Ham and all moqtalking heads
Introduction:
I had to purchase a new computer and this can only handle the Windows
Mail and being unfamiliar with this cheap mail program my following
posts may be a bit strange. Does anyone know if there is a line length
regulator or is it necessary to hit the "enter" button to shift to a new
line?
-------------------
Anyway, you (Ham) said:
Nothing without its opposite (being) is an absolute void--the 'monism' of
empty space. Being subtended by nothing, however, describes existence:
i.e., things and events in space. A monad is undifferentiated 'oneness' in
which opposition is equilivency. Clearly the experiential world that we
call existence is not a monism, since it is both differentiated and
relational.
Well, does not this support my decade long struggle for MOQ's
first postulate being "Reality=DQ/SQ" rather than "Reality=
Quality"? And it further shows that the culprit is the box diagram that
mislead Pirsig to visualize a Quality remaining after the DQ/SQ
split. The error is also shown in same kind of diagram of SOM. There is
no one who considers the S/O-split to be secondary to a
Reality something and I'm aghast that Pirsig didn't see
this.
Ham:
The most fundamental contrariety is being vs. nothingness, and it becomes
experienced as "being-aware".
Being/Nothingness is a SOM offspring too. Am I forced to give a
cultural history course in each post?. The idea is that SOM
emerged out a mythological past that did not have any idea
about an existence in contrast to no-existence. In MOQ this
becomes the intellectual level emergence from the social, thus
philosophy in general is a 4th-level pattern (S/O) in the sense of
search for truth.
I totally agree that Quality is not fundamental from an ontological
point of view, and that simply integrating patterns or levels of
Quality does not reduce existence to a monad. Whether we define
Quality or Value as "'betterness", "excellence", "rightness", or
"Arete", the definition always presupposes a subjective referent --
that is, cognitive apprehension of an other. Unperceived Quality is an
oxymoron.
I would like to see the - sorry - silliness of this sentence:
"...definition always presupposes a subjective referent - that is,
cognitive apprehension of an other".
This stems from a reasoning that goes like this: "Humankind
possesses mind where thinking takes place, thus everything is
man-made. This is 100% valid but also 100% stale unless the
basis for a Man or Individual metaphysics.
The perennal problem I have with your "Intellect", Bo, is that you regard
it as a "level" AT ALL. To me, this is like defining Intelligence as the
information in a library, or Awareness as the cumulative tally of a public
poll. Intellect simply does not exist independently of the human mind.
Intellect is "the power of knowing as distinguished from the power to feel
and to will." Likewise, Intellection is the exercise of the intellect in
reasoning. Only the individual can intellectualize.
The perennial problem is the "intellectual" term which by common
usage has come to mean thinking or intelligence In the MOQ the organism
known as Homo Sapiens was the biological pattern that DQ "rode" to the
social level, which in turn spawned the intellectual level and thus
"man" is found to be an intellectual S/O pattern.
As I see it, there are two major fallacies in Pirsig's philosophy. The
first is that a psycho-emotional response to something of value logically
qualifies as the primary, undifferentiated reality. The second is that
the intellect is not indigenous to the cognizant individual. They are
"major" fallacies because, regardless of how we choose to 'levelize
reality, the whole MoQ thesis rests on these two propositions.
You and I may sound like two old-home inmates talking without
listening to the other, anyway your fallacy is to start from SOM's
"man" (as owner of the mind where all is) IMO "man" like "language"
and/or "mind" must be omitted, because it can be proved without a
hitch that "all is" these three entities and a such is completely stale
... unless a metaphysics of MAN, of MIND, or of LANGUAGE
is constructed
Get it?
Bo
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ham Priday" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2008 6:37 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] What is the MOQ?
Hi Bo --
About nothing existing without a contrast is a deep insight,
but doesn't this show that there can be no monisms, that
existence is dualist to the core and the only task is to find
the best dualism?
Nothing without its opposite (being) is an absolute void--the 'monism' of
empty space. Being subtended by nothing, however, describes existence:
i.e., things and events in space. A monad is undifferentiated 'oneness' in
which opposition is equilivency. Clearly the experiential world that we
call existence is not a monism, since it is both differentiated and
relational.
If Taoism or Buddhism sees this (dualism) context, but just makes
it even more elusive (the moon that various theories points to)
they don't resolve anything.
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.
The most fundamental contrariety is being vs. nothingness, and it becomes
experienced as "being-aware". I totally agree that Quality is not
fundamental from an ontological point of view, and that simply integrating
patterns or levels of Quality does not reduce existence to a monad.
Whether
we define Quality or Value as "'betterness", "excellence", "rightness", or
"Arete", the definition always presupposes a subjective referent -- that
is,
cognitive apprehension of an other. Unperceived Quality is an oxymoron.
[Bo, to Krimel]:
The I/You is not a S/O derivative, but you are right the DQ/SQ
is more fundamental than the S/O and as it began in ZAMM
(by making the earlier S/O dualism's into the "intellectual" part
of the new metaphysics) it resolves all paradoxes. And had the
4th level (of the final MOQ) been kept that way, it would have
been revolution, but as it is the Buddhist in Pirsig*) made him
make Quality the "moon" and the MOQ just another finger.
So what you see as muddling I see as a lost opportunity.
The perennial problem I have with your "Intellect", Bo, is that you regard
it as a "level" AT ALL. To me, this is like defining Intelligence as the
information in a library, or Awareness as the cumulative tally of a public
poll. Intellect simply does not exist independently of the human mind.
Intellect is "the power of knowing as distinguished from the power to feel
and to will." Likewise, Intellection is the exercise of the intellect in
reasoning. Only the individual can intellectualize.
As I see it, there are two major fallacies in Pirsig's philosophy. The
first is that a psycho-emotional response to something of value logically
qualifies as the primary, undifferentiated reality. The second is that
the
intellect is not indigenous to the cognizant individual. They are "major"
fallacies because, regardless of how we choose to 'levelize' reality, the
whole MoQ thesis rests on these two propositions.
As someone you quoted (Krimel, or was it Case?) put it:
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 Pirsig's description of random access he says that a
metaphysics of quality would be a metaphysics of randomness.
The theory of "random access" to knowledge (presumably by mankind) is
unsupported by any epistemology I'm aware of, and would seem to be yet
another MoQ fallacy. I question the assertion that a flawed metaphysics
can
"provide a pretty good guide" to a new reality perspective, and would
humbly
suggest that the flaws be corrected before presenting further analyses of
this philosophy to the general public.
Essentially yours,
Ham
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