tuukka

according your own statements  a few converstations back,you did not read
"lila" as a whole or did not read the book to the end,so i have to conclude
that you are in no position to take a philosophical position on it.
But it is some mindtroubling to see you overstep this,in the way you do.
Without reading "lila"first,jumping the hurdle direct to 'lila's child',
and stating that you have questions and remarks regarding the content, is a
bit like say
trying to run the iron man on hawai and you cannot swim,were missing a leg
from birth,and never rode a bicycle before.Not a good idea.

It is also a bad idea to think that i would confuse lc with lila,i promise
you i won't.
There is a reason why i personally mostly avoid the discussions about Lc,
because most people involved in the project that days are not here anymore.
Discussing their considerations from that period now again without them
would only gain confusion.
Confusion, yes, lila's child itself became as ment to be a clarification,
a clarifusion only, a word salad so to speak and it was not Pirsig who was
to blame.
It became a sort of hashed essay full of plattifications,bodvarism's, amoq's
plusmoq's,metamoq's,....etc,regardless of the efforts that were done.

Ok , i'm going to tune it down a bit,but you can catch my drift,
you are only  trying to jump start another word salad.



2016-11-03 6:20 GMT+01:00 Tuukka Virtaperko <mail at tuukkavirtaperko.net>:

> Dan, Horse, Adrie, all,
>
> I've read LC RMP annotations and have some comments. And, from now on, I'm
> going to call Lila's Child LC because otherwise Adrie might confuse it with
> LILA. These comments pertain to the Heinous Quadrilemma but also other
> issues.
>
> "Jason: What distinguishes a high quality intellectual idea from a lower
> quality one? [8] RMP: It's truth, mainly. Also the magnitude of the
> questions it answers or problems it solves. Other things being equal, its
> rhetorical 'elegance' is also important in the mathematical sense of that
> term."
>
> Dan and I were just arguing whether truth is equivalent with good. Seems
> like I was right. The word "mainly" implies there's also something else to
> good than truth.
>
> Definition of the mind: "Magnus: The languages our individual intellects
> are built upon are the language provided by our social patterns of value
> called our bodies. [25] RMP: This is okay. In LILA, I never defined the
> intellectual level of the MOQ, since everyone who is up to reading LILA
> already knows what 'intellectual' means. For purposes of MOQ precision,
> let's say that the intellectual level is the same as mind. It is the
> collection and manipulation of symbols, created in the brain, that stand
> for patterns of experience."
>
> This annotation is well written by Pirsig. "Jason: My initial reaction
> regards your suggestion that self-consciousness or self-awareness [29] RMP:
> The MOQ, as I understand it, denies any existence of a 'self' that is
> independent of inorganic, biological, social or intellectual patterns.
> There is no 'self' that contains these patterns. These patterns contain the
> self. This denial agrees with both religious mysticism and scientific
> knowledge. In Zen, there is reference to 'big self' and 'small self.' Small
> self is the patterns. Big self is Dynamic Quality"
>
> "[44] RMP: It is only Dynamic Quality I think is impossible to define. I
> think definition is both possible and desirable for the static levels. I
> just didn't do it because these levels seemed so obvious. But in view of
> all the trouble people are having, I'm doing it now in these notes."
>
> Pirsig fails to mention an important point. Static quality is also
> impossible to define. I have demonstrated this with formal logic in an
> article I offered to a peer-reviewed journal perhaps 2008. The journal
> rejected the article on grounds of the conclusion being "obvious".
>
> However, make no mistake! We didn't demonstrate that the theory of static
> value patterns is impossible to define. It can be defined. It's just the
> general notion of static value that's undefinable.
>
> "Doug: I stated the paradox to Pirsig a little differently:
> A: Statement B is true.
> B: Statement A is false.
> If you place both of these sentences in one context (which is what SOM
> does with everything) you get, guess what, paradox (es). You feel this kind
> of brain locked looping stupor. It makes you dizzy. My point to Pirsig and
> to my fellow TLS mates (this paradox is not new, I did not originate it,
> countless others have used this example; except I have not seen anyone else
> solve it the way I am about to show you. If you know of another person who
> has alredy done this, please share) is that MOQ and QM and the concept of
> many truths eliminates the paradox.
> They do so by implying that if there are many truths there must be many
> contexts. All we have to do to eliminate the paradox is create a separate
> context for the two statements, say a local 'true' context and a local
> 'false' context. Then place the two sentences in each context. When you get
> a contradiction, switch to the other context to make the sentence, which is
> contradictory true. Caveat: we now have added responsibility of keeping
> track of multiple contexts for ourselves and those with whom we are
> communicating. This is *not* easy. It is easier to be SOM-like, assume a
> single context, and allow the paradoxes to spew forth abundantly."
>
> This has nothing to do whether the Heinous Quadrilemma works or not. The
> point is that Pirsig doesn't specify other contexts for idealism and
> materialism except truth for the former, extremely high moral value for the
> latter and logical consistency (not paraconsistency - NO true
> contradictions) for both. Which is what makes the Heinous Quadrilemma
> possible.
>
> Should there have been additional relevant contexts, Pirsig should have
> presented them as we here are obviously incapable of innovation if it
> involves criticism of Pirsig. Even if the need for innovation could be
> deductively proven we just wouldn't do it because, instead of understanding
> that the MOQ requires us to replace worse ideas with better ones, we'd be
> socially loyal to Pirsig and that's it.
>
> "Citation of Magnus [49] RMP: 'Societies' is used figuratively here as a
> more colorful word meaning 'groups.' If I had known it would be taken
> literally as evidence that cells belong in the social level I would not
> have used it. Maybe in a future edition it can be struck out.
> One can also call ants and bees 'social' insects, but for purposes of
> precision in the MOQ, social patterns should be defined as human and
> subjective. Unlike cells and bees and ants, they cannot be detected with an
> objective scientific instrument. For example, there is no objective
> scientific instrument that can distinguish between a king and commoner,
> because the difference is social."
>
> I'd like a more precise definition of "objective scientific instrument".
> Are questionnaires and social sciences objective? If not, why not? Because
> we want to "cut it off somewhere" and that's the point where we draw the
> line, just like how Africa was split into nation states with disregard
> towards which local tribe actually lived where. If you draw lines that way
> you get problems later. That's an empirical fact.
>
> Generally speaking, social sciences are considered empirical sciences as
> opposed to normative sciences. And don't we subscribe to empiricism? Well,
> a social scientist could distinguish a king from a commoner.
>
> "Bodvar: A while back, we spoke about the emergence of intellect and I
> said that in a way SOM could be seen as identical to the intellectual level
> of the MOQ! [50] RMP: This seems too restrictive. It seems to exclude
> non-subject-object constructions such as symbolic logic, higher
> mathematics, and computer languages from the intellectual level and gives
> them no home. Also the term 'quality' as used in the MOQ would be excluded
> from the intellectual level. In fact, the MOQ, which gives intellectual
> meaning to the term quality, would also have to be excluded from the
> intellectual level."
>
> Important point for my case. I've been accused of trying to impose SOM on
> the MOQ. But this annotation states that symbolic logic isn't SOM. Very
> convenient. We shouldn't need to argue about this anymore.
>
> I have a theory that accounts for symbolic logic, higher mathematics and
> programming languages by placing them into a metaphysical category
> comparable to subjectivity and objectivity. But that's AMOQ, not MOQ. Given
> how bad social skills I reportedly have, you might never accept a good
> modification if it were made by me. However, according to the MOQ that'd be
> an immoral choice. Intellectuality should prevail over sociality.
>
> "Hugo: First, I think we have to distinguish between the objectivity of
> methodology and 'objective knowledge,' [53] RMP: Even in a subject-object
> metaphysics this is an oxymoron. It leads to endless conversation."
>
> Intuitively I agree.
>
> "[56] RMP: The word 'produced' implies that Dynamic Quality is a part of a
> cause and effect system of the kind generated by scientific thinking. But
> Dynamic Quality cannot be part of any cause and effect system since all
> cause and effect systems are static patterns. (...)"
>
> This annotation supports my argument that, when formalizing the MOQ, it is
> appropriate to omit undefinable concepts, such as Quality and Dynamic
> Quality, from the formalism and all connectives pointing to and from them.
>
> "[57] RMP: In the MOQ time is dependent on experience independently of
> matter. Matter is a deduction from experience."
>
> One might want to think Pirsig should've written "induction" instead of
> "deduction". But he did write "deduction". Why?
>
> A definition of SOM: "Hugo: Well, I find the source of SOM in Aristotle's
> work, but I find more. And we are off course in our discussions of the MOQ
> (including Pirsig, especially Pirsig because he is so good at it) using the
> logic that Aristotle worked out. Logic is a valuable tool, but out
> rationalistic culture has taken logic to be the very structure of the
> world. Anyway, I just thought it fair and humbling to mention that the
> ideas behind the MOQ are just as ancient as the ideas behind SOM, and that
> Aristotle worked out some key concepts of both. [58] RMP: Yes, the MOQ only
> contradicts the SOM denial that value exists in the real world. The MOQ
> says it does. Thus the MOQ is an expansion of existing knowledge, not a
> denial of existing knowledge."
>
> The MOQ doesn't contradict logic. Some people seem to imply it does,
> though. I feel this way. Am I wrong?
>
> Pirsig explains his motives for attempting to solve the
> mind-matter-problem this way: "Hugo: I don't agree on much of what Merriam
> has to say. For one, his way of handling the Schrödinger Cat paradox [59]
> RMP: I think this paradox exists as a result of the materialist history of
> scientific thinking. Scientists often forget that all scientific knowledge
> is subjective knowledge based on experience, although science does not deny
> that this is true."
>
> "does not deny that this is true" doesn't mean "asserts that this is
> true". This is because science is objective, not subjective, and has little
> to say about subjectivity.
>
> Continued to a description of MOQ idealism: "All objects are in fact
> mental constructs based on experience. If we do not forget this and start
> with experience as the beginning point of the experiment, rather than
> objective quantum particles as the beginning point of the experiment, the
> paradox seems to vanish."
>
> This is one of the things of which people sometimes assume I don't
> understand them. I don't know what reason I give them to suppose so. The
> intention of this statement isn't to suggest that logical analysis may not
> be performed within the MOQ.
>
> "The existence of collective masses of electrons can be inferred from
> experience and there is every reason to think they exist independently of
> the mind. But in the case of the spin of an *individual* electron, there is
> *no* experience. In addition, the nature of the Heisenberg Theory of
> Indeterminacy prevents any inference from general collective experience of
> electrons to certify the spin of any individual electron. If you can't
> experience something and you can't infer it either, then you have no
> scientific basis for saying that it exists."
>
> I have inferred the Heinous Quadrilemma. Therefore it exists.
>
> "Maggie: The MOQ also says that every Quality event results in one object
> and one subject. [60] RMP: It says subjects and objects are deduced from
> quality events, but many quality events occur without a resultant subject
> and object."
>
> I agree.
>
> "Maggie: The initial connection between leader and follower may be formed
> by a Quality event at any level, but must be maintained by the social
> level. [62] RMP: In the case of the military, where deserters are executed
> by firing squad, you can say that leadership is maintained by the
> biological and inorganic levels; that is, handcuffs and bullets."
>
> What does this make of military rank? That it is just a biological
> pattern? That a lieutenant is not obeyed by his subordinates because of his
> rank but because he seems like tough guy?
>
> I think Pirsig's definition is offensive towards soldiers. The French
> Foreign Legion has some kind of a oath the soldiers have to swear. A
> soldier obeying commands is operating at the social level.
>
> ''Doug: I found the following on the Quality event in SODV (Subjects,
> Objects, Data and Values paper):
> "In the Metaphysics of Quality the world is composed of three things:
> mind, matter and Quality. Because something is not located in the object
> does not mean that it has to be located in your mind. Quality cannot be
> independently derived from either mind or matter. But it can be derived
> from the relationship of mind and matter with each other. Quality occurs at
> the point at which subject and object meet. Quality is not a thing. It is
> an event. It is the event at which the subject becomes aware of the object.
> And because without objects there can be no subject, quality is the event
> at which awareness of both subjects and objects is made possible. Quality
> is not just the result of a collision between subject and object. The very
> existence of subject and object themselves is deduced''
>
> Deduced? Hardly. The argument seems inductive rather than deductive. If it
> is deductive it is still apparently not deduced but instead declared as an
> axiom. If it is indeed deduced, from which axioms? What kind of a deduction
> has an undefined concept as a premise?
>
> Continued: ''from the Quality event. The Quality event is the cause of the
> subjects and objects, which are then mistakenly presumed to be the cause of
> the Quality!
> And:
> The most striking similarity between the Metaphysics of Quality and
> Complementarity is that this Quality event corresponds to what Bohr means
> by 'observation' When the Copenhagen Interpretation 'holds that the
> unmeasured atom is not real, then it's attributes are created or realized
> in the act of measurement,' (Herbert xiii) it is saying something very
> close to the Metaphysics of Quality. The observation creates the reality"
> [65] RMP: It seems close but I think it is really very far apart. In the
> Copenhagen Interpretation, and in all subject-object metaphysics, both the
> observed (the object) and the observer (the subject) are assumed to exist
> prior to the observation. In the MOQ, nothing exists prior to the
> observation. The observation creates the intellectual patterns called
> 'observed' and 'observer.' Think about it. How could a subject and object
> exist in a world where there are no observations?''
>
> Someone could try to argue this to mean complementarity renders the MOQ
> immune to the first horn of the Heinous Quadrilemma, inconsistency. But
> complementarity isn't a defined property of a logical system. Is there a
> way to formalize that?
>
> "Lots of discussion [67] RMP: This is difficult to untangle. Bohr's
> 'observation' and the MOQ's 'quality event' are the same, but the contexts
> are different. The difference is rooted in the historic chicken-egg
> controversy over whether matter came first and produces ideas, which
> produce what we know as matter. The MOQ says that Quality comes first,
> which produces ideas, which produce what we know as matter. The scientific
> community almost invariably presumes that matter comes first and produces
> ideas. However, as to further the confusion, the MOQ says that the idea
> that matter comes first is a high quality idea! I think Bohr would say that
> philosophic idealism (i.e. ideas come before matter) is a viable philosophy
> since complementarity allows multiple contradictory views to coexist"
>
> Yeah, but complementarity doesn't allow multiple contradictory views to
> coexist in the same consistent logical system in the same context. And the
> only context Pirsig provides for materialism is "good ideas" and the only
> context provided for idealism is "true ideas".
>
> "Mark: Sorry to appear tangential to your original thread, but you are
> using the terms 'subject' and 'object' in an unusual way for me. Could you
> please help me understand? Do you agree that 'subject' implies the self and
> 'objects' are all that is not self? [73] RMP: In the MOQ, the static self
> is composed of both body and mind and thus is both object and subject. It
> is better to define subject as social and intellectual patterns and object
> as biological and inorganic patterns. This seems to help prevent confusion
> later on."
>
> It doesn't "seem" to prevent confusion now.
>
> "Mark: If you are saying that logic deals with things that are not
> subjects or objets, then, according to Pirsig, you have defined Quality.
> [74] RMP: Here comes the confusion. To prevent it, it is better to say that
> logic is a set of rules (i.e. an intellectual pattern) that helps produce
> high quality in other intellectual patterns."
>
> Doesn't Pirsig say that the MOQ is an intellectual pattern? I think he
> says that in the end of the letter to Paul Turner. If logic helps produce
> high quality in other intellectual patterns then I'm doing what I'm
> supposed to be doing right now.
>
> "Dave: For example, 'this tree.' In SOM, we define it by its scientific
> characteristics (i.e., size, shape, color, species, board feet of lumber,
> structural properties, cell structure etc.) and then we generally stop. But
> in the MOQ--at least when we talk about man's static pattern, "this
> tree"--we at minimum have to move on up into the social level [79] RMP: A
> tree is purely biological. The MOQ doesn't require a social description a
> social description any more than the SOM does. Remember the SOM includes
> the field of social science."
>
> Are social patterns subjective? If so, they are invisible to scientific
> instruments. So are social sciences subjective? That is to say, instead of
> being a social scientist one could just play a drum in a cocoa ceremony and
> have no different epistemological predisposition than a social scientist?
> We'd need romantic and classical quality here to make sense of stuff.
>
> Or perhaps we'd need the objective and subjective quality of ZAMM. But it
> would be really awkward if we found it meaningful to state: "Social science
> and drumming are LILA subjective but social science is ZAMM objective and
> drumming is ZAMM subjective."
>
> "Dave: Under quantum mechanics if all men die then the [sic] does [sic]
> phenomena we observe and call 'quanta' cease to be? Would the then
> remaining universe, other than man being gone, markedly change? Would the
> sun, earth, stars disappear or change in any way? [80] RMP: This is the
> usual argument against the philosophic idealism that is part of the MOQ so
> it had better be answer here. It is similar to the question, 'If a tree
> falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?' The
> historic answer of the idealists it, 'What tree?'
> In order to ask this question you have to presuppose the existence of the
> falling tree and then ask whether this presupposed tree would vanish if
> nobody was there. Of course, it wouldn't vanish! It has already been
> presupposed.
> This presupposition is a standard logical fallacy known as a hypothesis
> contrary to fact. It is the 'hypothetical question' that is always thrown
> out of court as inadmissible. If pigs could fly, how high would they go?
> The answer is the same as the answer to Dave's question"
>
> Here Pirsig asserts that idealism is part of the MOQ. As a part of the
> MOQ, idealism seems to function exactly like it would without the MOQ,
> which reinforces my assertion that MOQ idealism (in which Quality comes
> first) is logically equivalent to ordinary idealism.
>
> In [84] Pirsig compliments Platt's "Principles of the Metaphysics of
> Quality". I have some comments on these principles.
>
> "5. The Awareness Hierarchy Principle: Each higher level evolved from and
> included the lower but expanded awareness. For example, the intellectual
> can apprehend mathematical patterns that the lower levels cannot. Also, all
> levels possess, in addition to environmental awareness, an awareness of
> values. Even a lowly virus knows what's good for it."
>
> Here, to "include" probably means to "be a subset of".
>
> "11. The Truth Principle: Truth, an intellectual value pattern, is a
> species of Good. There's no single, exclusive truth, but those of high
> quality are empirical, logical, elegant and brief. In any case, it's
> immoral for truth to be subordinated to social values."
>
> The last sentence is something everyone on MD should remember. Pirsig
> deems it immoral that an annoying person be resisted if he's making a
> relevant point. Of course it's up to me not to disturb social processes too
> much while I'm at this but, well... I've been diagnosed with Asperger's
> syndrome. And sometimes this condition makes me behave in ways that other
> people experience as needlessly unpleasant, cold or inconsiderate.
>
> Simply pointing out that I have bad social skills has no effect on my
> behavior. This is because that behavior isn't caused by choice, attitude or
> lack of motivation or respect but by a genuine lack of empathy.
> Information, that would be useful for me in improving my behavior, would
> include written practical examples about situations in which I did
> something wrong, and a description of what I should've done. They should be
> quite accurate.
>
> In any case, the point of the above citation is this: truth is subordinate
> to moral value. So they're probably not equivalent.
>
> "12. The Freedom Principle: To create ever higher levels of awareness,
> Dynamic Quality strives for freedom from all static patterns. Freedom is
> the core value and highest Good in the Metaphysics of Quality. Thus, the
> best social and intellectual patterns are those that promote freedom
> consistent with maintaining the static patterns necessary for survival."
>
> I have something to say about this, but those things are more about what I
> think than about what Pirsig thinks.
>
> "Platt: The way I interpret this is that the front edge of experience,
> i.e., Dynamic Quality, includes a sense of value (a dim perception) that
> operates simultaneously with the front edge and makes an instantaneous
> judgment along the high/low Quality spectrum, causing a Dynamic response
> prior to static thought. [86] RMP: Since in the MOQ all divisions of
> Quality are static it follows that high and low are subdivisions of static
> quality, since the MOQ is itself a static intellectual pattern of Quality."
>
> As a static intellectual pattern of Quality the MOQ can be approached
> dialectically. This supports the view that the Heinous Quadrilemma applies
> to the MOQ.
>
> "Platt: So I see Quality divided two ways in the MOQ: along a fuzzy logic
> sort of positive/negative spectrum, and a hard logic Dynamic/static split
> with both occurring simultaneously, not in a separate either/or
> relationship but a complimentary [sic] relationship. [87] RMP: This seems
> very good as long as it is understood that the structure of the MOQ puts
> static and Dynamic above high and low in its hierarchy."
>
> Platt writes about "fuzzy logic sort of positive/negative spectrum" which
> is feasible at least in the MOQ-related computer programs I've made and,
> particularly, those I intend to make. Indeed in these programs there can be
> a method for determining the exact moral value of a pattern in fuzzy logic.
>
> "Bodvar: Society in the MOQ sense is a very wide term. [93] RMP: This
> strikes me as so general it destroys the meaning of society for MOQ
> purposes. I think it is better just to keep it as the subjective customs of
> a group of people."
>
> Are these customs invisible to objective scientific instruments? If yes,
> are social sciences subjective? If yes, does the MOQ put them into the same
> category with poetry?
>
> "Ant: I am unhappy with the replacement of 'intellect' with 'rationality.'
> Firstly, 'rationalism' is the philosophical theory of /a priori/ ideas,
> that truth and knowledge are attainable primarily through reason rather
> than through knowledge. Unfortunately, I think its usage within the MOQ
> could become confusing especially as the MOQ is an /empirical/ theory
> opposed to /rationality/. Maybe the term 'reasoning' could be put in its
> place but even with this term, there are problems. [94] RMP: Good point."
>
> In annotation [50] Pirsig states symbolic logic not to be a subject-object
> construction. Then what is it? We know this of it:
> * It should be a static pattern.
> * It should be intellectual but it can't, because then it wouldn't be ZAMM
> subjective and we haven't agreed that ZAMM subjectivity isn't the same
> thing as LILA subjectivity.
> * It should be psychic, in the mind, but it can't because then it wouldn't
> be ZAMM objective and we haven't agreed that ZAMM objectivity isn't the
> same thing as LILA objectivity.
>
> Not much room for such a thing in Pirsig's MOQ! But hey, we can't improve
> the MOQ because none of us is Pirsig! Pirsig says the MOQ is just MOQ and
> Pirsig is just Pirsig, but that's just what he thinks. Here on MD we only
> care about what Pirsig has said. The MOQ is just a sidekick.
>
> Furthermore, given that the MOQ opposes SOM and that symbolic logic isn't
> a subject-object construction, why would the MOQ anyhow be opposed to
> rationality? Symbolic logic is rational.
>
> Does the MOQ consider symbolic logic empirical?
>
> "Bodvar: I long stuck to 'Symbolic Language' (and still think it's a good
> definition), but someone else caught the idea that intellect can be seen as
> rational thinking. Long before the Lila Squad days, it had puzzled me
> greatly that Subject/Object metaphysics /may/ be viewed as the intellectual
> level of MOQ! I even raised the question in a letter to Pirsig, but he did
> not respond. [95] RMP: I don't remember not responding, so it must have
> been an oversight. I don't think the subject-object level is identical with
> intellect. Intellect is simply thinking, and one can think without
> involving the subject-object relationship. Computer language is not
> primarily structured into subject and objects. Algebra has no subjects and
> objects."
>
> I agree about the subject-object "level" not being identical with
> empiricistic intellect. It goes in line with annotation [50] which states
> that symbolic logic is not a subject-object construction. But if symbolic
> logic isn't a subject-object construction, is it still subjective or
> objective?
>
> "Ken: We and most everybody in the Lila Squad discuss the MOQ solely in
> relation to the human race. In this context, all of this makes sense. It
> makes sense until we begin to talk about the operation of Dynamic Quality
> before sentience. The static patterns of value start with the inorganic
> level. This implies that the MOQ existed before sentience. [97] RMP: Within
> the MOQ, the /idea/ that static patterns of value start with the inorganic
> level is considered to be a good /idea/. But the MOQ itself, like science,
> starts with human experience. Remember the early talk in ZMM about Newton's
> Law of Gravity? Scientific laws without people to write them are a
> scientific impossibility."
>
> Materialism is a good idea.
>
> "Magnus: But in the MOQ , both parts of the QE are subjects from its point
> of view. [100] RMP: Both are patterns of value. But as the diagram in SODV
> shows, subjective knowledge (social and intellectual patterns) is different
> from objects (biological and inorganic patterns). Their unity occurs only
> in the Dynamic Quality that precedes all patterns. Confusion is generated
> on this matter when it is forgotten that /all/ scientific knowledge,
> including knowledge of objects, is subjective knowledge. This knowledge is
> confirmed by experience in such a way as to allow the scientist to generate
> a supremely high quality intellectual belief that external objects exist.
> But that belief itself is still subjective."
>
> My dictionary describes "subjective" as:
>
> 1. "Taking place within the mind and modified by individual bias"
> 2. "(philosophy) of a mental act performed entirely within the mind"
> 3. "(grammar) pertaining to subjects as opposed to objects"
>
> Science is supposed to eliminate the individual bias to some extent and it
> is in this sense that science is sometimes thought of as objective. I would
> like to focus on a notion of subjectivity in which this individual bias is
> a focal point. In other words, a subjectivity that isn't logical. But LILA
> terminology is inconvenient for having such a discussion. In ZAMM the
> terminology is better suited.
>
> "Maggie: There are many 'things' that we are unconscious of, that people
> have never noticed. Any of them would have aspects in other levels but not
> intellectual. They are not objects. They have not been observed. But, there
> is no intellectual pattern that is independent of lower levels. Any high
> level pattern has mediated and reordered lower patterns or it doesn't
> exist. And, if it mediates even one level of patterns, that automatically
> mediates sets of lower level patterns, with the chain effect going all the
> way to the inorganic. So, there's no pattern that exists in only the upper
> levels but there are patterns that exist only in lower. [101] RMP: A
> materialist would say yes. And idealist would say no."
>
> And what about the patterns that exist only in the upper levels but not in
> the lower levels? Do they have a moral hierarchy? Or do all of them exist
> on the intellectual level? Pirsig writes in [25] that the intellectual
> level is the mind, so maybe they do. That's not a very ambitious solution.
>
> As if anything were intellectual just because it's in the mind. How are
> religious visions intellectual? Hallucinations? Dreams?
>
> What sense is there in stating the mind to be the intellectual level? This
> is the most anti-mystical, pro-science stance I can think of. This is
> hardly something I'd expect from someone who ever appreciated anything
> about American Indian mysticism.
>
> ''Dave: I'm out of my element here in seeing the consequences. I
> understand the relatively [sic] analogue and agree that Quality is the
> mother of all relativity, but don't see why Pirsig would bring up Bohr and
> try to relate his work to Bohr's if he was uncomfortable with where that
> comparison could or would lead. I also don't see the threat to the MOQ.
> [102] RMP: I see today more clearly than when I wrote the SODV paper that
> the key to integrating the MOQ with science is through philosophic
> idealism, which says that objects grow out of ideas, not the other way
> around. Since at the most primary level the observed and the observer are
> both intellectual assumptions, the paradoxes of quantum theory have to be
> conflicts of intellectual assumption, not just conflicts of what is
> observed. Except in the case of Dynamic Quality, what is observed always
> involves an interaction with ideas that have been previously assumed. So
> the problem is not, "How can observed nature be so screwy?" but can also
> be, "What is wrong with our most primitive assumptions that our set of
> ideas called 'nature' are turning out so screwy?" Getting back to physics,
> this question becomes, "Why should we assume that the slit experiment
> should perform differently than it does?" I think that if researched it
> would be found that buried in the data of the slit experiment is an
> assumption that light exists and follows consistent laws independently of
> any human experience. If so, the MOQ would say that although in the past
> this seems to have been the highest quality assumption one can make about
> light, there may be a higher quality one that contradicts it. This is
> pretty much what the physicists are saying but the MOQ provides a sound
> metaphysical structure within which they can say it.''
>
> Pirsig implies that idealism is true. And among other things, Pirsig
> affirms the obvious: that intellectual patterns can contradict each other.
>
> "Donny: Marting suggests that Kant 'practically defined SOM'. I'm no Kant
> scholar, but my understanding is that beyond us and the /thing for us/
> (object, by the way, literally means 'that which stands over against') he
> posited a /thing in itself/ which was unknowable but presumably a
> transcendent unity that could be called God or Tao or Quality [103] RMP:
> Quality in the MOQ is monistic and thus is not the same as Kant's 'thing in
> itself' which is the object of a dualism."
>
> Okay, good. Stating that the MOQ is monistic won't cause problems.
>
> "Donny: Pirsig makes the same equation you do without thinking about it
> and that's what I'm trying to show (or else my discussion of Kant will seem
> meaningless). Well, understanding Kant is a worthy goal in itself, but it
> wouldn't seem especially connected to the MOQ. The difference is, as I said
> earlier, an idea is not a body; it's not spatially extended. But it is a
> /Gegenstand/ (an object). [106] RMP: Not in the MOQ."
>
> Is it a good, bad or neutral thing that the MOQ is incompatible with Kant?
>
> "Donny: Put this tool in your philosophical toolbox: whenever you have a
> dichotomistic distinction (everything is either A or B), iterate it, that
> is, apply it to itself, and see where it falls. [107] RMP: This has been
> done. The MOQ is an idea."
>
> If I read this correctly, Donny suggests dialetheism to Pirsig and Pirsig
> doesn't get it.
>
> "So, Mind/Body distinction (MBd) is clearly a thought or system of
> thought. It is not spatially extended; MBd has no body. It's an element of
> Mind. But what about SOM (knower/known)? It's obviously not a knowing
> consciousness; it's something (namely an idea) we know/are aware of. SOM is
> an object, a /Gegenstand/ (literally 'stands over against' consciousness).
> So, I hope now that it's clear that SOM and MBd are different. Pirsig
> missed that little point.
> [108] RMP: No, both the SOM and MBd are sets of ideas, and there is no
> reason to make a big distinction between them on this basis.
> I think the confusion here is between the 'object' of a sentence
> (Gegenstand) and a physical object. When you call ideas 'objects' you
> destroy the normal meaning of those terms and introduce confusion."
>
> Then why call bodies objects in the first place?
>
> "Donny: When I decide that, 'That cloud is shaped like a rabbit,' is
> subjective and 'I'm wearing a brown shirt,' is objective, is that decision
> subjective, or is it a brute fact? [109] RMP: In the MOQ, 'brute facts' are
> also subjective."
>
> Too bad that's not quite what other people consistently mean with "brute
> facts".
>
> "Donny: 'Subject' means 'knowing subject', and 'object' means 'known
> object.'
> [111] RMP: Object: n.
> Something perceptible by one or more of the senses, especially by vision
> or touch; a material thing.
>   1. A focus of attention, feeling, thought or action.
>   2. The purpose, aim, goal of a specific action or effort.
>   3. Abbr. obj. Grammar. a. A noun or substantive that receives or is
> affected by the action of a verb within a sentence. b. A noun or
> substantive following and governed by a preposition.
>   4. Philosophy. Something intelligible or perceptible by the mind.
>   (American Heritage Dictionary)
> The 'objects' in the MOQ refer to Definition #1. Objects are biological
> patterns and inorganic patterns, not thoughts or social patterns. The
> 'objects' Donny refers to seem to be in Definition #5. It seems to me that
> in Definition #5 subjects can also be objects. Thus any distinction between
> them is meaningless."
>
> If ideas can't be objects does that mean they can't even be the focus of
> attention, feeling, thought or action?
>
> Why is there no Definition #5?
>
> "Donny: In plainer words, can you have knowledge of (the world of)
> experience prior to experience? Hume says no, Kant says yes, Hegel gives a
> strenuous no and Pirsig says yes. [112] RMP: Pirsig says no."
>
> Then what kind of an experience is the experience of making a logical
> deduction?
>
> "Keith: What's to keep us from reverting to the traditional understanding
> of the hot stove example where the oaths the person on the hot stove utters
> come from their subjective valuation of pain, not from primary empirical
> reality?
> [126] RMP: When you examine pain closely you see that it is not in the
> mind. Pain that is subjective, i.e. has no medical origin, is not
> considered to be real pain, but a hallucination, a symptom of mental
> illness. 'Subjective valuation' of pain is a form of insanity. But you see
> that pain is not out of the mind either. When a medical patient is
> unconscious, i.e., whose mind is absent, there are no objective traces of
> the pain to be found. Once [sic] can possibly find the causes of the pain
> with scientific instruments but one cannot find the pain itself. So if pain
> isn't in the mind and it isn't in the external world where is it? The
> answer provided by the MOQ is that pain, like hearing and vision and smell
> and touch, is part of the empirical threshold that reveals to us what the
> rest of the world is like. At the moment pain is first experienced it is
> not even 'pain,' it is just negative quality, a third category, outside of
> subjects and objects, whose definitions have not yet come in."
>
> Seems like pain is a form of romantic quality.
>
> At this point in LC there's a Pirsig quote in which he compares critics to
> sharks smelling blood. I think some people here see me as a similar shark.
> But what is despicable about such a shark are the lack of effort and the
> profuse amount of rhetoric. I'm a MOQ scholastic, not a shark.
>
> "Horse: In the divisions between inorganic, biological, social and
> intellect, where does one start and the other finish.
> [128] RMP: I would agree that valuations can be intense or weak and that
> this scale is without sharp divisions. However, I think the MOQ will be
> better if the divisions between levels are sharp rather than fuzzy. (...)"
>
> I agree.
>
> "Platt: From the beginning of Lila Squad, Bo has maintained that the
> intellectual level is SOM (rationality, language, science).
> [129] RMP: I've always thought this is incorrect because many forms of
> intellect do not have a subject-object construction. These include logic
> itself, mathematics, computer programming languages, and, I believe some
> primitive languages (although I can't remember what they are)."
>
> Agreeing with Pirsig.
>
> "Platt: Far from condemning SOM, the Metaphysics of Quality holds it to be
> the highest level yet achieved.
> [131] RMP: Within the intellectual level, mathematics, especially quantum
> mechanics, seems higher to me."
>
> According to Pirsig formalisms can be highly valuable. The Heinous
> Quadrilemma is a formalism, in case someone didn't know. Not a very formal
> one. But formalizable. By any chance, do you dislike the name I've given?
> "The Heinous Quadrilemma"? I just thought to ask since Horse finds me to
> have inadequate social skills.
>
> "Platt: To fill the hole may require a new level above SOM. I'm not sure
> about this. After all, the MOQ is an SOM document based on SOM reasoning.
> [132] RMP: It employs SOM reasoning the way SOM reasoning employs social
> structures such as courts and journals and learned societies to make itself
> known. SOM reasoning is not subordinate to these social structures, and the
> MOQ is not subordinate to the SOM structures it employs. Remember that the
> central reality of the MOQ is not an object or a subject or anything else.
> It is understood by direct experience only and not by reasoning of any
> kind. Therefore to say that the MOQ is based on SOM reasoning is as useful
> as saying that the Ten Commandments are based on SOM reasoning. It doesn't
> tell us anything about the essence of the Ten Commandments and it doesn't
> tell us anything about the essence of the MOQ"
>
> Okay, but according to the Heinous Quadrilemma the MOQ fails to employ
> classical logic. This means anybody praising the MOQ is offering a broken
> ladder to the general public. And instead of fixing the ladder he just
> keeps going on about what a good place awaits at the end of the ladder. If
> so, why not fix the ladder? Isn't it worth it?
>
> "Bodvar: (...) how can SOM avoid being trashed if it competes with the
> Quality of being reality?
> [135] RMP: As far as I know the MOQ does not trash the SOM. It contains
> the SOM within a larger system. The only thing it trashes is the SOM
> assertion that values are unreal."
>
> I agree.
>
> "Magnus: Truth comes with a context, the context in which it is true.
> Mostly for Struan: the MOQ does not provide absolute answers to ethical
> dilemmas. It /does/ however provide a framework with which to contextualize
> dilemmas. [143]
> RMP: This is how I have always seen it. Just as two opposing sides can
> cite the Constitution as support for their case in the Supreme Court, so
> can two opposing sides cite the MOQ. 'The Devil can quote scripture to his
> own choosing,' but there is no reason to throw out the Bible, the U.S.
> Constitution or the MOQ as long as they can provide a larger context for
> understanding."
>
> Yeah, but the mind-matter problem isn't solved before it is explained how
> to correctly select idealism or materialism as the context in a given
> situation.
>
> "Why the ambiguity on four or more levels? [151]
> RMP: The answer is that Pirsig doesn't like being unnecessarily arbitrary.
> If someone likes fire levels, he can have them. It's still the MOQ, even
> though he personally prefers four levels."
>
> What does it mean it's "still the MOQ"? Can it be discussed on MD?
>
> That Pirsig doesn't like being unnecessarily arbitrary increases the
> potency of the Heinous Quadrilemma.
>
> "Q&A [4]
> Yes, it's clear I've been of two minds on whether subjects and objects
> should be included in the MOQ. My earlier view, when I was concentrating on
> the confusion of subject-object thinking, was to get rid of them entirely
> to help clarify things. Later I began to see it's not necessary to get rid
> of them because MOQ can encase them neatly within its structure--the upper
> two levels being subjective, and the lower two, objective. Still later I
> saw that the subject-object distinction is very useful for sharply
> distinguishing between biological and social levels.
> If I had been more careful in my editing, I would have eliminated or
> modified the earlier statements to bring them into agreement with the
> latter ones. However I missed these and it's valuable that the Lila Squad
> has caught them. The main danger to the MOQ from subject-object thinking at
> present seems to be when it tries in a conversational way to encase values
> and declare them to be either objects or thoughts. That was the attempt of
> the professors in Bozeman in ZMM that started this whole MOQ.
> At present, I don't see that the terms 'subject' and 'object' need to be
> dropped, as long as we remember they are just levels of value, not
> expressions of independent scientific reality."
>
> Horse said I'm incapable of backtracking but dmb obviously isn't, since he
> reverted to Pirsig's earlier stance when I demolished Pirsig's MOQ
> logically. But I don't think we need to revert if we make some other kind
> of changes. A logically demolished MOQ wouldn't be very attractive anyway.
>
> "Q&A [4]
> RMP: Yes, the relationship of the MOQ to philosophic idealism is an
> important one that is not adequately spelled out in LILA. In a materialist
> system mind has no reality because it is not material. In an idealist
> system matter has no reality because it is just an idea. The acceptance of
> one meant the rejection of the other. In the MOQ, both mind and matter are
> levels of value. Materialist explanations and idealist explanations can
> coexist because they are descriptions of coexisting levels of a larger
> reality.
> The MOQ does not deny the traditional scientific view of reality as
> composed of material substance and independent of us. It says it is an
> extremely high quality idea. We should follow it whenever it is practical
> to do so. But the MOQ, like philosophic idealism, says this scientific view
> of reality is still an idea. If it were not an idea, then that 'independent
> scientific material reality' would not be able to change as new scientific
> discoveries come in."
>
> Even if the MOQ attempt to contain idealism wouldn't cause the Heinous
> Quadrilemma there would be a problem with this. This is just a taxonomic
> declaration. There is no idealistic system. There's just a conceptual box
> that's labeled "idealism". The box is nearly empty. It does contain the MOQ
> but the MOQ is also contained in the box labeled "materialism". So, why put
> the MOQ alone into this other box, too?
>
> How do subjective patterns emerge? Do they emerge? Why? Why not? Are there
> four levels of subjective quality?
>
> I've answered these questions. But since it wasn't okay for me to post
> non-Pirsig stuff on MD I haven't posted much about that here.
>
> "Q&A [25]
> DG: Why do we fear affirmative Dynamic Quality?"
>
> Do not fear.
>
> "Bodvar: Anders asks if the MOQ is valid for extraterrestrial life as
> well. He believes in its main tenet, Dynamic/static quality, but has doubts
> about the four static levels, they being too fuzzy and human specific for
> his liking. [37]
> Q&A [37]
> RMP: I don't think they're fuzzy
> DG: But they are human specific.
> RMP: Anders is slipping into the materialist assumption that there is a
> huge world out there that has nothing to do with people. The MOQ says that
> is a high quality assumption, within limits. One of its limits is that
> without humans to make it that assumption cannot be made. It is a human
> specific assumption. Strictly speaking, Anders has never heard of or ever
> will hear of anything that isn't human specific.
> DG: So I take it philosophic idealism is a higher quality intellectual
> idea in this situation vs. the physicalist working in the lab who would
> find materialism to be of higher value?
> RMP: That sounds right, although modern physics has produced laboratory
> paradoxes for materialists that do not exist for idealists. I think it is
> best to understand both systems, and shift from one to another as it
> becomes valuable to do so."
>
> Remember how in [151] Pirsig said he doesn't like being unnecessarily
> arbitrary? Well, "That sounds right" sounds pretty arbitrary to me, so I
> guess it's necessarily arbitrary. But the only way it can be necessarily
> arbitrary is that Pirsig isn't sure of it. He might like to be but he isn't.
>
> Since Pirsig takes such a weak stance on this whereas my stance is backed
> up by solid deduction, that thing that sounded right isn't really right.
> It's wrong. Idealism is not a good idea and, consequently, neither is
> Pirsig's MOQ.
>
> "Q&A [86]
> RMP: From an intellectual point of view, Dynamic understanding is a
> logical contradiction. Logic does not control Dynamic understanding however
> and within it there is no contradiction."
>
> Does Pirsig mean that the MOQ can be formalized in paraconsistent logic if
> Dynamic understanding is a logical contradiction? Probably not, since
> elsewhere Pirsig says the MOQ is consistent. It's more likely that by this
> he means Dynamic understanding is a nonrelativizably used predicate. But to
> call that a contradiction would go too far in my opinion.
>
> Frankly, it sounds like Pirsig isn't that familiar with the exact meaning
> of these logical concepts.
>
> "Q&A [97]
> RMP: In the late 1800's the chicken-and-egg argument about whether ideas
> precede inorganic nature or inorganic nature precedes ideas was considered
> philosophically important. No one to my knowledge has ever shown that the
> idealists who considered ideas to come first have been wrong. The
> discussion has since died away.
> It is important for an understanding of the MOQ to see that although
> 'common sense' dictates that inorganic nature came first, actually 'common
> sense' which is a set of ideas, has to come first. This 'common sense' is
> arrived at through a huge web of socially approved evaluations of various
> alternatives. The key term here is 'evaluation,' i.e., quality decisions.
> The fundamental reality is not the common sense or the objects and laws
> approved of by common sense but the approval itself and the quality that
> leads to it."
>
> He goes on about it but doesn't notice the Heinous Quadrilemma. We're
> almost at the end of the book. Will Pirsig ever state that idealism is good
> or that materialism is true?
>
> "Q&A [97]
> In the MOQ, laws are a species of intellectual patterns that are
> associated with a lot of social authority and are slow to change. I don't
> think they have any objective status at all. (...)"
>
> My dictionary defines "objective" as:
>
> "1. Adjective: Undistorted by emotion or personal bias; based on
> observable phenomena"
>
> The problem with Pirsig's stance is this. Suppose a child named Mike. Mike
> has never been to the Moon, but he says the Moon is made of cheese. How to
> interpret this?
>
> * Subjectively: Mike lives in a child's fantasy world in which the Moon is
> made of cheese.
> * Objectively: Mike has incorrect information about the composition of the
> Moon.
>
> Laws are objective in the latter sense. Yet there still exist things that
> are subjective in the former sense. So why complicate life by stating that
> both laws and fantasy worlds are subjective?
>
> You could have a subjective system of metaphysics. But you don't. And I'll
> make you one if you want to. It's already been pretty much made. It has
> great potential. I'm planning to use it as the basis of an AI.
>
> "Q&A [99]
> RMP: I think the mathematical definition of chaos deals exclusively with
> what the MOQ would call static objective patterns. (...)"
>
> What makes a mathematical definition "objective"? Is it matter? Obviously
> not. Does Pirsig subscribe to mathematical realism? Probably not. A
> mathematical definition might be ZAMM objective but not LILA objective.
>
> "Q&A [101]
> A materialist would say yes. An idealist would say no.
> DG: And the MOQ would say they are both right?
> RMP: Within their limitations. They seem to fit within the Hindu parable
> of the blind men and the elephant."
>
> That doesn't solve the mind-matter problem. That rejects the mind-matter
> problem rhetorically. Of course everyone has their own point of view.
> That's the original cause of the mind-matter problem!
>
> "Q&A [102]
> I think idealism is of higher quality for understanding the MOQ because
> most people understand materialism as 'common sense' but few understand
> idealism as 'common sense,' and you need both. Although Dynamic Quality is
> neither an object nor an idea, I have always felt that someone who
> understands idealism will figure out the MOQ much faster than someone who
> only understands materialism will."
>
> "I think idealism is of higher quality". Well, is it or not? Why leave
> this kind of ambiguity if Pirsig already knows how it is? Sounds like he
> doesn't. "I have always felt that A" is not how one usually expresses the
> conclusion of deduction.
>
> Should we simply disregard Pirsig's faltering, this would be the kind of a
> context designation I asked for. Idealism is better for understanding the
> MOQ. Materialism is better for understanding something else.
>
> But that still wouldn't solve the mind-matter problem in the intended way.
> That problem existed before the MOQ did, and some schools (all of which
> purportedly are right) saw merit in idealism anyway. Why? They couldn't
> have appreciated idealism because idealism is good for explaining the MOQ.
> They found idealism to have some other merit. Which merit is that?
>
> Apparently, Pirsig acknowledges in LC that there are forms of static
> quality the subject-object split doesn't include. I have a theory about
> them.
>
>
>
> Horse,
>>
>> "the list" Tuk and I are on is just Tuk and I so it can't  really be
>> called
>> a list I don't think.  And I'm pretty sure neither of us have much of an
>> agenda at all other than to expand our personal understanding of the MoQ
>> and how it relates to the rest of intellectual life.  That's a big enough
>> agenda to keep anybody busy for three lifetimes so don't worry.
>>
>> I think that an important part of the spirit of philosophy, is being able
>> to drop the preconceptions that drag you down and the value in raising up
>> the importance of immediate experience is letting go of past experience,
>> no?
>>
>> So I'm trying.
>>
>> very trying... lol
>>
>> John
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Nov 1, 2016 at 10:11 AM, Horse <horse at darkstar.uk.net> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Dan and all
>>> I thought that may have been why you went quiet Dan - also why Dave seems
>>> to have dropped out. It would appear that Tuuk is less interested in
>>> having
>>> a conversation and prefers a confrontation, foisting a particular point
>>> of
>>> view on everyone around him.
>>>
>>
>
> Tuukka:
> It would appear that you dislike competitivity.
>
>
> Tuuk and John also have an agenda which
>>> includes 'revitalising' MD in order that the other list they occupy has
>>> something to react against - which might explain the confrontational
>>> approach they're currently adopting.
>>>
>>
>
> Tuukka:
> I couldn't care less about making LS the place it used to be. Now it's a
> place for me to conduct and publish my metaphysical research. It also
> remains a place for John and me to comment MD critically but I don't miss
> the times we actually did that.
>
>
> The problem with Tuuk 's confrontational approach is that after a while
>>> others (yourself, David, Ron etc.) get frustrated and then bored with
>>> continually going over the same arguments because his heels are dug in
>>> and
>>> he is incapable of understanding that he may have erred in his initial
>>> premise or premises and is incapable of backtracking.
>>>
>>
>
> Tuukka:
> Do not slander. My exchange with Ron proves I understand I may have erred
> in my initial premises. It's not automatically a faux pas to have high
> standards. I'm not going to apologize for presenting a task so difficult
> that only Dan and Ron have a clue of what it's about. What do you mean by
> backtracking?
>
>
> We've seen this a
>>> number of times in the past and, as said, why would we wish to waste
>>> precious time on someone who has no interest in listening. A shame really
>>> as Tuuk is an intelligent guy who may have had something of interest to
>>> say
>>> but his 'people skills' aren't up to much.
>>>
>>
>
> Tuukka:
> In my defence, people rarely tell me what is it that I do wrong. And no,
> I'm not going to figure that out on my own.
>
>
> Still, I'm not going to waste any of my own time on it - especially when
>>> nothing new or useful, with regard to Pirsig's MoQ, is likely to come of
>>> it.
>>> I also don't like being manipulated by others to further their childish
>>> agendas!
>>>
>>
>
> Tuukka:
> Which childish agenda would you particularly not like others manipulate
> you into furthering?
>
>
> Regards,
> Tuk
>
> ---
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