From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Mon May 16 2005 - 00:04:01 BST
Hi Matt and David (B),
On 15 May 2005 at 14:56, Matt Kundert wrote:
Matt said:
My first softening up move will be to point out that not everybody
believes in Quality, as you say they do. To say that they do is to
make the same move the theist does when they say that God exists
whether particular people believe in Him or not. The only way to
"believe in Quality" is to first have read Pirsig's books (which not
everyone has) and then to have been persuaded by them (which even
fewer people have been). To say otherwise is to make the same kind
of appearance/reality distinguishing move that Plato gave us, where
Quality/God/whatever is there whether we like it or not.
Matt:
Mark and DMB think this a pretty stupid claim. Mark even thinks I've
missed something in Pirsig. The claim I'm making here, however, is
that belief in "Quality," which is Pirsig's idiosyncratic term for a
number of philosophical theses, would require reading Pirsig. DMB
agrees. In fact, DMB points out what I'm going to: there is a
difference between belief that "some things are better than others"
and belief in "Quality." Pirsig uses the obvious point that we all,
commonsensically, believe and act as if some things are better than
others to persuade readers to believe in "Quality," and therefore a
number of other claims also built into "Quality," like what DMB calls
"Pirsig's brand of philosophical mysticism."
msh:
Matt, I don't think your claim is stupid. David might, but it
sounds like you and he have been battling it out for years, so I'll
let you work on it for yourselves. I just think you're giving the
word "Quality" a lot more mystical weight than I do, or need to.
My personal and pragmatic interpretation of the MOQ relies on a pair
of what I claim to be two empirically verifiable statements:
"Evolution occurs" and "Some things serve evolution better than
others." From these, I can derive the moral hierarchy, and that's
all I need. As I've said many times, I DON'T think that Quality is
literally the source of subjects and objects, and don't even
understand what that would mean.
I think Pirsig opened a can of worms when he left his Holy trinity of
SOQ and tried to make Quality the primary source. He never defends
this statement, he just sets Quality at the top and away we go. Now,
I think we can argue that he ASSUMES this to be true in order to get
his metaphysics off the ground. But, if Pirsig believes he is
speaking literal truth in this regard, then his belief is due to
some mystical revelation and would indeed be no different than St.
Joan claiming God talks to her, that is, it may or may not be true,
but the claim of revelation is not enough to prove it. Not for me,
anyway.
So, in short, I don't necessarily think you've missed something in
Pirsig, although maybe you have. I'm saying you've ADDED something
to my interpretation of Pirsig, and that this something is not
necessary for the pragmatic solvency of my version of the Metaphysics
of Quality.
matt:
Likewise, I would argue that to believe in the God of the Hebrews,
you'd need to read the Torah. To believe in the Dao, you'd need to
read some stuff about Lao-tzu.
msh says:
Given what I said above this is not relevant to my position.
However, think of this: It was only AFTER Pirsig had arrived at his
notion of Quality that he picked up Tao Te Ching and was blown away
by the perfect comparison. He and Lao Tzu had arrived at the same
place via different routes. So, a person can believe in the Dao
without having read Lao Tzu, just as a person can believe in Quality
without having read Pirsig.
matt:
I think it highly fallacious to say that God is something only a few
experience, whereas Quality and Freedom is something everybody
experiences. All three are things people experience when they are
brought up in certain traditions. Now, clearly Mark and DMB think
that God is somehow different in kind from Quality and Freedom, but
that's why I'm arguing that their reasoning is based on a bad
Platonic and/or Enlightenment tradition of reasoning, one we should
get passed.
msh says:
To me, Quality is part of the universe, not the creator of the
universe, and is immediately accessible to every post-Enlightenment
human being who has not had his natural compassion and empathy ground
to a sociopathic pulp by external forces. A belief in God, in the
traditional sense, is obviously a different kind of belief.
Still, you may very well be right about my bad reasoning. But just
telling me my reasoning is faulty isn't helping me to understand why.
So, let's do some philosophy (not philosophology) and try to find
out where my reasoning heads south.
matt:
But most of my argument, apparently, is either laughed off the field
or ruled out of court (because, for instance, its "philosophology," a
highly suspect concept itself). My struggle has always been to get a
hearing because I need to attack so many bad assumptions all at once,
and all my opponents have to do at any particular time is rely on the
others that I'm not currently subjecting to critical pressure to
laugh at me.
msh says:
Oh, stop it. I'm not laughing; and if dmb is, so what? He thinks
everything has a humorous element to it, and he may very well be
right. It's the only thing that keeps US outta the looney bin.
Remember what happened to the humorless Pirsig.
matt:
But go ahead, laugh away. The struggle will always continue. Just
look at Pirsig: he had to question a lot of assumptions to get a fair
hearing for Quality without being laughed off by, for instance, the
Aristotelian laughter.
msh says:
Now you're starting to sound a little messianic, which is making me
nervous. ;-)
matt:
And now that we're giving Quality a fair hearing, I just think we
should question a few more.
msh says:
Great, I agree. But when questioning me, don't read into what I'm
saying more than I actually believe. Although I'll be forever
grateful to RMP for writing ZMM and LILA, and therefore helping me to
see the world differently, I am not and have never claimed to be a
MOQ purist.
Best,
Mark Steven Heyman (msh)
-- InfoPro Consulting - The Professional Information Processors Custom Software Solutions for Windows, PDAs, and the Web Since 1983 Web Site: http://www.infoproconsulting.com "A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." - Albert Einstein 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 : Mon May 16 2005 - 00:06:44 BST