From: David M (davidint@blueyonder.co.uk)
Date: Sat Nov 12 2005 - 16:01:51 GMT
Paul MOC
This is very helpful indeed. I have always taken
there as being 2 theses. I hope everyone reads this
very carefully and has a good think about it.I have
no doubt there is this split, you cannot avoid it if
you come from a background strongly influenced
by continental philosophy and idealism. Have you expressed
it exactly right? Probably not but pretty close and a fine start.
You could say that thesis 1 is about describing experience
without bias, much like Husserl's phenomenological
reduction. To put aside notions of objectivity and things
to look honestly at experience as it is, making experience
the ontological basis of being. In the context of the ontology
and epistemology of thesis 1, Pirsig moves on to see how
we can get to an 'idea' of the 'world' (something you cannot
simply experience without building up concepts). This
is then a dialectic of concepts and the SQ these concepts
allow us to set out, and thesis 2 is a historical cosmology
and the levels are stages in this.
Also, regarding thesis 1, with its DQ and sequence of values,
is it not fair to suggest via thesis 2, that the prepostulation
values of DQ are based in our being embodied beings, so
that rather than perception we are affected by all other
bodies, we are feeling being rather than knowing beings.
We notice that which affects us, what we mean by notice
is that we are changed by everything we encounter, reality
is the encounter, and it is all forms of change, changes to
our being, for good or bad.
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Turner" <paul@turnerbc.co.uk>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Friday, November 11, 2005 4:59 PM
Subject: MD Two Theses in the MOQ
> Final post for now! I won't be able to respond very quickly but I wanted
> to
> get the posts out there anyway as they've been sat in my draft folder for
> a
> while.
>
> I have suggested before that it may be useful to recognise two theses
> within
> the overall static pattern of the MOQ. Broadly speaking, insofar as
> thesis
> (1) is largely an articulation of an epistemology of Quality, thesis (2)
> is
> a dialectical exposition of a metaphysics. I will try and briefly outline
> the scope of each thesis, as I see them.
>
> --------------------------------------
>
> Thesis (1) only describes the view that a reality of essentially undefined
> Dynamic Quality, and not of independent objects, is what is primary in
> experience and, significantly, is what produces all intellectual patterns
> of
> knowledge. This thesis is mainly contained in ZMM, crystallising with
> Pirsig's realisation that "[Dynamic] Quality is the generator of
> everything
> we know," but is restated in LILA in the sections prior to the end of
> Chapter 8. In this thesis, the everyday world of distinguishable things
> is
> understood as the result of ongoing Dynamic Quality within the context of
> different intellectual patterns or analogues.
>
> It should be stated here that in thesis (1) (N.B. this includes all of
> ZMM)
> the terms 'intellectual patterns' and 'intellectual' do not refer
> unequivocally to the static patterns which are defined by the intellectual
> level of thesis (2) because in thesis (1) there are no levels.
>
> I suggest that it is the largely epistemological thesis (1) which Pirsig
> refers to when he says in LILA'S CHILD that "Philosophic idealism is part
> of
> the MOQ" and provides the context for understanding such statements as:
>
> "Within the MOQ, the *idea* that static patterns of value start with the
> inorganic level is considered to be a good *idea*." [LILA'S CHILD,
> Annotation 97]
>
> "It is important for an understanding of the MOQ to see that although
> "common sense" dictates that inorganic nature came first, actually "common
> sense" which is a set of ideas, has to come first. This "common sense" is
> arrived at through a huge web of socially approved evaluations of various
> alternatives. The key term here is "evaluation," i.e., quality decisions.
> The fundamental reality is not the common sense or the objects and laws
> approved of by common sense but the approval itself and the quality that
> leads to it." [LILA'S CHILD, Notes on Annotation 97]
>
> The key point of thesis (1) is that knowledge does not consist of
> representations of independent properties of an objective world. Rather,
> it
> is suggested that the properties of the world arise within the composition
> of knowledge (and it is here that it agrees with philosophic idealism),
> and,
> crucially, that this knowledge emerges from the ongoing experience of
> Dynamic Quality and the value judgements it produces within the context of
> existing patterns.
>
> So, as with all knowledge according to this thesis, the intellectual
> pattern
> of the MOQ is itself generated by a procession of value judgements, which
> leads us to thesis (2).
>
> ---------------------------------
>
> Thesis (2) is the articulation of the particular intellectual pattern -
> the
> "plain of understanding" - of the MOQ. I think this second thesis is
> almost
> entirely contained in LILA, starting from Chapter 9. In this chapter we
> see
> a transition from the Dynamic Quality that *produces* intellectual value
> judgments to the explanations that are the *result* of those value
> judgments. These explanations include things like
>
> -- the relationship between Dynamic Quality and static quality
>
> -- the evolution of value patterns
>
> -- the stratified ontology of the four levels
>
> -- the moral codes which have evolved along with the levels
>
> -- with respect to the first thesis, the other static patterns that it
> proposes are required for social and intellectual patterns of knowledge to
> be able to latch in the first place.
>
> These are the pragmatic 'high quality' explanations of how the world might
> operate in accordance with the assumption that values are the ubiquitous
> element of an evolving reality. These are one set of general
> 'co-ordinates'
> with which we might understand everything from the movement of electrons
> to
> enlightenment. None of these explanations are forwarded in thesis (1).
>
> -------------------------------------
>
> Below are some brief suggestions on how the distinction into two theses
> can
> be put to work in understanding the overall MOQ.
>
> To begin, I think confusion has resulted from statements such as this one:
>
> "The MOQ does not deny the traditional scientific view of reality as
> composed of material substance and independent of us. It says it is an
> extremely high quality idea. We should follow it whenever it is practical
> to do so. But the MOQ, like philosophic idealism, says this scientific
> view
> of reality is still an idea. If it were not an idea, then that
> "independent
> scientific material reality" would not be able to change as new scientific
> discoveries come in." [LILA'S CHILD, Notes on Annotation 4]
>
> I think the confusion occurs with this statement because it contains the
> perspectives of both theses and arguably equivocates on the term 'The MOQ'
> as the name for both of them. I translate this statement as:
>
> "The [second thesis of the] MOQ does not deny the traditional scientific
> view of reality as composed of material substance and independent of us.
> It
> says it is an extremely high quality idea. We should follow it whenever
> it
> is practical to do so. But the [first thesis of the] MOQ, like
> philosophic
> idealism, says this scientific view of reality is still an idea. If it
> were
> not an idea, then that "independent scientific material reality" would not
> be able to change as new scientific discoveries come in." [LILA'S CHILD,
> Notes on Annotation 4]
>
> And another example:
>
> "The MOQ says that Quality comes first, which produces ideas, which
> produce
> what we know as matter. The scientific community that has produced
> Complementarity almost invariably presumes that matter comes first and
> produces ideas. However, as if to further the confusion, the MOQ says
> that
> the idea that matter comes first is a high quality idea!" [LILA'S CHILD,
> Annotation 67]
>
> Which I translate as:
>
> "The [first thesis of the] MOQ says that Quality comes first, which
> produces
> ideas, which produce what we know as matter. The scientific community
> that
> has produced Complementarity almost invariably presumes that matter comes
> first and produces ideas. However, as if to further the confusion, the
> [second thesis of the] MOQ says that the idea that matter comes first is a
> high quality idea!" [LILA'S CHILD, Annotation 67]
>
> It helps me to think about which thesis is under question when I am
> talking
> about the MOQ - most of the time it is thesis (2).
>
> It has also occurred to me that an interesting perspective on 'the
> container
> problem' may be provided by thinking in terms of the two theses. With
> this
> device, thesis (1) can be said to 'contain' thesis (2) as one of the many
> patterns of intellectual knowledge produced by Dynamic Quality, e.g.
> alongside all the variations of SOM. Thesis (2), however, can be said to
> be
> how the world is *from within the pattern of the MOQ* and as such does not
> 'contain itself' or any other competing, general description of reality
> i.e.
> metaphysics. There may be problems with this and I include it as a
> tentative suggestion only.
>
> I also think the distinction between the two theses sheds light on some of
> the problems of terminology encountered in the MOQ. Firstly, as implied
> earlier I think 'intellectual' as it is used in thesis (1) is subdivided
> into social and intellectual quality in thesis (2) and one should be wary
> of
> equivocation here.
>
> Secondly, the term 'pre-intellectual', which is mostly used within the
> context of thesis (1), could be modified to 'pre-static' (i.e. the
> experience of indeterminate value prior to its contextualisation into any
> static patterns) when used within the context of thesis (2) so as not to
> erroneously relate Dynamic Quality solely to the intellectual level.
>
> ---------------------------------------
>
> I suggest that the two theses represent distinct stages in the development
> of the overall pattern of the MOQ and that the first stage is not so much
> left behind as expanded by the second. Moreover, I suggest it is
> sometimes
> necessary to 'back up' into the first stage to answer questions mistakenly
> or inappropriately levelled at the second e.g., If intellect creates
> subjects and objects, how is it that inorganic and biological objects
> existed before intellect? The answer is that in thesis (1) all divisions
> and assumptions are indeed contingent upon the activity of a
> discriminating
> intellect. However, thesis (2) already accepts one pragmatic set of
> divisions and assumptions and, on the basis of these, offers an
> explanation
> of how they relate in a historical context.
>
> If this confuses things for you, or if you think it superfluous, please
> ignore it. If it helps, I'm glad.
>
>
>
>
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