[Bo] The MOQ is a most neat and categorical ordering of existence along the DQ/DQ split (white) and a total break with the S/O one (black) but the latter must find a place within MOQ's static range (there's no metaphysical trash can) Pirsig postulates a method where the two lower levels are objective and the two upper are subjective, but this fails at several points. Had he followed up on ZAMM where "intellect" is the S/O very split all would have been fine. But all this you possibly know, please tell me how you see Pirsig missing points.
[Krimel] Well, OK, here's a start. I think we agree with one another that ZMM is Pirsig's better work. My problems there are few and mostly minor. The biggest error he makes on ZMM as far as I am concerned is applying the term Quality to the Tao. The problem with this as I have explained many times is that "quality" is a word that has specific meaning to western ears. Much of that meaning Pirsig covers in ZMM and gets attached to the term as he tries to bring it to westerners. But there are other meanings of the term that are best understood by understanding that we don't understand the term at all. If you know what to look for, it is there. An important sense of Tao is that it is a journey and after all, ZMM is the story of a journey. The destination is not nearly as important is the traveling and that is built into the structure of the novel. However, when rendered into our discussions here the significance is lost. Since Pirsig uses a term we know, it is difficult to shake the delusion that we know it. What gives Taoism its metaphysical significance is that it is a tool for resolving dualities. It helps us see that we understand dualistic pairs in virtue of their reference to one another. Each element of the pair does not exist for us without its opposite. What Pirsig is searching for is the most elemental of opposite pairs. The mind/matter or I/Thou distinction is commonly held as primary in the west and in Lila, Pirsig attempts to show the DQ and SQ are even more fundamental. Again this is pure Taoism but he gets it all muddled by insisting that Quality and DQ are the same thing and that they are always good or have something to do with betterness. His whole system of levels is an instructive exercise in how we might apply an understanding of the world around us as SQ and DQ. He uses it in his critique of science, social science and social patterns over the last century. I find each of these analyses individually flawed but taken as a whole they provide a pretty good guide to an approach to seeing the world not so much as I/Thou but as change and stasis. In Lila for example his finger points directly at several really critical points that he obviously appreciates but doesn't fully grasp. His discourse on random access is a particularly important missed point. He fully appreciates the importance of random access and his description of it is about as good as it gets. But he stops well short of what that finger points to. Random access thinking is an entirely new phenomenon. It didn't exist at all two or three centuries ago and even well into the 20th century it was a very primitive business. The use of slips and card catalogs should be familiar to even the oldest of old timers here but computerized use of random access is a qualitative leap in human consciousness. Google is to a library card catalog as... I'm sorry this beggars my capacity to construct analogies. In Pirsig's description of random access he says that a metaphysics of quality would be a metaphysics of randomness. He opens the window stares into the light, points at it and turns away. He is not the only one to do this I have seen James, Russell, Hume and many others do it as well. They see the importance of randomness and chance but regard the task of dealing with it as hopeless and so point and move on. The task is not hopeless and I think Pirsig points The Way. But instead of hopping on board and sailing away he builds a 'head boat' with levels of frou frou and has left you and many others squabbling about where this or that bit of superficial ornamentation out to hang. The video that you obviously either did not watch or did not understand shows the way around this. It shows a better way to see the world and the MoQ in terms of randomness, SQ, DQ and the Tao. But that's enough for now. There's more but I suspect you aren't ready for this much less that. 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/
