From: Scott Roberts (jse885@earthlink.net)
Date: Thu Aug 12 2004 - 21:12:35 BST
Neat questions. Glad I didn't have to answer them viva voce :), but I'll
give some of them a try.
Ant wrote
> Just to let anyone interested that the viva went pretty well on Tuesday
though I have yet to hear from the University concerning a final decision
in regards of being awarded a PhD.
>
> In the meantime, I’d just like to thank everyone on this Board for their
usually insightful debates in regard to the MOQ. I think these discussions
since 1997 have certainly helped in sharpening my own ideas in regards to
Pirsig's work.
>
> Anyway, I thought you might be interested in the type of questions asked
in the context of an MOQ PhD viva so (before I forget them!) I paste some
of the questions posed by my examiners below. I’ll forward my answers
later on (probably at the end of next week) to give other people an
opportunity to discuss them.
> 1. Is Quality more similar to:
>
> a. Whitehead's Process Philosophy,
>
> b. the Tao, or;
>
> c. Plotinus' One?
I think I'd vote for (a), though my knowledge of Whitehead is limited.
Mainly, because I see Whitehead's "actual entity" as being similar to
Pirsig's "pure experience" from which (through the fallacy of misplaced
concreteness) we produce beliefs in self and external reality. And the idea
that God works through persuasion, not by fiat, could be equated to Quality
working through "quality", that is, value is perceived, and thereby drives
evolution.
The other two could be rejected just because they predate SOM.
> 3. If you kill the self then isn’t this a quick return to the Dynamic and
therefore a moral action in Pirsig’s MOQ?
Well, if there is no afterlife, it isn't a return to anything, so I guess
the answer would be that it is better to live to allow Quality to work
through you on the intellectual level, than to be dead and only be
biologial quality for worms.
Though not really relevant to the question, but I think relevant to the MOQ
in general: I think that one needs some sort of afterlife idea to redeem
our existence, that is, to believe in a Quality universe. That is, I think
it is a higher-quality universe if our efforts to make ourselves better are
not simply cut off at death, which would make our efforts pointless for
ourselves. This is no proof, obviously.
> 4b. How can a Schonenberg Concert which is purposively disharmonic fit
into this paradigm?
It is either a DQ breaking of the rules to produce new levels of harmony
(which the negative critics haven't learned to appreciate), or it is a
degeneration -- breaking rules just for the sake of it. Time will tell.
- Scott
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu Aug 12 2004 - 21:29:46 BST