From: SQUONKSTAIL@aol.com
Date: Tue Mar 18 2003 - 17:02:52 GMT
Hello Matt S,
That sounds a bit like, 'Jason King of Dept. S' - just a friendly josh!
Matt of Dept. S! ;)
Matt:
I wasn't referring to Pirsig as 'less of a moral
nihilist'; rather, 'less of a nihilist' within the
broader picture of how the MoQ fits into contemporary
thought: i.e. how it fits with non-MoQ ideas.
sq: If contemporary thought = postmodernism, and if pm has no foundation for
values, then by cricky! The MoQ is certainly less nihilist.
Matt:
You say that Pirsig's concession as to the relativity of the
MoQ may simply be part of a broader moral evolution of
thought, and thus not nihilistic. Your point is good,
but I think that to say, 'Well, our thought may well
be wrong, and in the future something better might
come along, so it'll all be for the best eventually'
is hardly the polar opposite of nihilism.
sq: The MoQ suggests there is an 'Arrow of Quality' similar to the 'Arrow of
Time' cosmologists think about; evolution appears, upon inspection, to be
towards higher Dynamic influence. The pace of evolution is becoming faster;
biology evolves faster than inorganic stellar systems, for example, culture
evolves orders of magnitude faster than biology to the point where biology
may be driven by culture itself? Intellectual patterns are going crazy, and
post modernism is one such pattern. Post modernism is, in my view, the total
control of culture in terms of intellectual patterns. That is not good, for
cultural patterns must be preserved not undermined if we are to prevent the
possibility of biology getting the upper hand; social moral nihilism.
The MoQ's replacement may be along the lines of a new order of evolution
above intellect? I don't feel we are going to see an intellectual pattern
bettering the MoQ for quite some time, if at all? I don't know.
Matt:
I would also be interested to know whether this interpretation of
the use of the MoQ is Pirsig's own, as it seems to
theorise on the contingency of the MoQ whilst thinking
within the MoQ, placing that contingency within a
broad application of the (necessarily non-contingent)
MoQ.
Matt S
sq: Evolution has a direction driven by Dynamic Quality. Therefore, all
static patterns will evolve - hopefully towards something better. The MoQ
recognises that it is part of that move. This is clearly stated in Lila. I
don't go in for quotes, so please forgive me not providing one. I will if you
need it?
The Earth is part of the evolution of the Galaxy in which it participates,
but to say the Earth is contingent, while saying something interesting,
rather devalues the status of the Earth as the centre of Gaian biological
evolution!! Don't you think?
Scientific theory is contingent, but that does not make it redundant!
Newtonian mechanics can get you to the Moon, but you will need the theory
which replaced it to get to Mercury, because the orbit of Mercury is
significantly influenced by something that is better explained using the
concept of space-time. Maybe we will one day wish to visit Alpha Centuri, and
then make use of concepts that incorporate and explain space-time in the same
way that space-time explains and incorporates Newtonian mechanics? Maybe
space-time will do?
Its a similar position with the intellectual postulate that is the MoQ.
squonk.
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 : Tue Mar 18 2003 - 17:03:31 GMT