Hi Bo,
Thanks to Rob who has tried to explain *his* interpretation of SOLAQI MOQ, I
might have a better idea of what you are talking about, and I understand the
difficulties you might have seeing things from my point of view.
I'd like you to read what Rob and I have been up to, and comment it in your
next post, if you find the time. It might fill some gaps in our mutual
understanding.
On to the questions.
>> 1. Why isn't the MOQ an intellectual pattern ?
>
>It depends on how we define the intellectual level, but in my opinion
>it creates the logic impasse of it being a pattern of a lesser part of
>itself. You have countered this before, but like the agreement I
>reached with Marco it may be reconciled by seeing the Quality
>idea as a high intellectual pattern, still living with its parent, but a
>rebel that eventually will leave home.
I also believe it to be a new intellectual "level", but not as fundamental
as the other shifts (from bio to social, for example). In 'Sex, Ecology,
Spirituality' (which I'm finally reading, John ! :), Ken Wilber describes
stages in intellectual development (heavily borrowed from Piaget), to which
he adds "vision-logic". At this latter stage we can not only manipulate
concepts with rules (the formal operative stage), but we can also manipulate
the rules themselves.
My belief (and Wilber offers many convincing examples of it) is that many
philosophers have reached that stage, from deconstructionists to language
analysts to structuralists. Mainly, what they've found is that the "rules"
of the Intellect consist of contexts within contexts within context, ad
infinitum. My insistence that the MOQ is a map, one that includes both the
knowledge that it is a map and that other maps exist is, I believe, a
manifestation of a vision-logic point of view. Once you accept that your
intellectual system is a system of beliefs, and that other coherent systems
exist, you've made that shift. I believe that most people who have a serious
interest in philosophy (or science, for that matter) end up at that level.
It is inevitable, if you don't fall in a pathological "-ism".
This "vision-logic" is a higher stage of development of an individual's
intellect, just as a planetary system is a higher stage of development of a
stellar cloud of gas. But the patterns are, IMHO, still respectively
intellectual and inorganic. Of course, this is a matter of intellectual
esthetic sense. I find more beauty in putting vision-logic in the
intellectual level, but I perfectly agree that it's not the only, and not
necessarily the best possible model.
If you prefer to call this "vision-logic" (of which the MOQ is but one
expression) a new level, you won't find much opposition here. As long as we
both agree that it's higher than the various flavors of SOM, whether or not
it constitutes a new level is neither here nor there, as far as I'm
concerned.
>
>> 2. How does SOLAQI miraculously avoid the fact that you're *talking*
>> about Quality?
>
>In the "good-night" note to Rob you said it's all play with words,
>head-games ...etc, and if Pirsig saw the MoQ that way why did he
>invest so much in it ... if it wasn't for exacly the purpose to escape
>that trap? It's not the SOLAQI, but the MoQ that avoids the
>language dead end. I'll try to show how.
>
>No sarcasm, but do you mean that EVERYTHING is language, or
>do you mean words about an underlying reality, and that Pirsig
>says that this underlying reality is Quality? If that is so it's not
>different from what all Western traditional philosophy have spun so
>much yarn on ... epitomized by Kant's subjective (Ding für Uns)
>about an unbeknown (Ding an Sich) reality.
Yes, I *do* mean that everything WE SPEAK ABOUT is language. Things happen
within us, they work their way up the levels until they emerge in our
intellectual world, becoming intellectual patterns of value. In this sense,
AND ONLY IN THIS SENSE do I mean that all patterns of value are ALSO
intellectual patterns of value. The lower patterns do not exist in a vacuum
waiting for us to discover them. Their very creation is the process by which
Quality divides itself into four levels, the highest one being Quality
watching Itself (ie. Intellect).
The difference between Kant and my own understanding of the MOQ is that for
me, the whole process of 'Ding an Sich' becoming 'Ding für Uns' is Quality.
Quality is the *event* by which Object and Subject are *created*, remember ?
Very important here is the *intuition* of a non-dual universe, where Subject
and Object are unified in the event of experience, and where all the talk
behind it is the essence of Maya, the Illusion of Being. But "illusion" here
is misleading, because there's nothing illusory about ideas. They are as
real as bricks. So the Intellectual "talk" about reality is a part of
reality, a secondary experience of it, which in the West is believed to be
the whole of reality (solipsistic position) or an illusion (materialistic
position).
My view is that all intellectual patterns are "self-reflexions" of Reality.
Reality is both the mirror and the thing reflected, if you will. To expound
on this metaphor, the MOQ would be the reflexion of the "mirror side" of
Reality.
IOW, it is the mirror catching itself in its own reflexion, the intellect
becoming conscious that it always was the Eye of Reality, not separate, not
isolated, but a part of the whole !
>
>Still serious: If, on the other hand, you mean that EVERYTHING is
>language .- which is inevitable - you are in the same position as P
>of ZAMM who found that Quality (Value, Morals) is everything. A
>"Metaphysics of Language" (MoL) could be made: Inorganic
>language - Bio language ..etc.
Saying that everything is Language (which I hope is now clear is NOT my
stance) has its own problems, the worst of which being that since in
Language everything is context-bound to the nth level (words only mean
something in the context of other words, ad infinitum), we have entered a
world of total subjectivity and meaninglessness. It is madness incarnate,
IMHO. It is also, if Ken Wilber is to be believed, the pathological side of
vision-logic, where the self-reflexive nature of language brings
aperspectival madness and the
notion that everything is meaningless.
SOM brought about the notion of a meaning no longer defined by society, but
it still was meaningful (if objectively true). With "vision-logic" comes a
meaning no longer defined by society, and no longer restricted by the belief
in an absolute truth (there is no "true" meaning). Unfortunately, this is
often translated into "there's no meaning". At all.
And this is the dead end of a SOM world where Truth, having been exposed as
a sham, leaves everyone in the Void. In fact there is a parallel between the
"death of God" and the modern lack of morals and the "death of Truth" and
the modern lack of meaning. Both stem from a valueless world, where nothing
is better than anything else and where, as a result, nothing can be said
which has any meaning. It is the intellect catching itself in its reflexion,
and instead of seeing itself as the Eye of Reality, sees itself as the Eye
looking at the Eye looking at the Eye... unto infinity.
The MOQ, I believe, escapes from the trap of a meaningless world by
attacking what even the vision-logic philosophers of old hadn't seen :
absolute truth as an HISTORIC INVENTION. By placing truth in its proper
perspective, it is seen as a "ghost" absolutely no more fundamental or
important than Platonic Forms or Aritotle's Substance.
Therefore, the fact that nothing can be said with certainty (except by way
of circular logic) does no longer mean that some answers aren't BETTER than
others. In the MOQ, lack of truth does not mean lack of meaning. Newton's
mecanic was meaningfull, but not as meaningfull as Einstein's Relativity,
which wasn't true or false, but BETTER (more inclusive, more elegant, with
more explanatory power etc.).
One could argue that putting up Quality as the new absolute is no less an
historic invention (of Pirsig, this time), and I'd have to agree. But this
time, *because* the primary mystic intuition of non-dual reality hasn't been
forgotten, the Absolute hasn't been defined in *intellectual* terms, but in
mystic ones. Which means it hasn't been defined, period. Therefore, the MOQ
map is not believed to be anything more than a map, deduced from Dynamic
Quality, and part of (but not equal to) the overall Quality. Its worth stems
from the experiencial, not from the intellectual.
>You will remember that there has been suggestions for other
>Dynamic/Static candidates. "Meaning", is the one I remember, but
>"language" is good ....as a matter of fact it's easier to prove that
>everything is language than that everything is value, but as said: It's
>the leaving the subject/object fixation which is the great
>achievement ....and QUALITY is the BEST!!
As long as it is left undefined, as pre-intellectual awareness, I agree.
>
>> 3. What's that difference you're talking about just
>> above ?
>
>I'm not sure what you mean here.
[Bo]
>Our difference - THE difference - is the QUALITY - Quality-DQ/SQ
>question, but thanks for writing such a major work.
This is the passage I was referring to. I reiterate the question : what's
the difference according to you ?
>> I'm crying out for some fully fleshed-out ANSWERS, and not just
>> cryptic statements about how SOLAQI "avoids" all pit-traps. Do not
>> TELL us. SHOW us !
>
>> I know this post verges on the side of verbal aggression, Bo, but I
>> feel like I have exhausted by bag of tricks to make you ANSWER me. Get
>> out with it !
>
>OK, I understand your frustration, but bear with me and give the
>above (#2) some consideration. You write such weighty messages
>and must spend a lot of time thinking things over, I don't for a
>moment believe you would do so if you regard it all hot air.
Obviously, you're right, I do not regard it as hot air. In fact, I'm giving
your views all the consideration I can, because I'm not definitely not sure
I'm following the highest quality path, and so any constructive criticism is
welcome.
Creating meaninfull intellectual patterns is serious business for me,
because I believe in personal evolution. And if Pirsig is right about
evolution being a moral process, Man's goal isn't to pursue Truth, but moral
excellence in all endeavors. Also, I can feel the "pull" of that Eye of
Reality, who once it has seen itself, is no longer satisfied with just that,
and wishes for more...
In fact, I wonder if all this isn't just more head games to avoid *being*
Reality, instead of just *looking*. But I just don't know how to go beyond,
for the moment. "Stop. Look." might be enough for Platt, but *I* am still
searching for a practice that would make some sense to me.
Seeya
Denis
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