From: Mark (mark@antelope.nildram.co.uk)
Date: Wed May 11 2005 - 00:22:41 BST
Hello Michael,
>> My real bother about the understanding I've developed - and I add
>> again that I'm in no way sure that it's correct - is that it makes the
>> MOQ a profoundly depressing, disempowering, hopeless viewpoint. I
>> presume that the MOQ doesn't apply to forms of quality which are
>> already directly understood, such as the "quality" of a
>> multiple-choice exam answer sheet as calculated by comparing given
>> answers with a set of predetermined correct ones.
MH> The MOQ applies to everything! The quality of a particular answer in
MH> the kind of exam you describe is static, and falls into the
MH> intellectual level, as do all patterns that relate to truth or
MH> falsity. The MOQ does apply to "forms of quality which are already
MH> directly understood" (i.e. objects or subjects of any kind, anywhere):
MH> it calls them static patterns of quality.
Ok! I guess my real question is: to what extent does the behaviour of
a person, in creating a work, affect its Quality? When someone writes
down a piece of music, or draws a picture, we know they move their fingers to move a pen
which releases ink onto paper to write the music or draw the picture, but how does the
Quality get into that sheet of music or that picture? (Or is it a property only of
the actual music that's heard, not just the written representation of
it?) What human limb manipulates Quality?
MH> The examples you give of essays and music, the value of which are
MH> often deemed to be subjective and therefore unknowable, are the kind
MH> of cases where the MOQ comes into its own. In fact Pirsig uses them
MH> both as examples in either ZMM or Lila. For the essays, I'll direct
MH> you to the chapters in ZMM describing Phaedrus as an English teacher
MH> and his early discoveries about Quality. It's worth getting familiar
MH> with, because it's a fundamental part in the genesis of the MOQ, and
MH> Pirsig explains far better than I could.
Sure, and it's exactly that kind of explanation that I've been
thinking about. Before reading that part of ZMM I'd have assumed - as
I think many people would - that the "quality" of an essay was some
function of the choice of words that somebody had made, therefore
meaning that certain people possessed of something called "talent"
would choose better words more reliably and thus produce higher
quality work. Of course, that's pretty bad if you aren't one of those
lucky individuals, but at least it implies that you do have some input
into whether your work is good or not.
But if Quality is this unique thing - a fundamental building block of
the Universe, undefinable in terms of anything else - then that
assumption is kicked away. Our bodies can manipulate matter, and can
work based on energy, but what limb touches Quality? How can our
body, or mind, manipulate something so utterly undefinable? And if we
indeed *cannot* manipulate it then, surely, Quality in the works we
produce must come from elsewhere, unaffected by our behavior in doing
it!
And that's my problem. If there's no behaviour you can do to affect
the Quality of your writing, then why bother practicing or working
hard at writing? It won't affect the Quality. And if there is such a
behaviour, or class of behaviour, then the undefinable nature of
Quality would be challenged by the existance of that behaviour.
And yea, I think I'm wrong, too, so I guess I'm really asking to get
corrected here..
-- Best regards, Mark mailto:mark@antelope.nildram.co.uk 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
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