Hi Steve, [Steve] > Pirsig said the MOQ is an intellectual pattern and therefore part of the > fourth level and he never described a fifth level.
[Pirsig] "Third, there were moral codes that established the supremacy of the intellectual order over the social order-democracy, trial by jury, freedom of speech, freedom of the press. Finally there's a fourth Dynamic morality which isn't a code. He supposed you could call it a "code of Art" or something like that, but art is usually thought of as such a frill that that title undercuts its importance." (Lila, 13) [Steve] > I agree with him. I can't > see the MOQ as part of a fifth level because a fifth level would have to be > categorically different from the fourth in the way that a living being is > different from an inanimate object or a city is different from a living > being or an essay is different from a city. I don't see this sort of > difference in kind between the MOQ and some version of SOM. They are both > still philosophies. [Pirsig] In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance art was defined as high quality endeavor. I have never found a need to add anything to that definition. But one of the reasons I have spent so much time in this paper describing the personal relationship of Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr in the development of quantum theory is that although the world views science as a sort of plodding, logical methodical advancement of knowledge, what I saw here were two artists in the throes of creative discovery. They were at the cutting edge of knowledge plunging into the unknown trying to bring something out of that unknown into a static form that would be of value to everyone. As Bohr might have loved to observe, science and art are just two different complementary ways of looking at the same thing. In the largest sense it is really unnecessary to create a meeting of the arts and sciences because in actual practice, at the most immediate level they have never really been separated. They have always been different aspects of the same human purpose." (SODV) If you substitute "philosophy" for "science" in the above passage it will perhaps help explain why I attribute the MOQ to a Code of Art. With the MOQ, Pirsig plunged "into the unknown trying to bring something out of that unknown into a static form that would be of value to everyone." As for the necessity of being categorically different than the previous level, in what category would you put Beethoven's Fifth Symphony? Seems to me a category embracing the arts is needed in Pirsig's moral hierarchy. On the other hand, Pirsig's broad definition of the intellectual level in a note in Lila's Child could arguably include the arts: "It (the Intellectual Level) is the collection and manipulation of symbols, created in the brain, that stand for patterns of experience." (Note 25) Perhaps you're right -- the MOQ is strictly within the intellectual level. But I would maintain it's intellect from a new point of view, just as Duchamp's "Nude Descending a Staircase" was a new view that helped launch modern abstract art. Regards, Platt Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
