BO IS BACK AND TRIES TO SORT OUT THE SOUL/SELF RIDDLE. (WITH
MUCH HELP FROM THE SQUAD)
My self(!)appointed task (of giving John B. an explanation
of how to avoid becoming a leaf in the value storm) almost equalled
Phaedrus' own effort to answer Richard Rigel about Lila's quality. As
we went by car "down" Norway to our destination in southern Sweden, I
acted as a navigator and gave (wrong) directions to my wife who did
the driving, while I thought things over. Well, we eventually arrived
and returned, but did I arrive at an answer?
Perhaps the LS oldies don't believe that old Bo seriously explored any
new openings or had the slightest intention of meeting John's
demands, they now brace themselves for my standard formula, but as
John politely asked for a summary of my SOLAQI idea, here it comes.
Very early in Lila Squad's life, the Intellectual level became hotly
debated. The tendency was to regard it as thinking itself -mental
activity - or "mind". Consequently if the SOM, as a particular way of
thinking, is replaced with another - called the MOQ - within this
realm, nothing is gained, its merely another way of shuffling ideas.
Most people tend to believe that the SOM has to be thrown out to give
room for the MOQ (despite P's words that it must be integrated).
It can be compared to believing that there is a certain amount of
wealth issued at the beginning of time and if some people get richer
some have to get poorer, which is not correct: Wealth can be
increased! Or another fallacy prevalent among the business
executives (right Roger?) that value is created in stock exchanges.
There was economics before the various -isms, even before money, but
under a different guise. This is platitudinous, but it is terribly
difficult to get out of the intellectual "Wall Street" and see that
value has had - and still have - other denominations...and will go on
changing.
The only way to save the MOQ from the mind trap (as I eventually came
to see it) was to regard the Q-Intellect as subject-object logic
itself. Not as a mental realm where thinking takes place, but merely
a very special value denomination. This has the curious consequence
that the MOQ can be seen as DQ's last attempt to circumvent its own
latest static creation ...after countless attempts has exhausted
themselves and slipped back. God, there have been many charges
against the SOM fortress, some so noble that it is almost sacrilege
to dismiss them.
Ah, but isn't the Q-logic thinking too, and where did it originate if
not in the mind (of SOM)? Yes, it is and it did, but that is not a
serious objection, the first axiom of the MOQ is that all Q-levels
sprang from their parent levels and is insolubly tied to them. Life
is of matter, societies are of individual lives and intellect is of
social myths. Naturally, an outgrowth of intellect will somehow be
intellectual-based (its second power).
I know that I should cover all flanks, but I will loose everyone's
attention trying to be pedantic. For instance when I write that
Q-intellect is SOM and that the MOQ (as a groping for a new static
latch) springs from SOM's mind, someone will ask: what about SOM's
"matter"? The materialists have a bad case and proving that
"everything is in the mind" has been done hundred of years ago. Kant
tried to save the outside (objective) reality but merely made it
completely ridiculous. Yet, despite this paradoxes the subject-
object division (in the mind-matter form) has been impossible to
break from, and the "empire" strikes back when we retain the
Q-intellect-as-mind notion.
Some people think they pay a tribute to the MOQ by pointing to
theories as "maps" and not the real terrain. Thereby they go into the
Kantian trap. Admittedly Pirsig speaks of maps in LILA, but he says
that the correct projection must be used. When at the pole a
equatorial projection is useless. I have spoken earlier how it's
impossible to switch from Relativity to Newtonian physics without by
way of the so-called Lorentz transformations. This goes for the
SOM/MOQ too and I invoke ROGER (and DAVID) as supportive here:
> I think this statement goes too far. Software exists. An intellectual
> concept is just as real as a material pattern (and just as illusory). All
> patterns or concepts are derived from direct experience, or DQ. David B. was
> right on target when he explained that subjects and objects are "real but not
> primary." Similar to Hiroshima, the SELF may not be primary, but both are
> quite real. (As for autonomy, can anything be considered autonomous in the
> MOQ where value creates the subject/object relationship and where that
> without value doesn't exist?)
My own "transformation" is to see SOM as the intellectual level of
the MOQ. "Self" is Intellect's making along with all its other
dualistic creations: self/other, me/not me, time/no time (eternity?)
and so on from here to kingdom come. There is no self in the lower
Q-levels - even Q-Soc. Homo Sapiens societies are so totally
intellect -"infested" that its hard to see in its pure form.
What Pirsig describes in ZMM (even if the term is not used) is IMHO
the emergence of the subject- object metaphysics, but seen in the
light of LILA it may as well be interpreted as the emergence of the
Q-Intellect: not as thinking, not as language, not as MIND, but as a
value about to topple the social dominance, and if so the SOLAQI is
"proved".
(If anyone have read this far please give me your opinions if this
correlation looks valid. If not what was it that took place in those
millennia )
*********************
DAVID B.
says that the Cartesian self problem is solved by
taking the social level into consideration. I agree fully, only
adding that once the Intellect brick is seen AS A VALUE BRICK - not
as MIND - the solution is even clearer.
DIANA
demonstrates the difficulty of the eastern-inspired loftiness that
constantly seeps into the discussion. It's all very well with Brahman
and Atman, but it will not be understood. East will remain East and
West..etc. forever if not the Rosetta Stone is found.
She explores the SOLAQI (as I see it) and seems to endorse it
> At the heart of the SOM lies the self. The notion that within each one of us
> lies the essence of a human being and that these selves are all equal and
> are the most important things in the world. One man one vote! Human rights!
> Equality! The most cherished values of the SOM are all derived from the
> notion that selves are the starting point of reality.
but then she goes on to search for the more essential versions of the
self - awareness, consciousness - and says that these can be degraded
and yet remain. I take the liberty to interpret it that a human being
can become demented and still protect its physical integrity (crave
nourishment) and if not so demented even protect its social integrity
(shame). Yes, but this isn't self in the intellectual sense, rather
something more fundamental. In fact the circle is closed she is
back at the original MOQ tenet: Experience=Quality=Awareness.
Here is a little fact that has been knocking on the SOM doors but
been neglected. All creatures sleep so even a fish must necessarily
"wake up" to some sort of reality different from oblivion. This is
completely unassimilatable in SOM where awareness only can be
"objective" human consciousness or nothing.
I see this as Diana's "degraded awareness" yet capable of attending
> When we "attend" what we really do is silence the self and let our
> soul-consciousness take over. Attend is a verb but it's not really something
> that a subject can intentionally do, it's the absence of intentional action
> - the transcendence out of self into soul.
Provided that her soul (now separated from self) is the
QUALITY=REALITY=AWARENESS I go along with that and can
report ......Houston! The Self/Soul has landed: "Self" is the moon
lander while the "soul" is the return module.
Bo
PS
John, I brought along your essay (Quality and Intelligence) and
is puzzled over how - after showing such insight - you can regard
the MOQ so negatively. Your post of today I haven't had the chance to
study.
PPS
All the LS-letters were of the outmost quality and it's a crying
shame not to explore them farther. Denis, Horse, Clark, Rich, Robert
S.
["Quality isn't IN the eye of the beholder.
Quality IS the eye of the beholder".
(Platt Holden)]
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
