From: skutvik@online.no
Date: Sat Aug 30 2003 - 08:13:44 BST
Hi Paul
I start here, as always we make no progress until you start to
summarize - an ability you have that I appreciate greatly.
28 Aug you wrote:
> You refer to "inside the MOQ" and a "Quality Universe" as if it were
> somewhere other than where we already are, right here, right now, all
> around and inside. I think your "Metaphysics is Reality" belief is a
> major problem.
Yes, I do. Existence have this tendency to change in accordance with
the range of view. Remember the example of a bug inside the sock?
After it being turned inside out, reality changed from a smelly confined
world to one of enormous vistas. It was the same yet changed
fundamentally.
A more real example is the cosmology of the "ancient world" (Social
Reality) The "underworld" extended forever downwards and the sky
forever upwards, then came the Copernican Revolution (Intellectual
Reality) when these things were relativized; The same "here, right
now, all around and inside" yet changed fundamentally. If this
important phenomenon that Pirsig points to is a "problem" to you ...?
> I think your logic goes:
I printed this out and brought it with me on a walk to read it in
portions. Even one's own view looks a little unfamiliar seen through
another person's eyes ....
> "If the MOQ includes "Dynamic Quality"
> and Dynamic Quality is outside of static intellectual patterns
> and the MOQ is reality itself
> then the MOQ is also outside of static intellectual patterns"
....but this is as close as it comes!!!
> This also explains why you have come up with the SOLAQI argument. You
> extend the logic above in this way..
Exactly!
> "and because I can think about the MOQ (which is outside of static
> intellectual patterns) then static intellectual patterns cannot be
> synonymous with thoughts"
Damn! This Is GOOD!
> So to keep it all intact, you reduce mind to an era of "subject-object
> thinking" and create a fifth level
Even if I have backed down on the 5th level to a rebel intellectual
pattern, this is exactly it.
> or a "Quality Universe" in which
> the MOQ is not "merely a metaphysics" but has replaced SOM as "reality
> itself", just as you think the intellectual level once replaced the
> social level as "reality itself".
GREAT!!!
> What I think you fail to see is that the metaphysical term "Dynamic
> Quality" is a STATIC INTELLECTUAL REFERENCE to reality which is
> understood by direct everyday experience WITHOUT THOUGHTS OR WORDS.
> When you understand what it refers to you don't actually need the word
> anymore.
Maybe I was dizzy from your perfect understanding of the SOLAQI,
but when it comes to this (critical) part ...hmmm. You see I'm not able
to understand that anyone can understand it as well as you do and
NOT "love" it ;-)
From your above paragraph: " ....the metaphysical term DQ is a static
intellectual reference ...etc." Again you make it sound as if I have
overlooked some important point, and again it is a S/O difference, this
time between words and reality (words are thoughts as Wittgenstein
pointed out) You can make this S/O difference as subtle as you wish
...and the objective part as ineffable as you wish, still it is part of
SOM's inexhaustible repertoire.
In the SOL the Quality Idea started as a static intellectual pattern but
proved to be too dynamic for intellectual "safety" and it is now
suspended somewhere off-set to it.
> "The Dynamic reality that goes beyond words is the constant focus of
> Zen teaching. Because of their habituation to a world of words,
> philosophers do not often understand Zen.
I agree with this, Khoo told that Eastern tradition had their own S/O
tradition, but it did not develop into a SOM like in the West and is
what creates the Kiplingean Chasm (East is East ..etc.) but I don't
see the bearing on our discussion?
> When philosophers have
> trouble understanding the distinction between static and Dynamic
> Quality it can be because they are trying to include and subordinate
> all Quality to thought patterns. The distinction between static and
> Dynamic quality is intended to block this." [Pirsig quoted in Ant
> McWatt's "Pirsig's MOQ"]
Philosophers don't know the MOQ ...much less any Static/Dynamic
difference. Regrettably.
> But, living in an everyday world of differentiated experience,
> "assertions of value" describes the ongoing process of differentiation
> in a way that fits empirical experience with meaning and purpose. So
> when we see that everyday differentiated experience can be
> fundamentally reduced to values, we can infer that the ineffable
> source of this experience is undifferentiated value, and refer to it
> as "Dynamic Quality". It becomes a workable term for something we know
> exists but can't define.
Yes, yes, you don't need to convert me :-)
> Bo:
> Finally. In a message (9 Aug.) in this thread you said:
> > As mentioned to Scott, I think you need to be more clear on what > >
> "the S/O divide itself" refers to.
>
> I wielded my well-known "cultural" argument, but afterwards I thought:
> "Doesn't Paul understand the presentation that Pirsig gives of the SOM
> ...because this is what the S/O divide refers to.
> Paul:
> The accuracy of my understanding is of no consequence to you, that
> "presentation" was from "1974 Pirsig", so according to you it is of no
> value.
The description of the emergence of SOM (in ZMM) is forever valid.
But Paul, do you still find the "idealist" strategy useful? As said in this
message I am the first to admit that a fundamental change of outlook
fundamentally changes reality, and maybe the MOQ is a metaphysics
based on the premises that - FROM A SOM p.o.v. - everything is a
human invention/only in our minds ...whatever. But once the dice is
cast it is impossible to return saying that the MOQ is just a figment of
the mind as long as the mind/matter divide is invalid ..as a
metaphysics. The M is taken over by the MOQ. You who profess to
understand the SOLAQI, can't you understand this crucial point.
But anyway thanks Paul, you do a great job.
Sincerely. Bo
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