Glenn, Magnus, John B., Bo, All:
Without intent to slight any of the contributors, this post is mostly
addressed to Glenn, Magnus, John B. and Bo. Lately I have reviewed a
number of recent posts from these gentlemen for the purpose of
clarifying their thoughts about the MOQ for myself. What follows is a
brief summary of each of their positions as I see them, followed by a
critique.
Glenn's ideas are probably the most succinct and straightforward. For
Glenn DQ is a myth that's identified with all that is mysterious and then
called an explanation. In a sense Glenn is right. Pirsig attributes all
sorts of explanatory powers to DQ, from how life began to why some
songs sound terrific on first hearing. When you find something that
explains everything, you essentially explain nothing, as was the case
for thousands of years when all answers resided with God and the
Church. But an infinitely ubiquitous explanation can also be found in
physics, the bedrock of science, where energy can be considered a
mythological force because it can neither be created or destroyed, put
together or taken apart, and remains constant throughout the universe.
In fact, in pure physics, all phenomena in the universe are ultimately
nothing but forms of energy. So unless one is willing to block every
attempt to come up with an overall explanation of why the world works
the way it does, some tolerance for "universal" explanations seems
reasonable. If one chooses energy over DQ because energy can be
proved experimentally, continuous creations from the entertainment
industry and the U.S. Congress can be pointed to as empirical
confirmation of DQ. Further, DQ is as good an explanation as any
science offers for original events that result in new patterns, such as
self-consciousness emerging from neuronic jitters and life from pond
scum.
Magnus' concept of the MOQ, like Glenn's, is succinct and
straightforward, borrowing heavily on Pirsig's SODV paper, space/time
relativity and quantum physics which views entities as events, not as
substances. Quoting from SODV: "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 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!" Magnus takes this one step further by pointing out that while
the Quality event creates subject and object patterns, each pattern is a
subject from its own point of view. He cites an example of a twin star
system with both stars rotating around a common central point. Star A
considers itself a subject and values the vicinity of star B which is the
object from star A's point of view, and vice versa. Moreover, not only do
Quality events divide the world horizontally into subjects and objects,
but also vertically along a scale of better or worse, as the event of
sitting on a hot stove demonstrates. The problem with Magnus' view of
the MOQ is not its inaccuracy but its seeming sterility. Somehow a
Quality event that makes one aware of S/O doesn’t capture the
emotional aspect of the MOQ such as a performance that brings you to
your feet in an outpouring of sheer pleasure, or even a spontaneous
judgment like, "That’s a good dog." Unless the enchantment aspect of
the MOQ is acknowledged, only part of it is communicated.
John B. emphasizes the personal aspect of the MOQ, saying that
quality evolves through individuals, varying from one person to the next.
People are the carriers of Quality; they are imbued with it and
structured by it. "My experience of Quality is the fundamental against
which all else is measured," John wrote. "If the MOQ doesn't mesh with
my experience, the MOQ is flawed as far as I'm concerned." Following
the personal line, John believes that a metaphysics is good if "it helps
me work on myself" and then says something I find most intriguing:
"Working on oneself becomes the creation of beauty." While he agrees
that consciousness may not be centered in human beings, that's about
as far as he will go beyond the standard inside/outside, depth/surface,
subject/object worldview of Ken Wilber and most other philosophers.
He is no great fan of Pirsig's value levels as they apply to anything
other than human beings, and he finds a number of contradictory ideas
in the MOQ which casts doubt on the entire theory. But while John
doesn't necessarily buy Pirsig's more novel explanations of how the
world works, he is intrigued by and drawn to, as most of us are, those
real yet fleeting and ephemeral experiences of quality and levels still
unknown. John refuses to take the leap beyond the S/O worldview but
finds the idea of quality central to personal growth. He appears to
straddle the line between SOM and MOQ.
No straddling for Bo. He has not only intellectually accepted the MOQ,
but feels it deep in his bones as "a world unto itself." Bo admits to
"having had some 'Phaedrus experience' of (his) own" and has
"accepted the Quality idea" that puts one "in a different universe" where
the ancient divisions of observer/world, mind/matter, ideas/reality and
map/terrain simply don't exist and therefore can't be used to argue
against the MOQ. Once you accept the idea that all is Quality, he
argues, the only division that makes any sense is Dynamic and static.
All the other stuff that philosophers have been arguing about for ages
is irrelevant to the MOQ worldview. Nor is there any point to arguing
against the MOQ with logic because logic is based on the S/O division
and assumes there are causes for events (as opposed to Quality
events). In effect, the Quality idea, by reason of its tentative step beyond
rationality status, is immune to attack by intellect, much like Plato's
world of perfect forms outside the cave. Just how one, brought up all
his life believing that rationality was the one right way to think, can jump
over into an MOQ mode where rationality is not the primary avenue to
truth is the BIG question. It takes, I presume, a kind of "born again"
revelation.
But then again, I wonder. Do we not live our lives primarily on the basis
of "I know what I like" rather than "I know what intellect tells me."? Even
if we insist on the hard-nosed scientific approach to what's real and
what isn't, don't we do so because that's the approach we like the
best? Our choices of companions, spouses, jobs, possessions--all
are based primarily on an elemental emotion of pleasure which
reflects what we value, what we care about. So for me, the reality we
know--where experience and evaluation occur simultaneously--is the
evidence for the universe Bo talks about where rational explanation is
besides the point. "Quality is experience" says Pirsig. Thoughts come
later. In other words, the starting point of reality is aesthetic, like
beholding a painting or listening to a symphony where what is most
important about it is beyond analysis. In that respect, I think Bo points
us in the right direction.
No doubt I have misinterpreted much of what these gentlemen believe.
I look forward to their corrections, amplifications and further comments
on these ever fascinating subjects. But misinterpreted or not, I owe
them much in coming to my own understanding of what this old world
is all about.
Platt
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:01:29 BST