From: David Morey (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Tue Aug 17 2004 - 19:11:34 BST
Paul
That's a great post and I think you get your
points across and they are right in my view too.
But the indefinite concept of DQ does not
remove in my mind the fact that at the 4th level
DQ is able to create intellectual SQ only through the
set up of all 4 levels plus DQ that we call a human being.
A human being is this set up of 4 levels of SQ and DQ,
I suppose it is also made up of what SOM calls subjective
and objective aspects. The advantage of MOQ over SOM
is that with SOM you cannot understand the relationship
between subjective and objective aspects of the set up
of a human being, with SQ & DQ you can see that DQ is
using 4 levels of SQ to create something more complex and free
than has been created before: a human being.
Agree/or not?
thanks
David Morey
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Turner" <paul@turnerbc.co.uk>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2004 11:26 AM
Subject: RE: MD The individual in the MOQ
> Hi Platt
>
> That reply I promised.
>
> Platt said:
> I've looked through LILA and can't find where Pirsig made it clear that
> "perception" as used in the MOQ means something different than its
> everyday SOM meaning. Same goes for "experience" and "awareness."
>
> Paul:
> As far as I am aware, a SOM sees neither that Quality is synonymous with
> awareness, nor that this Quality awareness is the source of all subjects
> and objects. Rather, a SOM sees a subject and/or an object as the source
> of awareness. In terms of the texts, does this quote from ZMM answer
> your question?:
>
> "He simply meant that at the cutting edge of time, before an object can
> be distinguished, there must be a kind of nonintellectual awareness,
> which he called awareness of Quality...Since all intellectually
> identifiable things must emerge from this preintellectual reality,
> Quality is the parent, the source of all subjects and objects." [ZMM,
> p.247, Ch 20]
>
> Or this from LILA?:
>
> "The low value that can be derived from sitting on a hot stove is
> obviously an experience even though it is not an object and even though
> it is not subjective. The low value comes first, then the subjective
> thoughts that include such things as stove and heat and pain come
> second." [LILA Ch 8]
>
> Platt said:
> I can't find a single instance in LILA where Pirsig, in explaining the
> MOQ, divorces perception (awareness, experience) from a subjective human
> being.
>
> Paul:
> Does the LILA quote above address this? Metaphysically speaking, the
> subjective human being comes after the value experience. Also, within
> the MOQ it is assumed that experience occurs at the inorganic level
> without the presence of subjective human beings, if it didn't, evolution
> wouldn't have gotten started.
>
> Platt said:
> In fact, in the LS, Note 59, Pirsig states flatly, "The MOQ, like
> science, starts with human experience." Once you bring in a human, you
> bring in a subject, at least in the common definition of the word,
> "subject."
>
> Paul:
> I think you've taken that quote out of context. The full quote reads:
>
> "Within the MOQ, the idea that static patterns of value start with the
> inorganic level is considered to be a good idea. But the MOQ itself
> doesn't start before sentience. The MOQ, like science, starts with human
> experience.
> Remember the early talk in ZMM about Newton's Law of Gravity? Scientific
> laws without people to write them are a scientific impossibility."
>
> He is refuting to the statement that, "The static patterns of value
> start with the inorganic level. This implies that the MOQ existed before
> sentience." I don't think this has anything to do with my denial that
> subjects and objects are the starting point of reality in both SOM and
> the MOQ.
>
> > Platt said:
> > Further, Pirsig says we can never know ultimate reality (the
> > conceptually unknown). But that's saying we know something about it.
> >
> > Paul:
> > We can't know it *intellectually* but we can intellectually accept
> that it
> > exists nonetheless and work from there. We *can* know it by
> experience,
> > given that it *is* experience. Again, I thought this was made clear in
> ZMM
> > and LILA.
>
> Platt said:
> Again, where in these books was it "made clear?" A couple of quotes
> would help.
>
> Paul:
> That it is known by experience:
>
> "Quality doesn't have to be defined. You understand it without
> definition, ahead of definition. Quality is a direct experience
> independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions." [LILA Ch 5]
>
> That you cannot see that this can be "intellectually accepted" and used
> in a rational system may be a case of "not seeing the wood for the
> trees." As I read it, LILA is *all about* how the inclusion of an
> indefinite, conceptually unknown aspect of reality provides a new
> dimension of explanatory capability. Almost every topic is centred on
> it: the brujo, mysticism, insanity, free markets, contrarians,
> evolution...
>
> "But what the socialists left out and what has all but killed their
> whole undertaking is an absence of a concept of indefinite Dynamic
> Quality."
>
> "What makes the free-enterprise system superior is that the socialists,
> reasoning intelligently and objectively, have inadvertently closed the
> door to Dynamic Quality in the buying and selling of things. They closed
> it because the metaphysical structure of objectivity never told them
> Dynamic Quality exists."
>
> "It seemed that when you add a concept of "Dynamic Quality" to a
> rational understanding of the world, you can add a lot to an
> understanding of contrarians."
>
> "It seems clear that no mechanistic pattern exists toward which life is
> heading, but has the question been taken up of whether life is heading
> away from mechanistic patterns?" He guessed that the question had not
> been taken up at all. The concepts necessary for taking it up were not
> at hand....The decisions that directed the progress of evolution are, in
> fact, Dynamic Quality itself."
>
> "Once this theoretical structure is available, it offers solutions to
> some mysteries in the present treatment of the insane. For example,
> doctors know that shock treatment "works," but are fond of saying that
> no one knows why.
> The Metaphysics of Quality offers an explanation. The value of shock
> treatment is not that it returns a lunatic to normal cultural patterns.
> It certainly does not do that. Its value is that it destroys all
> patterns, both cultural and private, and leaves the patient temporarily
> in a Dynamic state."
>
> Does this suffice? I haven't the time to copy out every quote.
>
> Regards
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>
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