From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Sun Sep 21 2003 - 13:51:58 BST
Scott
briefly, what do you mean by the SO divide is
meaningless in the MOQ?
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott R" <jse885@spinn.net>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2003 1:19 AM
Subject: Re: MD DQ=SQ tension
> >
> > 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
>
>
>
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