Roger, I saw your reply this time, thanks!
I think I am closer to following you, but I am not there yet. I think this is
critical!
1. Life is better than non-life.
2. Groups of life are better than one life.
3. Anything that helps us understand non-life, life, groups of life, and
their interactions is *better* than the quality within these things.
If this is what you are saying, there are some minor points I must make about 3 --
the intellectual level. You have equated the intellectual with understanding.
Others have equated it with ideas. Still others have equated it with the actions
that arise from the ideas (someone called it planning). I guess one could
simplify this by saying these things all flow naturally together. Together they
are all the intellectual level? Is this your interpretation??
Now comes the major problem. This definition has pushed me back a bit, but I
still fall in a trap.
Suppose I had a strong faith in God. You point out some things (Darwanism or
whatever), but I reply it is God's will that reality is seen that way. Statements
such "God willed it that way" and "The lord works in mysterious ways". Because I
could use these statements against anything you say, these statements do not prove
anything. There are no hypotheses to test them against.
To me, the MOQ is similar logic (at least on the intellectual and dynamic
levels). Take tonight. I was wondering if I should practise my synthesizer or
write this response (yes I know, what a sad sad excuse for a Saturday night!).
Before meditating on the subject, I wondered what the MOQ would say. I started
thinking that creating music and creating this post would both be dynamic quality,
but this post would be more "intellectually" dynamic. But music does not really
fit anywhere else so my next conclusion was that music would be intellectual too!
Once I forgot about the MOQ, and made a decision based upon what I really felt
like doing, the MOQ comes along and says that I picked to write this post because
it was more dynamic to me.
Because the MOQ tells one to do what is experienced to be right, one can not test
the MOQ against experience. All we have is experience, so the MOQ adds nothing to
it. Remember, mathematics, computer science, medical research, are of value
because they tell us new conclusions that we had not experienced before.
To be fair, the MOQ is of great value against SO thinking. It justifies paying
attention to experinces. But that is why some of us are into meditation. It is
the same thing, but more direct. Furthermore, meditation reveals the truth much
better than thinking about levels, because meditation causes us to be more
sensitive to reality (quality) than when the mind holds a pre-judgement.
To my understanding. This is all the MOQ tells me.
1. We should think of reality as patterns of value instead of matter. This
is huge because unlike SOM it embraces what we experience. This leads to the
great value of medititation because it helps us to be sensitive to reality
(quality).
2. All else equal, life is better than nonlife. (Knew that before, anyway)
3. All else equal, groups of life are better than one life. (Knew that before
too)
A forth level about the intellect being allowed to dominate society, does not
apply. Ideas originate naturally from understanding all experience, which is what
1. already told us. Roger, or anyone, Is there anything else really significant
to the MOQ.
Why not drop the levels? Pirsig's only -- however amazing -- contribution is that
reality is patterns. They are experienced. Leave it at that!!!
MOQ Homepage - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:02:52 BST