>===== Original Message From moq_discuss@moq.org =====
Rick,
I hate to give you such a massive email when you are so swamped. You don't
have to read or reply right now. Don't want to stress you out.
>RICK
>To save you some time, here are 2 of my 'favorite' complaints about the MOQ
>as a moral compass....
>(1) The failure of LILA to give any method by which one may deduce what
>pattern belongs to what level makes the application of the MOQ to moral
>problems a guessing game at best. The system is easily enslaved to support
>almost any position desired by simply describing the patterns in terms that
>produce the desired conclusion.
ERIN: MAYBE THAT WAS INTENTIONAL
PIRSIG
The reason Phaedrus used slips rather than full-sized sheets of paper is that
a card-catalog tray full of slips provides a more random access. When
information is organized in small chunks that can be accessed and sequenced at
random it becomes much more valuable tha when you have to take it in serial
form. It's better, for example to run a post office where the patrons have
numbered boxes and can come in to access these boxes any time they please.
It's worse to have them all come in at a certain time, stand in a queue and
get their mail from Joe, who has to sort through everything alphabetically
each time and who has rheumatism, is going to retire in a few years, and who
doesn't care whether they like waiting or not. When any distribution is locked
into a rigid sequential format it develops Joes that dictate what new changes
will be allowed and what will not, and that rigidity is dead.
Some of the slips were actually about this topic: random access and Quality.
The two are closely related. Random access is at the essence of organic
growth, in which cells, like post-office boxes, are relatively independent.
Cities are based on random access. Democracies are founded on it. The free
market system, free speech, and the growth of science are all based on it. A
library is one of civilization's most powerful tools precisely because of its
card-catalog trays. Without the Dewey Decimal System allowing the number of
cards in the main catalog to grow or shrink at any point the whole library
would soon grow stale and useless and die.
And so while those trays certainly didn't have much glamour they nevertheless
had the hidden strength of a card catalog. They ensured that by keeping hs
head empty and keeping sequential formatting to a minimum, no fresh new
unexplored ideas would be forgotten or shut out. There were no ideological
Joes to kill an idea because it didn't fit into what he was already thinking.
Because he didn't pre-judge the fittingness of new ideas or try to put them in
order but just let them flow in, these ideas sometimes came in so fat he
couldn't write them down quickly enough. The subject matter, a whole
metaphysics, was so enormous the flow had turned into an avalanche. The slips
kept expanding in every direction so that the more he saw the more there was
to see. It was like a Ventur effect which pulled ideas into it endlessly, on
and on. He saw there were a million things to read, a million leads to
follow...too much...too much...and not enough time in one life to get it all
together. Snowed under.
The hundreds of topcs had organized themselves into larger sections, the
sections into chapters, and chapters into parts; so that what the slips had
organized themselves into finally was the contents of a book; but it was a
book whose organization was from the bottom up rather than from the top down.
He hadn't started with a master idea and then selected in Joe-fashion only
those slips that would fit. In this case, "Joe," the organizing principle, had
been democratically elected by the slips themselves.
RICK The MOQ gives us virtually no guidance in resolving intralevel conflicts
>(ie. social v social). Considering that 'morality' is commonly used to
>refer to conflicts in patterns that Pirsig restricts to the social level,
>the MOQ isn't terribly helpful in resolving typical moral questions.
>
ERIN: To not do any "karmic dumps" on somebody else and to not to react to
any "karmic dumps" on us. Pirsig mentioned the boat Lila and Rigel came in on
was "karma" and said it might as well be called causal relationships. A
Sanskrit scholar wrote (in another book) that accumulating good karma was an
American interpretation, that it was actually supposed to be "no karma", to
act without an ego. To me this is the essence of the morality that Lila
gives us.
As to any specific moral questions Pirsig told us we don't need anyone to tell
us what is good so why would he be hypocritical and go and tell us?
>Now this...
>
>ERIN
> If concept learning is hierarchical and (north-south thing) and reasoning
>deals with linear relationships and causality (east-west). For these two to
>be together I get a picture of a matrix rather than a continuum.
>
>RICK
>Interesting.... Of course, I was using east/west in a totally different
>sense... which is why I didn't get your north/south reference... but I now
>see what you're getting at.
>
ERIN: I actually was thinking about both meanings. I really don't know how
this all fits together, I've only started to think about this. I just think
Faulkner railroad breaking up the west (The Bear) is similar to ZAMM riding
out west, and Morrison's flying south (Song of Solomon) is similar to LILA's
sailing south. I can't really explicitly say why yet.
>RICK
>Can you point me to the post you're referring to? I'm not sure what's meant
>by this rational/intuitive thing.
>
GAV: 1/25/02 is there a contradiction between ZAMM and Lila regarding the
question of morals?
does the statement '...and what is good, phaedrus, and what is not good - need
we ask anyone to tell us these things?' preclude the need for an explicit
moral system?
or are the two approaches complementary - one intuitive, one rational?
>RICK
>Okay... I think I see what you're getting at by combining hierarchical and
>linear concepts as a 'matrix'.... One moral guide (rationality) is causal
>[east/west] and the other (intuitive) is acausal [north/south].... Is this
>what you mean???
ERIN: Yeah, I think... can't take out the ??? though because it is not clear
yet to me. But his slip process seems to be a acausal thinking, and then
their is linear thinking. I think Gav is right when he says they are
complementary. We know which type is valued more and so the theme of going
west and south are getting at that. Did you ever read (i can find it if you
want me to) were Pirsig writes about left-hand being looked down upon?
LILA Left, West, South---holistic thinking (acausal relationships)
ZAMM Right, East, North--linear thinking (causal relationships)
>ERIN
>Isn't there a difference between a undifferentiated aesthetic continuum and
>an undifferentiated aesthetic matrix or am I missing something?
>
>RICK
>As far I recall, Northrup used the 2 interchangeably... However, as I said,
>it's been almost 10 years since I read that stuff, so I'm not sure if my
>memory is accurate, or if I properly understood it at the time... If I can
>find that book, I'll get back to you on this.
>
ERIN: I looked up continuum. I thought I may had been picturing it wrong.
There was one definition that I think can be interchanged and one (the
mathematical) that can not. I was thinking of continuum fitting the linear
thinking and thought a matrix reflected holistic thinking but Northrup
probably used the other defintion. My bad.
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