So long, Bo! I'll really miss you!
On 5/18/08 11:48 AM, "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > MOQ Discuss. > > This began as a reply to Joe but grew into an essay and will be a > "swan song" for me because am to withdraw for an indeterminable > time (did I hear a sigh of relief) > > On 13 May Joseph Maurer wrote: > >> A discussion among friends! I like that. Yes, Bo, I lived before >> Pirsig wrote ZAMM or LILA. I had an education and I approach MOQ >> with respect, but it is not all that I think about. My >> understanding of your concern is that we should not discuss >> evolution from any other viewpoint than MOQ. You understand Pirsig >> as saying that the highest level he discusses is SOL. .... > > SOL (the 4th. level=S/O) has implications for the MOQ but doesn't > question its basic tenet (so it's no sectarian) namely that reality's > deepest split isn't S/O but DQ/SQ consequently the SOM was and > remains MOQ's antagonist and most telling, nowhere in the history of > philosophy do I find anyone identifying a SOM, perhaps because it's > SOM's history (the wood and the trees metaphor) Like all levels it was > progress at first, only much later - as its complexity grew - did it start to > spawn "platypus" and around young Phaedrus' time they had become > acute, hence ZAMM's crusade against SOM, and perhaps why LILA > doesn't mentiones it, Phaedrus had been "killed" by intellect's (SOM's) > immune system) and the emerging Pirsig had forgotten his earlier > ideas. > > There seemingly were earlier efforts to tackle the S/O enigma, Hegel's > metaphysics began as an alternative to Immanuel Kant (who was > SOM' final word) but it didn't succeed, his (Hegel's) saying that "the > thing in itself" is even more ineffable than Kant postulated it just > cements it further. And his saying that there is nothing outside > "thinking" does not remove what thinking is about. No, the S/O is > ineradicable, Phaedrus stroke of genius was to postulate another > metaphysic that integrates SOM. This last point is crucial and where > Pirsig betrays Phaedrus original MOQ. At this site we see that no one > ever applies the MOQ to anything *) without such an integration (the > SOL) the MOQ has zero point zero explanatory power. > > *) An exception for Platt and Chris. > > As we know ZAMM points to ancient Greece as SOM's birthplace and > that it went into hibernation during the Middle Ages. Most telling > because the S/O split seems not to have concerned the Medieval > thinkers, to them everything was about religion and if God was a spirit > (S) or flesh (O) was no issue. This fits because the Middle Ages was a > retreat to the social-mythological level where the non-S/O is absent. > With the Renaissance (intellect rebounding) the SOM gradually re- > emerged, Descartes is a name here, not that he addressed the S/O as > a problem (at this stage it was entirely a progress) he merely stated > the fact that man was a (thinking) subject entirely distanced from the > material world. > > With Spinoza however the S/O starts to be a topic for philosophical > discourse and with the empiricists it became a real headache > climaxing with Berkeley who demonstrates without a hitch that there is > nothing "out there" all qualities are created by our senses (subjective). > This sounds much like Phaedrus of ZAMM addressing the objective > horn of the S/O dilemma, but these philosophers differ from him by > NOT identifying the S/O as a metaphysics, they took it for God-given. > Even Berkeley who refuted a material world postulates that it existed in > God's "mind" > > As said Immanuel Kant came to represent SOM's final word. Not only > are the sense qualities (taste, smell, sound, colors) subjective, time, > space and causation are also man-made "filters" that reality is strained > through before it reaches consciousness. What the said reality is > before being filtered (the thing in itself) is completely and utterly > ineffable. He called his own ideas a "Copernican Revolution". Earlier > philosophy believed that nature showed us its laws, rules and > relationships etc. but it was the other way: these originated in (our) > mind. > > And thus things stood when Pirsig arrived, Kant had closed the case > on SOM, he dominated western philosophy so completely that no > thinkers after him raised the S/O issue. Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Marx, > all took up some other aspect of existence, so did Heidegger, Husserl > and Sartre. Even Pirsig in ZAMM began by applying Kant to his > motorcycle discourse so also he saw this as our time's premises. And > young Phaedrus' dropping out of school was after encountering the > S/O- generated paradoxes (that the number of hypothesis to explain > any phenomenon is infinite) but at that point he saw it as a flaw in > reality's fabric, only much later he had Quality epiphany and the > realization that the S/O was a metaphysics that had entered history at > a particular time. > > The rest we know. He presented the first alternative to SOM by > postulating that subjects and objects were a product of Quality and > that the metaphysics based on them (SOM) had arrived with the > ancient Greeks. In ZAMM only subjects and objects were the first > Romantic/Classic MOQ's (classic=static) subset and - most telling - > called "intellect". In LILA the static range had grown to four levels, but > the intellectual was no longer S/O, but something that resembled > SOM's mind. Later he tried to mend it (the Turner letter) but the > "symbol manipulation" was even worse than the mindish one. > > I don't know if this has brought the SOL point across to you (Joe) I > have the impression that most people believe that Pirsig's message is > that everything is theories and that reality (now called Quality) is as > much beyond our grasp as it was to Kant. And no wonder after all he > says that the MOQ is just a theory about Quality. But this is the wrong, > the real Quality message is: > > 1) "There's no reality beyond a metaphysics (no one can avoid > metaphysics). > > 2) MOQ's metaphysical split is along the DQ/SQ axis. > > 3) The highest static stage is the S/O (now no longer a metaphysics > but a value) > > Only this way the SOM is safely assimilated, any other arrangement > makes the MOQ a SOM subsidiary. Now a more sober tone, My folly is > to believe that something as enormous as a metaphysical (SOM- > MOQ) shift can happen overnight. Three centuries passed between > the quest for eternal principles and the first outlines of SOM with > Aristotle, and we don't know how many conflicts took place during this > time (except the Plato/Sophists one) and now it's just thirty-some > years since ZAMM's publication. It will certainly be a long haul before > "our" Aristotle arrives. > > Joe ctd: > >> I agree with that, but from my experience I accept a way of talking >> SOL that would accept that evolution is not completely dormant even >> when MOQ is the focus. Perhaps evolution has continued, and there >> is a MOQ meta-level in consciousness only? How many more levels? > > In SOM "evolution" usually means the biological one, but it also covers > the big picture from the formation of stars and planets, the emergence > of biological life on earth that eventually became imbued with mind and > rose above it all and became self-conscious. Hence SOM's impossible > conclusion: The world is either a mind product or mind an > evolutionary fallout. With the advent of the MOQ evolution is the static > levels, their emergence and internal growth, and about that we have > an endless source for investigation. > > So long > > Bo > > > > > > > > > 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/ 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/
