[MD] Annotations to LC

[Dan Glover]

Tuk, all,

I haven't time to go through this document in its entirety. David
Buchanan answered some of the earlier questions so I have deleted
them.

On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 12:20 AM, Tuukka Virtaperko
<mail at tuukkavirtaperko.net> wrote:
> Dan, Horse, Adrie, all,
>
>
> "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.

Dan:
I am guessing you read it incorrectly. Donny suggested dichotomistic
distinction, not dialetheism. These terms are diametrically opposed.

dichotomize

verb (used with object), dichotomized, dichotomizing.
1.
to divide or separate into two parts, kinds, etc.
verb (used without object), dichotomized, dichotomizing.
2.
to become divided into two parts; form a dichotomy.
[http://www.dictionary.com/browse/dichotomistic]


Dialetheism

First published Fri Dec 4, 1998; substantive revision Thu Mar 28, 2013

A dialetheia is a sentence, A, such that both it and its negation, ¬A,
are true (we shall talk of sentences throughout this entry; but one
could run the definition in terms of propositions, statements, or
whatever one takes as one's favourite truth-bearer: this would make
little difference in the context). Assuming the fairly uncontroversial
view that falsity just is the truth of negation, it can equally be
claimed that a dialetheia is a sentence which is both true and false.
[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dialetheism/]

Dan comments:
Note that Donny says: everything is either A or B. Not both.

>
> "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?

Dan:
Pirsig is replying to a post that introduces 'body.'

>
> "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".

Dan:
Hence the MOQ.

>
> "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?

Dan:
My apologies. This error was corrected in later versions of LC:

Object: n.

1. Something perceptible by one or more of the senses, especially by
vision or touch; a material thing.

2. A focus of attention, feeling, thought, or action.

3. The purpose, aim, or goal of a specific action or effort.

4. 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.

5. 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.


>
> "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?

Dan:
That has nothing to do with the annotation.

>
> "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.

Dan:
Romantic quality is abandoned in Lila.

>
> 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.

Dan:
Prove it.

>
> "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.

Dan:
Right. We're all bumbling imbeciles here. Like or dislike has nothing
to do with our discussion.

>
> "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?

Dan:
Your starting point is faulty. The MOQ seeks to expand upon classical
logic, not deny it. As far as the general public, they'd have to both
read and understand Lila before coming to an agreement with the MOQ,
which I'd hoped LC might be of some small assistance in doing. I
presume Robert Pirsig thought so too or I doubt he'd have taken his
time to provide the annotations.

As far as praising the MOQ, no, I've never done so. I do however
object when someone and there's been many over the years seeks to
dismiss the MOQ by failing to understand it. I've been reading your
exchanges with dmb and it's clear you fall into that category.

If there is something genuinely wrong with the MOQ, fine. Let's by all
means fix it. But there is little sense in mincing words and playing
games. So either start acting like this is worth it or consider this
as my last response to you.

>
> "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.

Dan:
Not sure what you are objecting to here.

>
> "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?

Dan:
Yes.

>
> That Pirsig doesn't like being unnecessarily arbitrary increases the potency
> of the Heinous Quadrilemma.

Dan:
How so? If your Heinous Quadrilemma is faulty, then your argument falls apart.

>
> "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.

Dan:
Come on, dude. You did not demolish the MOQ. This is silly.

>
> "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?

Dan:
No idea what you are saying here.

Enough,

Dan

http://www.danglover.com