From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Fri Oct 03 2003 - 20:47:35 BST
Paul
Thanks for this post. I think it clarifies a lot of issues
and seems an excellent and coherent reading.
Regards
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Turner" <paulj.turner@ntlworld.com>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 11:08 AM
Subject: MD MOQ and idealism
> Hi all
>
> [Bo in a discussion with Dan said:]
> >Pirsig/MOQ is right in saying that Quality comes first (excepted from
> >the "idea" realm. No wonder ideas/not ideas is SOM!!) and in that
> >QUALITY context inorganic value is the first static fallout and
> >intellect (for the time being) the last. After this inside-out-turn,
> >re-introducing the ideas, saying that ideas is the first offshoot and
> >that intellect is the idea realm where the rest is created - mentally -
>
> >makes it a Moebus Ring of ideas. I can't for the life of me understand
> >Pirsig doing this.
>
> [Dan replied:]
> I'm not sure how the integrity of the MOQ as RMP envisions it can be
> maintained without coming to an understanding with annotation #67. It
> ties
> in with so much of his thinking that rejecting it amounts to rejecting
> the
> MOQ. We are of course free to develop our own metaphysics but like Mr.
> Pirsig says, it should be named something else to prevent any confusion.
>
> [Paul:]
> I agree with Dan, this is a key point in Pirsig's thought - explained in
> detail in ZMM but not so much in Lila which concentrates on the
> application of the MOQ's evolutionary model to an interpretation of
> history. Personally, it was when I considered the relationship between
> idealism and the MOQ that Pirsig's ideas really hit home. I'm not sure
> how clearly I can explain my understanding but I'll give it a go.
>
> I think the relationship between the MOQ and idealism is summed up in
> the statement Dan quoted from Lila's Child
>
> "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 p.202]
>
> The meaning of "Quality comes first" is described in simple terms in
> SODV
>
> "The Metaphysics of Quality follows the empirical tradition here in
> saying that the senses are the starting point of reality, but -- all
> importantly -- it includes a sense of value. Values are phenomena. To
> ignore them is to misread the world. It says this sense of value, of
> liking or disliking, is a primary sense that is a kind of gatekeeper for
> everything else an infant learns. At birth this sense of value is
> extremely Dynamic but as the infant grows up this sense of value becomes
> more and more influenced by accumulated static patterns." [SODV]
>
> The starting point of reality is primarily an assertion of values.
> However, these values are patterns of experience which are not enough to
> constitute an enduring reality of objects ordered in space and time. In
> Lila, Pirsig explains how Quality produces objects
>
> "If [a] baby ignores this force of Dynamic Quality it can be speculated
> that he will become mentally retarded, but if he is normally attentive
> to Dynamic Quality he will soon begin to notice differences and then
> correlations between the differences and then repetitive patterns of the
> correlations. But it is not until the baby is several months old that he
> will begin to really understand enough about that enormously complex
> correlation of sensations and boundaries and desires called an object to
> be able to reach for one. This object will not be a primary experience.
> It will be a complex pattern of static values derived from primary
> experience.
>
> Once the baby has made a complex pattern of values called an object and
> found this pattern to work well he quickly develops a skill and speed at
> jumping through the chain of deductions that produced it, as though it
> were a single jump." [Lila p.137]
>
> I think the phrase "once the baby has made a complex pattern of values
> called an object and found this pattern to work well" is important here.
> The baby "finds the pattern to work well"; this is a further assertion
> of value which selects a particular correlation of patterns over others.
> The pattern is not corresponding to anything fixed.
>
> These assertions of value constitute the "chains of deduction" which
> create "objects". They are intellectual assertions of value. Therefore,
> in the MOQ, like idealism, objects are mental constructs. However, this
> leaves the metaphysical problem of explaining why the mental constructs
> made by individuals are similar enough to constitute a shared
> "objective" reality. Instead of postulating a mind of god, an absolute
> mind, or similar non-empirical claim, the MOQ says that
>
> "What guarantees the objectivity of the world in which we live is that
> this world is common to us with other thinking beings. Through the
> communications that we have with other men we receive from them
> ready-made harmonious reasonings. We know that these reasonings do not
> come from us and at the same time we recognize in them, because of their
> harmony, the work of reasonable beings like ourselves. And as these
> reasonings appear to fit the world of our sensations, we think we may
> infer that these reasonable beings have seen the same thing as we; thus
> it is that we know we haven't been dreaming. It is this harmony, this
> quality if you will, that is the sole basis for the only reality we can
> ever know." [ZMM p.268]
>
> and that this quality is
>
> "... the sense of harmony of the cosmos, which makes us choose the facts
> most fitting to contribute to this harmony. It is not the facts but the
> relation of things that results in the universal harmony that is the
> sole objective reality." [ZMM p.268]
>
> In the MOQ, ideas are primarily assertions of value, assertions of a
> sense of intellectual harmony. They have to be, everything is primarily
> an assertion of value. The assertions are made "individually" but also
> learned and supported through participation in cultural relationships.
> These relationships maintain and pass on the socially approved
> constructions which are a society's "common sense".
>
> So the question remains - if ideas come first, how can the MOQ say that
> inorganic nature comes first? I think the answer is found in the
> statement that the MOQ itself is primarily an intellectual pattern of
> values, and within that intellectual pattern one of the major value
> assertions states that
>
> "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 p.532]
>
> So in the MOQ, the ordering of the evolutionary framework of levels is
> postulated as the best description of reality selected with a sense of
> value from a variety of alternatives. As such, the idea of intellect
> being the latest static level to evolve is also part of the "best
> description" even though, to be consistent, the description itself then
> must be located within the intellectual level! It is important to
> remember that, in the MOQ, the fundamental reality is not associated
> with the levels or the description but with "best", which can be
> translated as the "most harmonious", the "highest quality", and that the
> value that produces descriptions is prior to the talk of all levels. On
> this subject, Pirsig writes to Ant McWatt:
>
> "When we speak of an external world guided by evolution it's normal to
> assume that it is really there, is independent of us and is the cause of
> us. The MOQ goes along with this assumption because experience has shown
> it to be an extremely high quality belief for our time. But unlike
> materialist metaphysics, the MOQ does not forget that it is still just a
> belief - quite different from beliefs in the past, from beliefs of other
> present cultures, and possibly from beliefs we will all have in the
> future. What will decide which belief prevails is, of course, its
> quality."
>
> Although [perhaps?] difficult to grasp, once this is understood I find
> ZMM, Lila, SODV and Lila's Child and other available correspondence to
> be consistent and capable of embedding aspects of idealism and
> materialism into a single "valuist" metaphysics, of which the MOQ is one
> version.
>
> Bo also wrote:
>
> "You seem to create a Metaphysics of Language (MOL) and why not? The
> genius of Pirsig is the "something" Dynamic/Static ...organic,
> biological ...etc. BUT QUALITY IS THE BEST "something"."
>
> This says a lot to me about how Bo sees the MOQ and why he can't see how
> Pirsig can say that although ideas come before matter, the idea [of
> evolution] that matter comes first is of higher quality to believe and
> is therefore how the MOQ levels are ordered.
>
> Whilst many different metaphysics may be built around an "ineffable
> source", as I understand it, without "Quality" or "value" as a central
> term, Pirsig's particular metaphysics makes no sense. I don't think you
> can replace the term "Quality" with "language" or "intelligence" or
> "consciousness" without destroying the whole thesis. To repeat a quote
> from above, Pirsig starts from the assumption that..
>
> "It is this harmony, this quality if you will, that is the sole basis
> for the only reality we can ever know."
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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