RE: MD New levels, budding rebels

From: Paul Turner (paulj.turner@ntlworld.com)
Date: Wed Dec 03 2003 - 17:18:59 GMT

  • Next message: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT: "Re: MD Democracy in the MOQ"

    Hi Bo

    > Paul prev:
    > What would that level be called? Static patterns of Quality quality?
    > Quality patterns of value?

    Bo said:
    Steve asked me the same question a while ago and my response is
    notorious vague because I haven't found a satisfactory formulation.

    Paul:
    You used the following argument in another thread to demonstrate your
    problem with "Dynamic" intelligence being equivalent with static
    intellect:

    "If one (as a thought experiment) picked - say - intelligence as the new
    "groundstuff" it might be instrumental to our understanding of the MOQ
    because when one arrives at the "static intellectual intelligence" level
    one would see that STATIC intelligence had to be different from both
    "thinking" and "abstraction" (symbols) because these ARE intelligence by
    definition."

    But your fifth level has exactly the same consequences. You end up with
    static quality quality, or in your jargon, Q-quality. The (static)
    quality level you are postulating has to be different to the (Dynamic)
    quality that Pirsig is referring to as "groundstuff" and so would be
    called static quality (which is of course the description applicable to
    all levels) and your metaphysics would be thoroughly confusing whilst
    adding nothing to our understanding.

    In addition, your new level would still have to contain itself in its
    own framework and so it suffers exactly the same "problem" you see with
    intellect.
     
    Bo said:
    You call such a 5th level's patterns "quality quality", but I stick to
    the "rebel" concept.

    Paul:
    I don't call it anything because I don't postulate a fifth level. Your
    "rebel" concept is a fudge to try and avoid the inevitable consequences
    described above.

    Bo said:
    The notion that the MOQ can be explained by intellect's logic is the
    "weak interpretation" while the one that it is a "level" beyond
    intellect with its own logic is the "strong interpretation".

    Paul:
    You use "intellect's logic" to mean "Aristotelian logic" or "SOM logic"
    which is your own limited definition of intellect, not Pirsig's. The
    "level beyond intellect" is direct experience, Buddhist "awareness,"
    Dynamic Quality. As such, it is not a static level of any description.

    Bo said:
    All efforts to explain the MOQ from SOM's premises (intellect's) leads
    to something resembling the Schrødinger Cat paradox. Best demonstrated
    by the LC annotation that we discussed in the "What comes first"
    thread).

    Paul:
    I don't see the analogy. Can you explain the similarities?

    Paul

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