After two weeks of careful deliberation Rob replies to Platt, Roger, David,
Kevin and anyone interested in questioning the value of the MOQ....
Boys! Sorry about my absence, but I was MOQ'ed out and required a break. I
continue to have numerous concerns about
Pirsig's attempt to categorize reality into the levels. Our discussions have
helped me consolidate my ideas. I am not going to
raise any open questions here and will give my conclusions. This post is
long, but I feel it is complete.
>>>>>(Roger quotes David.) Pirsig is very sympathetic to the idea that one can
get trapped in static intellectual patterns or
get stuck using bad intellectual maps, but its also very clear that he is a
philosopher and takes ideas and their history very
seriously……..
To start, I agree with the above. I, too, am trying to conquer my intellect
by making sense of it. Like Pirisig said about SOM, I think Pirsig's levels
are ALSO bad intellectual maps (to be explained further below). I am all for
thinking of reality as patterns; don't predefine or carve them in stone. My
intellect abstracts many patterns -- that my car will start in the morning,
the laws of gravity will hold, sugar will taste good in my coffee, I will get
paid for my work -- because they are verified by my experiences. My
intellect, however, tells me nothing about these things with %100 certainty.
Same with the MOQ. At best, it might be a rough guideline that goodness seems
to evolve in a certain way -- but it shouldn't be deemed a fundamental truth
of reality. Treat patterns like a pattern! The intellect only tells us what
*probably* could happen or what *probably* is good. The more we experience,
the more sure we become! There are no fundamental truths apart from what is
experienced.
>>>>>(Roger says) To clarify Rob's question, I believe that a person can not
be well versed in the MOQ in any meaningful
way without being open [sensitive] to dynamic experience.
Perhaps Platt's original summary of my question created confusion. I see what
you mean, but -- in the way I intended -- these *can* be exclusive. I will
give an example. Did Pirsig or Dusenberry understand natives better? I say
Dusenberry! Dusenberry's mind was not more sensitive, but he was more
sensitive to the reality of Natives. And if Dusenberry was taught the
metaphysics that "reality is experienced patterns" without the level stuff, I
think Dusenberry would have had all the tools necessary to make his points.
The conclusion of my pointed question ... If one understands the concept and
implications of reality being made of experienced patterns, the levels add
nothing to ones intellectual ability in solving moral issues. No one has
given me an example otherwise!
>>>>> (Roger) That's why the mystical experience is at a higher level than the
intellect. Mysticism isn't irrational, it is
post-rational. It comes sometime after the realization that ideas,
philosophies and isms are just analogies, just tools. But
you've got to have a mind to loose it.
As before, please don't confuse use of intellect vs. use of Pirsig's levels.
I'm not against thinking, but I don't see any value in conceptualizing
specific to Pirsig's metaphysical levels, when wrestling with life's moral
issues. I'll explain later why Pirsig's levels are a bad organization.
>>>>> (Roger replies to Rob's DQ question) Goodness may not be known, but
knowing is goodness. It is the highest pattern of value. Knowing is the
process of connecting experiences. And we do further directly experience this
process. Being in touch
with reality comes through understanding
Exactly. Except I would reverse your terms and say understanding comes through
being in touch with reality.
>>>>> (Platt gives an answer to Rob's question, but Rob doesn't bite ...
yet...) As a direct result of the MOQ I've changed my mind regarding capital
punishment. Before I was all for it; now I'm against it. Why? Because of what
Pirsig wrote in Lila, Chap. 13: “. . . societies and thoughts and principles
themselves are no more than sets of static patterns. These patterns can't by
themselves perceive or adjust to Dynamic Quality. Only a living being can do
that. The strongest moral argument against capital punishment is that it
weakens a society's Dynamic capability--its capability for change and
evolution.”
Platt, I can not be inside your head, but I disagree here. You aren't
thinking what you think you're thinking *LOL*. I speculate that you changed
your mind not because of your understanding of the levels, but because the
discussion of the levels opened your mind to possible experiences /
alternatives you did not contemplate. This is a subtle -- yet important --
distinction.
>>>>>>>> ROB PROVIDES HIS THOUGHTS ON WHY THESE PROBLEMS EXIST <<<<<<<<<<<<
These were my preliminary *intuitions* why we should forget about the levels.
1. Along the lines of Kevin's posts, I questioned the usefulness of the
levels. The levels explained perfectly issues that which I already knew but
they never helped me with something I didn't know. My conclusion is different
from Kevin, however. Instead of using the levels for theoretical purposes
only, don't use them at all. A theory with no predictive power must somehow
be flawed.
2. Perhaps my background as a statistical analyst has caused bias, but I
believe reality has a stochastic (a randomly patterned) nature. We can not
theorize anything with %100 certainty. Yet, what we directly experience is
known with certainty. That is why Krishnamurti has help me 10 times more than
Pirsig in discovering truth. The aspect of the MOQ saying reality is made of
experienced patterns explains why we should be in touch with reality.
Krishnamurti and other Eastern philosophers concentrate on the how -- through
great attention, listening, and nonjudgmental observation -- not thinking
about levels.
Here is *WHY* I think the levels are causing me problems. If the levels are
not useful, there must be a logical reason!
1. No strict definition of the intellectual level. Stick to a definition and
the levels falls apart.
Definition A: Intellectual quality is not the impact of physics, biology, or
social patterns. It is goodness and evolution
which comes from careful human thought and imagination. As we discover "the
truth", reality will evolve to a higher state.
If this definition is true, the MOQ is not incorrect but ambiguous on *all*
human behavior and choice. Every choice comes from thought, so everything is
on this level. The MOQ says that the human quest for discovering and living
truth is most moral aspect of reality but most everyone thinks that already!
Definition B: Intellectual quality is not everything that comes from thought.
Thought makes sense of the lower levels to understand what is good. True
intellectual quality, consequently, is only that which frees the mind to have
ideas. Freedom of speech is intellectual quality. Studying nutrition is
intellectual quality. Eating a sandwich is biological quality.
If this definition is true, then Pirisig contradicts himself equating things
such as justice with the intellectual level. Is the innate value of justice
that it frees us to understand things better?
Futhermore, is an idea -- however new and truthful -- always better than
everything else? Is an idea always more important than a life, for example?
c) Intellectual quality is concepts that change reality.
Same problem as Definition A. Anyone who feels right about an issue, probably
has some sort of concept backing up their belief. Anyone, consequently, could
have some good or bad idea and slap a label of "intellectual" quality on it.
Truth comes then comes from debate/logic and so forth.
Perhaps this was the intent of Pirsig's MOQ: to direct everything to the
highest level known as the intellect. Don't follow honour, tradition,
physical pleasure but always try first to
question/conceptualize/experience/understand what is right.
I could agree with this treatment, but I don't think Pirsig meant for this
interpretation. Sexual activity, for example, was always labeled biological
quality despite any understanding of what one was doing. Furthermore, this
treatment takes a lot of bite out of the MOQ. It simply justifies the use of
reason, which is what the classical philosophers taught centuries ago.
2. The problem of dynamic quality
I was going to mention the different uses of the term "dynamic", but I see
there are many posts on this. Unlike Roger, I intuit that the term "dynamic"
can't be clarified in any meaningful way. The holes in the MOQ levels become
exposed...
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> MOR (The metaphysics of Rob) <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<,
After all my scrutiny, I would like to end with my metaphysics....
Reality fundamentally is made of patterns. We are aware of these patterns
through our experiences.
Reality is always changing because patterns interact to form new patterns.
Planetary oribits, for example, were created through the interaction of
gravity and inertia. Similarly, cowboy culture was created through the
mixture of British and Native American cultures.
Life is consciousness or sensitivity to the patterns of reality.
The path towards truth and understanding begins with a sensitive mind. The
more we experience and find patterns within our experiences, the better we
understand reality.
The path towads truth and understanding never ends. Because reality is always
changing, we must never cease to observe and question by never concluding.
When we mentally cling to what is safe and familiar, we lose sensitivity to
reality and all that is real. Fear betrays love.
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