There was a one day delay in the upgrading of my computer and address so I am able to get this one post out.
I would like to address our respected colleague David B's Post. Dmb:I agree that the conversation is a bit of a mess but I don't blame the MOQ for that. Mati: Nether do I. I said it at the conference in Liverpool the failure of my attempt or anybody else's should not be a reflection of MOQ as a whole which I firmly believe is sound with the one exception of the social/intellectual delineation or more specifically the definition of the intellectual level. Dmb: I also agree that the question is too vague. Mati: I conceded that before, it was merely a example. The general point is that we as humans today are composed or maintain all three or four value sets. Pirsig went to great length to show that Lila only really composed of three levels. "Biologically she is fine, socially she's pretty far down the scale, intellectually she's nowhere. But Dynamically . Ah! That is the one to watch." Pg 186. In Pirsig has once describe that DQ pervades all the levels. But if one of the levels is not present then what? Can Lila poses DQ Intellect, if so then where is the wake of SQ Intellect. Surely it would have been noticed by Pheadrus. I think Lila has managed to manipulate he social level reasonably well and that might count for the DQ that he is referring to. Perhaps Pheadrus was a bit harsh putting her "pretty far down the scale." But it was his observation not mine. What happens when Phedrus meets Reet the complete package. Krimel answer "can only be an intellectual formation" and you suggest only social values. Personal I think both of you missed the mark and that she has both. Joe went down and listed social or intellect. As I created the transcript I was trying to carefully embed both. From my estimation there were a few more social than Joe had. In addition there is a linguistic context issue of how and what she said as well. Using the analogy of a forest you do look at every leaf, or every word, implied or literal meaning. How about a branch, or every phrase, next the tree itself as a sentence. Or the forest as a whole or the entire transcript as the best mirror we have of Reet's conveyed thoughts on the question. One thing occurred to me is that perhaps the question may have been poorly conceived, but more importantly the answer that was given was pure and pristine and some might suggest a dynamic quality. However Pirsig has mentioned it before, once a word is spoken it is static. Yet all four of us are reasonably well versed in Pirsig's work and yet we take something different from what we know about social and intellectual values and see Reet from a variety of values perspective. The larger point is there is no agreement as to how to clearly discern what should be intellect or social set of values to determine what values are there or not. If Reet's answer is pure and pristine and our perspectives are varied, then we need a better pair of glasses to see what Reet is telling us. The glasses I am referring to is concise understanding of what it means to be a value of intellect or intellectual value. If not then the social and intellectual values become whatever you see and erodes any potential clarity or greater understanding MOQ might provide as a whole. In my previous post I noted that this whole approach of using MOQ in this manner might not be what Pirsig intended. But, again respectfully, I can't help but wonder if in both ZAMM and Lila that underlying theme is the failure of SOM in seeing the world in the researching quality or Indians. That by introducing MOQ as a metaphysical foundation as a better metaphysical approach, would not spill into fields such as anthology, and that MOQ should have application potential in the academic research world. Dmb: Seems to me that one could interview a cross section of Estonians and get usable data if the questions were written along the same lines. You know, you'd be looking for correlations that reach down from that classic conflict. You'd ask about attitudes toward sex and drugs and other vices to see if that goes hand in hand with religious beliefs, respect for authority, attitudes toward the military, toward wealth, toward status. You'd also ask a series of questions that would likewise reflect intellectual values. In fact, my number one concern is no longer with defeating SOM or scientific objectivity but rather with getting philosophical mysticism to fly in that world. I think it can be done, so far so good in fact, but it'll still probably be the hardest part. Mati: Interestingly enough that one of the possible approaches suggested by my dissertation committee in my research project, however in the end it was the capacity to define the social and intellectual in a concise way that did me in. But your concern related to "philosophical mysticism", pardon my ignorance but I believe you are referring to the DQ aspect of reality, is certainly I believe valid, however part of why I approach this exercise in this fashion was to hear and collect Reet response in the most Dynamic context possible. In Lila, Pirsig writes, The main part of his (Pheadrus) eccentricity seemed to be his refusal to accept "objectivity" as an anthropological criterion. He didn't think objectivity had any place in proper conduct of anthropological study. . "The trouble with the objective approach," Dusenberry said, "is that you don't learn much that way. The only way to find out about Indians is to care for them and win their love and respect. then they will do almost anything for you . But if you don't do that." he would shake his head and his thoughts would trail off." Pg 35 Reet by most standards was receptive to the question and shared her answer as a whole. What she shared was a potential blueprint of the values that make her up in response to that specific question. If I doing a more objective approach using the methodology as you suggested, my fear is that we don't get as accurate of a picture of who she is. She then is reduced to responding to a set of preordained criteria of values that may or may not represent who she really is, our quality of responses is potentially lowered, and that might be ok depending what you want to learn from Reet. But by doing that Reet fades in the objective reality, which to me is a personal disrespect to who she as a whole human. Again your method may be sound but intuitively it distances me with the subject I have come to learn from. Specifically I want to look at the patterns of Reet and the others participants in such a study is to see if there is a larger pattern that might understand how as a society we are moving socially and intellectually, I want to apply MOQ "Anthropologically". If MOQ is as good as we think it is, then it has to find a way to work in the world of research. Maybe there is a better way to do this but until we can figure out how, I believe MOQ will never be able to gain greater acceptance in the academic world. And who knows maybe that is ok. See you all in a couple of days, Mati 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/
