Hi, moqists of all stripes !
My ongoing discussion with Bodvar has raised some doubt in my mind about
whether or not Pirsig has really managed to rid himself of the S/O divide,
after all.
WHAT *IS* THE MOQ, EXACTLY ?
As everyone here remembers, Quality can be divided according to the MOQ into
Dynamic Quality and Static Quality, the Unexpected and the Expected. SQ is
further divided into the four levels of patterns of value, namely Inorganic,
Biological, Social and Intellectual levels. Outside of this, nothing remains
except Quality itself. I'll have to check, but strangely I believe that RMP
says "Quality" and not "Dynamic Quality".
Of course, Pirsig also points out before starting the MOQ that it's made of
words about Quality and not of Quality itself, but decides to go on anyway.
He also makes it clear that the MOQ is a map, one that describes the
territory better than SOM will ever be able to, but still only a map.
I think most of us believe that the patterns, whatever levels they are from,
are also intellectual patterns in the sense that our intelligence, since it
has reached the Intellectual level, mainly deals with abstracts concepts
deduced from experience. IOW, experience must be rationalized into words if
we are to speak about it. And once you start speaking, everything is reduced
to intellectual patterns. No dog comes out of the screen when you read the
word "dog". Only the intellectual pattern remains, even if I am describing
in *real* time a *real* dog.
When he learned about the title of my upcoming post, Angus told me that it
was language itself, by which I guess we could mean Q-Intellect, that most
fundamentaly cuts us off into our own private worlds, and I tend to agree.
Once the symbolic stage is reached, everything becomes a symbol.
HOW FAR FROM SOM ?
Therefore, my question is : how far is Pirsig from the Idealists point of
view ? Is he not finally saying that there is nothing we can know about the
"real" world (Quality is undefinable), and that every statement is relative
to others statements and never to the "real" world? That it's all
intellectual patterns anyway? In other words, is the trinity of
Quality-DQ-SQ finally not reducible to a duality made of an unknowable (but
*real* or rather, primary) "Quality/DQ" opposed to an *illusory* SQ that
only exist as concepts, as intellectual patterns? How far is that from
Subject/Object metaphysics?
I mean, sure, we experience Quality, but since nothing but illusory patterns
ever makes it to our brains... what good is it? Where is that bridge over
the gap between mind and matter?
I can hear your screams of anguish from here, Bodvar...
THE CLEVER PLAN...
OK, it's now time to admit that I presented this attack on the MOQ
foundations only to squash it once and for all... :-)
First of all, Quality is not "objective/primary", because it is also
"subjective/conceptual". By this I mean that contrary to what Idealists used
to think about the objective and subjective worlds, Quality ALSO englobes
SQ. In the MOQ, the *real* world is as much about words and feeling as about
electrons and DNA strands. Quality and Static Quality are not different
"things". SQ is an *aspect* of Quality, but it is still Quality. To use an
analogy, to say that Static Quality is irrevocably divorced from Quality is
as absurd as to say that the color of my scarf is irrevocably divorced from
my scarf... it just doesn't make sense.
ALL-ENCOMPASSING QUALITY
Quality is every atom and all the energy in the Universe, but also every
words ever spoken, every book ever written, every dream that has ever moved
the minds of humanity, every vision that has ever inspired an artist, every
thought in the minds of philosophers the world over, every love ever felt,
every hate and lust and hunger and pain... Quality is all that, and more.
Therefore, to say that words about Reality are not Reality is in fact
imprecise, and one would have to add that they *are* a part of Reality, but
not the whole stuff.
There I guess, people will come out screaming "So you see, our minds ARE
separated !"
Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, but that is not SOM. Don't mix up the problems,
will you ?
WHAT IS SOM, THEN ?
Lately, as the subject has drifted closer and closer to mystic states, many
people seem to have attributed all kinds of meaning to SOM, ones that it
didn't have when Pirsig first used it.
SOM, as used by Pirsig, and as the name indicates, is the set of
metaphysical presuppositions (and not an actual metaphysics, as Struan and
others have said) that deals with the nature of the phenomenal world. Such
presuppositions argue first and foremost (implicitely or explicitely) that
Truth is the greatest good to which we should aspire, and that knowing truth
would freed us from error, and usher us to something akin to godhood. It
also states that there is such a thing as a *true* reality, and that the
value of our judgments about it depends on their relation to it. To some,
this relation exist in experience, to others, it exists as probability, or
even as an impossibility, but the validity of such assumptions are NEVER
questioned, in SOM (which would be more aptly named SOMs, since many
metaphysical systems spawn from these assumptions). The "Truth Above/True
World" assumptions are the highest value of SOM and, one could argue, their
only moral claim.
That, and nothing else (IMHO), is what Pirsig railed about. That
all-prevailing absolute never-questioned blind faith in TRUTH (I *love* that
capacity of English to add adjectives almost indefinitely ;). So ingrained
by 2500 years of education that to question its value is tantamount to
declaring yourself insane. Because whether or not people before or after
Pirsig believe it can be reached or not, not ONE of them objects that they
should strive for it. "...even when it isn't any good...", added Pirsig.
It is this intellectual pyramid with Truth at the top, and nothing else,
that is SOM. And that is utterly annihilated by the MOQ.
HOW DOES THE MOQ DEFEATS SOM ?
To be honest, it's not the MOQ but ZAMM that dispatches Truth to the limbo
of dead "truths". But the MOQ, founded on the double insight of the
fundamental monism of the Universe (as Quality), and of the falseness of
Truth, puts the slab over the coffin, by providing an *alternative*.
You see, in SOM(s), there is no way out. Forever and ever, you'll *know*
that there is a *real* world and you'll know that everything would be all
right if only you knew how to reach it. But if you philosophologise long
enough, you'll also understand that it cannot be done. Truth is your goal,
your God and your only Ideal, but to reach it is like trying to reach the
horizon. But you're supposed to take it all with stoïcism and run anyway,
blindlessly ahead until you drop, vanquished. That futile, sterile and
miserable quest is then supposed to be the "highest calling" of our race,
our pride and eternal burden.
The MOQ exposes that dream for what it is : a dream. A stupid pipe-dream
that had men chasing their own shadows instead of basking in the sun. The
MOQ reveals to us that every explanation is a work of art, a personal
creation that stems from a deep and all-pervading link with the Godhead.
That Goodness, Harmony and Beauty are the only faces of Truth you'll ever
know, because it's the only ones it has. And that you can touch them anytime
you want. And finally, it explains that even when you are most estranged
from it, Reality is as close as your skin.
ISN'T THAT A "FEEL-GOOD" PHILOSOPHY ?
At first look, yes, and that is why Pirsig felt he had to elaborate a bit on
the premises. Because obviously the value that makes you appreciate a good
pie isn't the same as the beauty a mathematician sees in an equation. And
trying to mix the two does NOT create harmony, or beauty, but the reverse.
In fact, the problem with humans is that we are not rational animals, but
rather fictional animals. By this I mean that humans live their lives
according to stories, and nothing else. Jung had an inkling of that, when he
stressed the importance of mythological archetypes in psychology. But
mythology isn't the only stories we live according to. And the stories
spinned by philosophers (and rehashed by religions) often end up directing
our lives by telling us what is real and what isn't, and above all, what has
value and what hasn't. The problem with these fictions is that they aren't
always *good* fictions. Some of them are even pretty much horrid. And
sometimes, you're aren't really given that much of a choice, either... But
humans are in such need of a story that most often, when two bad choices are
offered, all things being equal the lesser evil wins...
And so SOM, that DID defend the right of an individual to spin his own story
in spite of everybody else (provided it bowed to that new God, Truth), won
the fight against those who thought Arete meant social status. Because
despite the romantic view of the Sophists that ZAMM offers, 'Lila' makes it
clear that they were morally *inferior* to Socrates and Plato, then.
The MOQ, though, provides us with a new fiction, more inclusive, that still
preserves the victories of SOM against Society, but with a much better
esthetic. By placing the levels in a moral hierarchy, we can prevent the
beauty of the intellectual level being sullied by the goodness of the social
strictures, or by biological "feel-good" emotivism. As to the discovery of
the mysteries of nature, they will go on but under a new ideal : to spin the
most harmonious tale about the Universe, and hopefully enrich Quality with a
new layer of evolution.
OK, OK, CUT THE SHINY HAPPY PEOPLE STUFF. WHAT ABOUT TOUCHING REALITY, HOW
DO I DO IT ?
With the MOQ ? You can't.
WHAT ?
Well, remember, Quality cannot be put into words. If you do it, only the
intellectual patterns remains, so whatever tale you spin, it is still only a
tale. Words about Reality.
WHAT THE F...
... is it good for, then ? I've just explained it. But effectively, the MOQ
suffers from the same problem than SOM, namely, its inability to connect us
in any direct fashion to the Oneness of the Universe, leaving us eternally
divided between DQ an SQ, this level and the next. My intellectual patterns
can lord it all they want over my biological ones, there's still neither
communication nor communion between them. We are still divided.
BACK TO SQUARE ONE ?
Are we back to where we started, then ? I do not believe so. Two fundamental
things have changed :
1) We are living a fiction, but we are doing so CONSCIOUSLY. By this I mean
that this fiction does not, and will never again dominate us like its
forebears did to our ancestors. We recognize its function, status and
importance, but we do not hold it to be the end-all and be-all of the
universe. Its value is a personal thing, and not something that can be
imposed on you by force. You have to like it. And when your grow bored with
it, you can spin your own tale, and see if you like it better.
2) There is a way out. Creativity has its limits, and even artists can get a
trifle too obsessed with their creation. Sometimes you need "a vacation from
your brain", and Pirsig says that something exists, out there, that *is* the
fundamental Reality of the Universe, and that, as his personal story
indicates, sometimes you can reach it. When you've had your fill of
fictions, your fill of "artistry", you can empty your cup and dive into the
punch bowl.
But John is right, Pirsig doesn't say much about how to get there, and if
you decide to "prepare" for the journey, Wilber might have one or two
interesting advices.
Be good
Denis
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