From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Sat Dec 20 2003 - 21:30:46 GMT
Hi
Bo:"Right, Phaedrus' of ZMM's opponent was REASON and he gave it
a good thrashing (Pirsig tells Chris) by showing that it is a "ghost"
i.e: in our minds only. At this stage P. reasoned from the
subjective/objective premises where "in our mind" or "subjective" is
the lowliest designation next to unreal. "
DM: No, Pirsig was oppressed by reason, the point was to
transform it from SOM dominated reason to MOQ style
reason. Anyway, all reason is not SOM style, see Heidegger
Bergson, and Whitehead for example, and that's just 3 examples from Western
tradition.
Idealism, of course, also is SOM based, but it gives subjectivity the
highest value.
Bo:"Phaedrus arrived at a new way of thinking that had values as its
starting point, this was even at odds with the subject/object
reasoning P. himself had started from and lead him to coin the
term SOM. From this it follows that SOM=REASON, and that P.
did not modify it but LEFT IT BEHIND for a new metaphysical deal. "
DM: Yes value is seen as always present in quality, unlike SOM which
tries to associate it exclusively with the subject and excludes it from
the object and objectivity. Of course, you can create a science of the
subject
as per Hegel. But our culture has become very materialistic and focussed on
only quantitative and objective qualities. The idea of MOQ is to push all
SQ onto one side and keep value on both the SQ and DQ sides. But quality
remains the holistic bridging concept so that we do not fall into any
reality appearance split as associated with reason from a essentialist point
of view.
Hence, for me and many others, MOQ is a different way to reason, where we
cannot get away from quality/value/experience as constitutive of the world.
But this is pretty close to certain aspects of idealism. But it remains
realist
and avoids the worst excesses of dialectical reason (oh, yeah that's another
form of reason). But how else do we get to knowedge via SQ, sounds pretty
dialectical to me. You've got to propose and grasp all the SQ you can amidst
the DQ
to have anything to say at all. And if MOQ is not a form of reason, what is
it? Something
humming in your head? DQ is beyond reason. The joy of MOQ is the central
place it puts
for the gaping great contingent, creative, nothingness of Becoming, so that
we do not
forget where SQ comes from, that its is nothing rather than substance that
we touch at bottom.
SOM=reason, only if you have a very limited SOM understanding of reason.
Bo:"Now, enter LILA and the MOQ and as "intellect" in dictionaries is
defined as the capacity to reason in contrast to emotions and
instinct it is pretty obvious that MOQ's intellectual level is the
subject/object distinction. This interpretation pressed itself on me
from very early in this discussion and has grown on me since. "
DM: "MOQ's intellectual level " well that a proposal in the realm of
reason. Sure, objectivity is the game we play with our experience
where we attempt to ignore the messy stuff and handle only nice
measurable primary qualitites, but the whole point of MOQ is to do the cut,
i.e. reason differently, Pirsig proposes the SQ/DQ cut. It is only as an
intellectual that he can do this kind of analysis. But reason itself, what's
that? Pirsig takes us back to rhetoric so as to start the game up again,
to go back to the beginning and set reason off with a different map.
Heidegger does exactly the same thing with Heraclitus.
Bo:"Does Pirsig say that subjects and objects belong to the intellectual
level? He says that objects are the patterns of the inorg.+organic
levels and subjects that of the socio.+intell. levels. Its this person
that says that intellect is the VALUE of the S/O distinction. ;-) "
DM: Pirsig says lets drop the use of the term objects for SQ patterns.
The whole notion of causality is blown up by Pirsig as per SOM.
He says there are SQ pattern levels. What SOM calls objects
Pirsig places on the inorg. and organic levels. Then he looks
at social patterns and intellectual patterns. If MOQ is something
that can be discussed and communicated it is a pattern and is on
the intellectual level. "intellect is the VALUE of the S/O distinction"
what does this mean? Value exists for all levels of SQ. Of course, what
is of value is not so straight forward, and Pirsig is a bit shaky on this,
the levels gives us a tool to think with, no more, the key is of course
to recognise the value of SQ, the achievement of the cosmos, and to
enjoy it and treat it with a bit more care, and to place every 'thing' or
SQ pattern in a DQ context so that we do not over value SQ against
the benefits of DQ and vice-versa. No point buying books and not buying
any food.
Bo:"Symbols versus patterns of experience is SOM in a moqish garb,
subjective symbols versus objective experience. Had it said "the
value of a symbol/experience distinction" it would have been
perfect. "
DM:Sorry, symbols are as much a part of experience as everything else.
Bo:> "Phædrus spent his entire life pursuing a ghost. That was true. The
> ghost he pursued was the ghost that underlies all of technology, all
> of modern science, all of Western thought. It was the ghost of
> rationality itself."
"...is Pirsig (as the narrator in ZMM) telling about his past as
"Phaedrus". First that he was a superintellecual following the ghost
of reason's reasoning to the bitter end ...which meant the Quality
insight and the revelation that reason is the subject/object
metaphysics. After that he started to pursue it in the persecution
sense as I said above. "
DM: MOQ is a metaphysics, therefore is about how we reason.
Bo: "Quality beyond intellect"
DM:What does this mean? Sure, DQ is beyond reason, this is key
to the MOQ. But SQ is entirely about reason, it is what reason is
about. Patterns, how patterns fit together, how we can make use of them.
DQ (all Becoming) as source of Being, being as whatever endures
and repeats, value as our interest and relationship to SQ, reason
as a way to grasp and understand SQ, and man as where SQ and DQ
meet. A relationship that should, in fact, be full of sacred awe and care
and less grasping and manipulative and presumptious. As Heidegger says:
perhaps, beyond (subject-object) metaphysics we can 'let being be'.
regards
David M
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