From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Sun Sep 21 2003 - 01:19:33 BST
>
> Mark:
> In an essay which i hope will be available on the forum soon, this problem
> can be cleared up nicely. Basically, all static patterns are in
relationships
> which each other, and some of these relationships are exceptional. The
> exceptional relationships are the point at which DQ operates. Maybe an
analogy will
> help?
> Imagine a seesaw balance, balancing you on one side and me on the other?
> There is a pivot in between us which i would ask you imagine to be DQ. You
and i
> are static patterns. The relationship between you and me is, for the most
part,
> one of discrimination; one moment i am moving up - you down, at another
time
> the relationship appears to be reversed? But both you and i are a complete
> system at all times, and at one very specific moment - when you and i are
in
> absolute balance - DQ is at its most intrusive: The point of balance is
> extraordinary. Think about it?
> What determines the next move at the point of utter cancellation?
> It cannot be dealt with, and this is the mystery you point to. The MoQ
does
> not hand wave here - the MoQ postulates the conceptually unknown: DQ.
> Mathematicians perform a similar move when they use 0 and the operator =
This analogy does not get at my criticism that I (and I hope everyone) see
myself as creative, while the MOQ assigns creativity to DQ, nor does it get
at my criticism that to say that I am a set of SQ "capable of responding" to
DQ looks to me like a necessity that Pirsig comes to by assuming a
particular mystical view to be correct. So while your analogy does help to
explain the MOQ, it does not explain why my criticisms are invalid.
>
> Scott
> This is why the logic of contradictory identity is necessary. It has the
> positive effect of letting one identify when one is going into error by
> emphasizing one pole of a contradictory identity (aka a polarity) over the
> other. In SOM, this is what happens when one chooses idealism or
> materialism. In the MOQ, this happens in the above quote.
>
> Mark
> I totally disagree. I feel you fail to let go of DQ; rather, you dismiss
DQ
> as insignificant. That may be the source of your trouble? You cannot
accept
> that something so important cannot be understood, but which is in fact
operating
> at all times.
Where do you get the idea that I dismiss DQ as insignificant? Since I
consider that everything exists as DQ/SQ tension, surely I must find it of
utmost significance. And the "You cannot accept that something so important
cannot be understood". Since I have been praising the L of CI *because* it
prevents understanding, I have to wonder why you think this.
>
> Scott:
> Where Pirsig goes wrong (in my opinion, and in answer to Platt's query
over
> differing assumptions) is back at the beginning where he discusses the
> mystics' objection to metaphysics. The mystics (according to Pirsig)
> emphasize "undivided experience" over language and intellect *about*
> experience. Well, many mystics do just that, but not all. But while all
will
> agree that language and intellect is a major problem, the problem lies in
> limiting beliefs, not in language or intellect itself.
>
> Mark:
> Going back to the seesaw analogy, the system at one very specific and
> exceptional point is undivided. Expanding this to patterns of value, it is
possible
> to envisage patterned differentiation's opening up to the influence of the
> conceptually unknown: DQ in the MoQ.
Franklin Merrell-Wolff had two Realizations. In the first, he Realized
something like your analogy depicts: as he put it, he reduced the subject to
a mathematical point (his analogy), which he called the Pure Subject, which
matches the idea of experiencing pure DQ. But later he had a second
Realization in which he realized that there was a lingering dualism in his
first Realization, which might be put: experiencing DQ, but not DQ *as* SQ
and SQ *as* DQ. Unlike the first Realization, which fit his understanding of
mysticism, the second came as a surprise, but he later read of other mystics
which covered this second Realization. My point being that your analogy, and
Pirsig's view of mysticism also only fit the first Realization, but not the
second.
>
> Scott:
> But Pirsig, influenced by nominalism, treats language and intellect as
less
> real in
> comparison with this hypothetical undivided experience. I say
hypothetical,
> because all experience presupposes distinctions, if nothing else, the
> distinction between the experience and the absence of the experience.
> Indeed, experience happens *by means of* distinctions.
>
> Mark:
> I cannot speak to your assertion that Pirsig is influenced by nominalism,
> except to say that i don't agree with that.
Isn't that speaking to it :-)
> I feel you consistently place the cart before the horse? Experience in the
> MoQ is primary with distinctions imposed later via ones culture.
This is what the MOQ says. I say differently, that experience and
distinctions happen together -- they are the same thing.
> Again, in the seesaw analogy, distinctions about what happened after the
moment of
> exceptional balance are not the moment of exceptional balance.
If there were exact balance there would be no experience. Experience happens
by virtue of being out of balance.
> One may experience a move towards balance and a move away from it, but the
moment cannot be
> encapsulated. In the MoQ, the motion towards and away balance is distinct
as patterns of
> value. Each side of the seesaw is inextricably entwined in four ways, not
two.
> And the four distinctions are responding towards and away from exceptional
> relationships where DQ has maximum influence.
>
> Scott:
> And so we have (from an earlier post from Paul):
>
> "I suppose "awareness" may be used tentatively but "thinking" is
> definitely not synonymous with Quality."
>
> Why not thinking?
>
> Mark:
> Thinking is an aspect of the seesaw motion, but DQ is the source of
> exceptional relationships. I hate to bang away at the seesaw analogy, but
thinking may
> be seen as that which is not the moment of exceptional balance.
I agree. but I disagree that only the moment of exceptional balance is where
there is mystery. That is where, in my view, your analogy fails. You seem to
think that thinking about experience is not itself a "real" experience, that
it is somehow inferior, that it somehow doesn't involve DQ. I say it does.
>
> Scott:
> The ability to think is just as mysterious as the ability
> to be aware, or the ability to respond to DQ, or the ability to abstract,
or
> the ability to use language, or the ability to perceive value, or the
> ability to experience. Furthermore, it is only through thinking that one
> can dig out and overcome limiting beliefs, and thus grow. It is
undecidable
> whether such thinking is that of the little self or of the Big Self, but
> then the little self *is* the Big Self (Franklin Merrell-Wolff's last
> thought before his awakening was: there is nothing to attain. "You are
> already That which you seek").
>
> Mark:
> Again the seesaw: That which you seek is actually that upon which the
total
> system is pivoted. You do see that do you not? It's a bit like a mouse in
a
> maze crying, 'Watch me choose my own direction.'
On the contrary, what I "seek" is the realization that the pivot and the
moving board of the seesaw are the same yet different, a contradictory
identity. Or, to paraphrase Zen, to be moving away or toward the pivot is
perfect just as it is. To just seek the pivot is to be attached to a false
god.
> Through thinking you can come to see the importance of the pivot (DQ in
the
> MoQ) and adjust your cultural inheritance to the new way of
conceptualising. I
> feel you fail to do this, but rather continue to place the cart before the
> horse.
And through more thinking, one can further adjust one's cultural
inheritance, to overcome, e.g., the conceptualizing that you share with
Pirsig. You seem to think that if I disagree with the MOQ it is because I
"just don't get it". What I am saying, of course, is that I do get it, but
find it based in part on its own weak conceptualizing. You will obviously
disagree.
>
> Scott:
> My conclusion (or assumption?), anyway, my message from the MOQ, with this
> correction, is not that we should treat metaphysics as something one does,
> like getting drunk and picking up bar-ladies, but that it is a road to
> salvation. If, that is, it is oriented around identifying and removing
> limitations, and not setting them. The MOQ does this well, but not
entirely.
>
> Mark:
> If you can provide me with a better way of dealing with experience than
the
> MoQ and it's DQ-SQ tension then believe me Scott, I'm all for it!
I have: Coleridge, Owen Barfield, Franklin Merrell-Wolff, Georg Kuhlewind.
And I -- and I fail to see how you miss this -- have always included DQ-SQ
tensionas an integral part of the story. I merely think these writers do
better with it than Pirsig.
>
> Scott:
> As I've said before, the intellectual level has been born, but it is still
> in its infancy, and that is why it is a major problem to mystic
realization.
>
> Mark:
> May i remind you: 'Furthermore, it is only through thinking that one can
dig
> out and overcome limiting beliefs, and thus grow.' Perhaps we could avoid
the
> limiting belief that the intellectual level was 'born'? Birth is a
definitive
> event, and that is too resolute an assertion for my liking when discussing
> intellect. Plus, Pirsig does not say that the intellectual level was
'born' does
> he?
By "born" I mean "came into existence in physical reality". Pirsig does
imply that, does he not? Or perhaps you miss the metaphoric usage. It
obviously didn't happen in an instant, if that is what you are complaining
about.
>
> Scott:
> The task is not to try to escape thinking, as Pirsig's mystics seem to
want
> to do, but to focus on it, because it -- *because* of its S/O form -- is
> DQ/SQ tension = Quality, for us at our current stage of evolution.
>
> Mark:
> Not thinking is the source of all static thought. If you wish to be
creative
> stop thinking. Not thinking is to move towards and encourage that point of
> balance from which DQ intervenes and makes the new static value. You are
placing
> the cart before the horse again Scott i feel.
Or you are. Stalemate.
>
> Scott:
> Note the word "focus", and its use in def. #2 (from LC #111). When
thinking
> about
> thinking, thinking is both subject and object, yet it is not meaningless
for
> it to be so. Because we are able to think about thinking, to at once
create
> and reunite the S/O divide we have Quality right in our little selves, and
> that is why the S/O divide is value in the fourth level. It is a curse as
> long as one believes that the divide is an absolute one, but the L of CI
> prevents that, as does the MOQ. But the L of CI also prevents denying one
> side of the divide or the other, which is the error I see in the MOQ.
> Mark:
> The term S/O divide is meaningless in the MoQ, so to introduce it into a
> discussion about the MoQ is placing the cart before the horse again.
Well, it is nice to see you vary the statement, but it is still irrelevant.
You find it a virtue that the S/O divide is meaningless in the MOQ. I find
it a defect.
- Scott
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 : Sun Sep 21 2003 - 01:20:02 BST