Denis,
So why are we debating about whose right here if the whole discussion is
about Quality? I think I see where we disagree though. Concepts. Did
concepts only emerge at the intellectual level? What about a king? That's
not an intellectual idea, it's a social one according our definition of
social, and the concept of a tree, the tree you just thought of only exists
as a concept in your head. Sure it's a simple concept, but it's still a
concept. What about the concept of danger, or hunger, or the concept of red?
Social concepts definitely exist, money, the stock market, religions,
tribes, countries. The intellectual level cannot be defined as simply made
of concepts, all of our existence is interpretations of reality, concepts
dancing in our head.
How should we define our levels then? I say their values. The biological
level is defined by survival, social level by conforming(for lack of a
better word), the intellectual level by truth. That definition of how the
levels are defined is key to the my interpretation of the MOQ. The values,
the number one quality ideal for that level, separates it as a level.
According to that definition, the MOQ has it's own quality ideal, quality
itself, and is thus a different level.
>It's more than that : Quality has REDEFINED truth. Now truth simply means
>"of high intellectual quality". And that's enough. Whenever you used
>"truth", you can replace it with "high intellectual quality", without
>changing anything else.
>And it fits. If you think it doesn't, please explain why.
I agree, just as the concept of truth redefined what is "good" prior to the
intellectual revolution. A new paradigm itself encompasses and redefines
that which came before it, just as the idea of absolute truth redefined the
world. No longer was it "good" to listen to the popular opinion of how the
earth is flat, it was better to PROVE it was round. The only problem with
replacing truth with "high intellectual quality" is that it is meaningless
to me unless you define "intellectual quality" differently from any other
type of quality. Intellectual quality is different from Social quality or
Biological quality, but how? As I proposed, because of the value ideal that
each level represents.
> You see, if anything contradicts or criticizes the MOQ, in the SOLAQI
>interpretation you can ALWAYS accuse it of being "intellectual", and
>therefore SOMish, and therefore morally inferior. It makes the MOQ totally
>impervious to attacks, criticisms, or revisions. You have, in effect,
>another religion which claims that all truths are relative EXCEPT ITS OWN,
>which is beyond criticism because it is QUALITY. And since Quality cannot
be
>discussed, then of course the MOQ (SOLAQI version) cannot be put in
>question. And if you try to refute this preposterous claim, then of course
>you can be accused of not understanding Quality, which should be obvious to
>everyone, but apparently not for you, poor soul...
The problem with this argument is assuming that a rigid rules system (of a
society presumably) would be what emerges out of the MOQ framework, and that
it would be challenged on an intellectual level (i.e. whether or not
something is true). I cannot say what a social system would be like, run by
the MOQ, but I don't think it would be that different from the one I find
here in Canada. MOQ values intellectual values (truth) and it also values
social stability and survival, but it places the highest value on quality.
So presumably you could change the system by showing something to be of
higher quality than the MOQ. It sounds impossible now, in our system that
says quality is subjective, but if quality were accepted as true, then
simply showing it would be enough, the system would immediately recognize
the quality.
The system isn't impervious to truth as you suggested either, the MOQ
believes truth to be of very high quality. If you could prove that MOQ was
bad on any one of it's levels, it would hurt the MOQ more than SOM, which we
can only changed by proving it to be not true. So intellectual religions are
even harder to kill than MOQ even with itself at the top of it's own
heigharchy, because it acknowledges all the other supporting structures as
levels of quality.
>PS : Of course, I also totally agree with 3WD's post of the 3rd of this
>month "BOMOQ or just MOQ?". The fact that SOLAQI releguates most of
humanity
>into a moral sub-class of social animals (along with apes, I guess) has
>always struck me as morally repellent, and was one of my first objections
to
>it. That all cultures do not value the Intellectual level is obvious, but
to
>say that some humans are devoid of it... Also, as I said in my post of
>28/11/2001 to Omar, the fact that a society does not support the moral
>superiority of the intellectual level does NOT mean that it does not
possess
>individuals in whom intellectual values are dominant.
The MOQ does value SOM, nobody even exists on the quality level yet. It is
emergent at best. I'm just arguing it because it makes logical sense to me,
I'm still very much in that sub-moral class. Nobody really only thinks in
terms of quality. To be honest it's the logical option, not the convenient
one, or necessarily the quality one for me.
>OTOH, if, as Pirsig himself said, the MOQ is another, BETTER metaphysics,
>then it has only the moral advantage of being an intellectual pattern of
>better quality than the previous SOMs. Its "betterness" cannot be "proven",
>of course, but we can debate about it (rhetorics, as always ;). What's
more,
>we can come up with even "better" answers in the future. The MOQ is not
"the
>end of history".
According to my belief, the MOQ will not be the end of history. But I know
how the next metaphysics will replace it, by showing something has quality,
that really shouldn't (according to the MOQ). Similar to proving quality
exists when it really shouldn't (according to SOM).
Rob
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