Steve: Or, using another analogy, saying that a Metaphysics of Quality is false and a subject-object metaphysics is true is like saying that rectangular coordinates are true and polar coordinates are false...Both are simply intellectual patterns for interpreting reality and one can only say that in some circumstances rectangular coordinates provide a better, simpler interpretation." Regards, Steve
Andre: Hi Steve and thank you for responding to my post. I agree with you but maybe haven't made my concern clear to you. As you, I will quote Pirsig and make my own comments in between, to clarify this concern ( Lila p385): 'Nothing disturbs a bishop (our SOMÃte) quite so much as the presence of a saint ( our MoQ'er)...The saint's dynamic understanding [!!!] (this is what I miss in the SOM 'reasoning) makes him unpredictable and uncontrollable ( which SOM has a tendency to subvert/ to undermine/ to stultify/ to objectify/ to relegate to the subjective level, in the negative sense), but the bishop's got a whole calendar of static ceremonies to attend to; (this is what I mean) fund-raising projects to push forward, bills to pay, parishioners (other SOMists) to meet (and perhaps to receive some celebrity status/recognition from). That saint's (again our MoQ'er) going to up-end everything if he isn't handled diplomatically ( my interpretation of this is that if you do not approach his position dynamically..not use the same interpretations that you have [ e.g the cause -and-effect relationship is changed into one of preferential fusion, the 'substance concept is one of [preferential..moral] inorganic PoV's, the 'mind/matter platopus etc etc). And *even *then he (our MoQ'er) may do something wildly unpredictable that upsets everybody (!!). What a quandry! It can take the bishops ( all of our SOM'ites) years, decades, even centuries to put down the hell (challenges to SOM thinking and reasoning) that the saint can raise in a single day ( and by the Bhudda and everything else under/ beneath and over the sun this MoQ is doing just that). In all religions ( SOM and all its variants and derivatives) bishops ( our SOM' ites yet again!) tend to gild Dynamic Quality with all sorts of static interpretations because their cultures require it. But these interpretations become like golden vines that cling to a tree, shut out its sunlight and eventually strangle it." And this is precisely the heart of my concern about Dynamic Quality, its essence/ its intrinsic value/ the very essence of what makes us human beings... what we are and what we are capable of... .SOM is stifling this. The stifling of this DQ through (albeit perhaps unintended consequences of the SOM's ,dialectical way of reasoning and arrival at 'truth'...and we have to conform to this idea) makes us , in many ways, servants of something outside ourselves, something we do not recognise, what we do not want to be, robots who are programmed into doing what we are told in the name of truth and quality ( China, China.....I am hurting on your behalf !) but are forced to follow and obey because...afterall it is the truth and this is unshakeable...until such time as something else will come along. Our lives are not ours anymore and this is what I felt that Robert Pirsig gave me (and all of us) back through the MoQ. We cannot let this escape from us. And any pseudo addition of logical positivism allowing'/ recognising bits and pieces of subjective interpretations and considerations I regard with suspicion because they are not subsumed within a greater whole and the greater whole for me at the moment is the MOQ. Steve, this has been a bit of a story and I hope you are still here. Remember the coordinates question Pirsig was confronted with on his map sailing into the harbour of Cleveland? Well, he was in Cleveland without him realising it. The map in his hand may have been accurate, but the map in his mind may also have been accurate.The signals and indicators could have been changed and his map would have let him down and his intellect. This is the heart of my post: the code of Art, the direct experience, the killing of the intellectual patterns if you really want to get somewhere... wherever this may be. SOM tells you...the MoQ guides you, encourages you, facilitates you, allowing yourself complete freedom... unless you feel obliged by static patterns to remain where you are. This is your choice. For what it has been worth Andre 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/
