Bo,
Hmm I see your perspective about the yoga staring into the sun idea, but I
disagree. You see the rejection of all other level of experience for it,
certainly a bad idea, but I don't think you see the quality in the
experience itself. Although you don't believe it, I do believe that there
definitely is a connection between MOQ and these experiences. MOQ is the
framework which can explain these high quality experiences. The experience
in and of itself is not as high quality as living a rich life full of
people, the simple pleasures and thinking, but if that one experience can
make one appreciate these things and point one in the direction of
improvement, it is high quality. In the same way that thinking may not be a
quality experience in and of itself (you never hear people say "man,
thinking , what a high!") but thinking can identify what things to do to
maintain high quality experiences in other areas (eg. biologically and
socially). MOQ is a way of how to think to maintain high quality
(productive) thoughts that can improve ones life in all those areas.
Why these yogics are a bad representation of the transcendental experience
is that I doubt that they've ever had one. They know it's out there and are
attempting to attain it. Once they did, though, they would realize that they
were fools wasting their time for this experience when they could be
attaining high quality experiences in their life. If you've ever seen
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, the place where the main character was would
be akin to that, realizing that he is wasting his time when he could be with
the woman he loves. That realization is a high quality experience, because
it drives change. Looking at your life, and realizing that you're living it
and seeing the quality.
Where's the connection then? Seeing one's life from the perspective of the
universe (the cutting edge of reality) could be scary. Seeing everything
again for the first time. It leaves a person asking, what am I? what the
hell is really going on here?, wow. The experience of transcendence breaks
the intellectual SOM static pattern if it isn't ignored. MOQ re-builds the
static patterns and some of those questions can be answered again. The
connection between MOQ and the experience of transcendence is that they are
both outside the SOM static pattern. MOQ however allows for such an
experience and SOM does not. That is the connection. By being "over and
above" SOM, MOQ can include experiences that are outside the SOM static
pattern.
Lets be honest here, we (for the most part) all believe in MOQ. But society
in general has no reason to do so really. What experiences of most people
are outside the predominant metaphysics? What is the drive to overcome the
inertia? Only an experience that is outside the metaphysics would be enough
for it. That is the connection between MOQ and the experience of
Transcendence.
Rob
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk [mailto:owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk]On
Behalf Of skutvik@online.no
Sent: Monday, September 10, 2001 8:09 AM
To: moq_discuss@moq.org
Subject: MD 5th level revisited
Rob, Squonk, Barritt and All
For ROB
I started on a message analyzing yours solely, but it'll have to cut
down to make room for other, so what I don't comment I agree on.
You wrote:
> A sense (sound, sight, touch, taste and smell) is a biological
> experience. A feeling (emotion) is [predominantly] a social
experience
> A thought is an intellectual experience A ______ is a fifth level
> experience
The only comment to the above paragraph is the use of the term
"thought", but like "mind" it is so ubiquitous that it is hard to carry
on an intelligent discussion without giving the impression that Q-
intellect is the level of mental activity. But it's between Life and
Society that an element of abstraction is introduced ...though not
in the (SOM) sense of living matter becoming aware ...or imbued
with mind. I can't go into all that again however.
Then you reach this part:
> So, in looking for a fifth level: what are high quality experiences
> that are of no merit intellectually, socially or biologically
> speaking? Religion maybe (not the organized kind, that's social),
> maybe Drugs (peyote rather than crack), maybe meditation,
maybe even
> talking about the idea of quality itself. Who knows.
The point is that a 5th Q level presupposes a 4th Q-level ..this
means that MoQ's intellect isn't SOM's intellect (mind)!. A mind-
intellect means that a movement beyond must be something super-
mindish. You Rob aren't onto that blind alley HERE, but lower
down and in your reply to Squonk you seem to wander in that
direction. Your last suggestion above..."even talking about the idea
of quality" however is the way :-) ....it touches my own notion that
the Quality idea is its own 5th level.
> fifth level is a lot closer to awakening than everybody thinks.
> Definitely within my lifetime. I even believe that it already may
have
> dominated for short amounts of time in previous cultures.
I'm not foreign to this idea myself Rob, but only within Pirsig's
framework can it be called a 5th level. Before Pirsig "beyond
intellect" was equal to dope, transces, religious ecstasy, but these
are stale because it leads to self-destruction or yoga-like
exersises of staring into the sun.
> Traditionally there could never be a discussion like this however,
> first of all, there was no framework to incorporate a fifth level
> experience intellectually speaking.
Spot on!!
Also, perhaps those that could
> experience the fifth level were few and far between, destined to
know ....snip
.......
> There will be flavors. Another warning, don't abandon the other
levels
> in seeking the fifth level, if it isn't a smart thing to do, don't do
> it. Only those with a thorough knowledge of MOQ and confidence
in
> their intellectual static level should venture into the unknown. For
> when you return, you may never think the same.
In the above meanderings you touch upon many of the possibilities
that I have "warned" against ;-) but you reach the conclusion that
it's only by the Quality framework that such an advancement can
be made. Not least of all you heed the warning that the lower
levels must not be forgotten. SOM (as Q-intellect IMO) has had
this blind spot built into it is disconnected from the rest of
existence.
All in all a great post Rob!
For SQUONK
who wrote:
> Hi Rob,
> Yup, i would not wish to in any sense define Quality, (DQ).
> I also feel, and have said before, that the fifth level can in no way
> be captured or conceptualised in any meaningful sense fourth
level
> down. Analogies are perhaps the only way to feel or think about
it.
> I know many, including Bo, do not like this approach?
> It seems Bo feels the MOQ itself is a step towards fifth level?
Thanks for noticing my resistance re. mystification which I think is
a blind alley. It sounds megalomaniac to speak against ACC and I
don't do it from an intellectual pov, only from what I understand of
the Quality Metaphysics.
> It's all beyond me, so i have no argument with Bo except to
suggest
> that the MOQ is, in my view, the best fourth level description of
> reality we have.
This sounds as if I am the worst mystificator, but it simply means
that a metaphysics is a world unto itself: A shell in an ever
growing onion.
Speaking about Arthur C Clarke, I just read that Stephen
Hawkings warned against computers taking control ..etc. It shows
that great minds steeped in SOM speak nonsense. ACC's forecast
about HAL hasn't materialized and never will and the
supercomputation candidate for a 5th level is sterile. According to
the MoQ the Q- intellect is out of Q-society (IMO: reason out of
emotion) and not "matter wired up ingeniously starting to think".
"Hey, I am a computer now I'll take over".
For BARRITT
who wrote:
> Although I've been a member of the discussion group for a short
period
> of time, so far the opinions about a fifth level appear to be more
> like extensions of the fourth level, the intellectual level. Let's
> face it, we are using the fourth level to posit a fifith level, and
> this seems like the dog chasing it's tail. One observation is how
> different one level is from another, not in degree, but in "type" -
> bad word I know, but all I have to offer. What I mean be this is
that
> each is a different type, or perhaps to use a word that Robert
uses, a
> different fabric for quality. To use an analogy, if level 'x' is a
> sport, such as baseball, then the next level, 'y' is not just another
> sport, like say 'basketball' or 'football' but is more like taking
> 'sport' and turning them into a 'business'... Sorry, I.m not very
good
> with analogies.
Welcome Barritt
I like your take on the 5th level which I find compatible with my
own. However it must necessarily be out of intellect - where else -
that is beyond doubt. "A pattern of the parent level starting off on a
purpose of it's own" ...are Pirsig's words. However it will be
something like your analogy: another perspective where the
previous patterns are "exploited" for another purpose ....great
insight! That's why the animosity from the lower level that don't see -
can't see - any higher value than itself.
Bo
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