Platt and All. 15 July:
I think I'll tell a story, you may have heard it many times, but it conveys my point better than all this tedious philosophy. In it's time I was oppressed by SOM. Not that the I knew any SOM, it was the mind/matter abyss, ourselves as isolated minds fundamentally alienated from other minds and - most of all - from reality, only approaching "it" by way of theories, that however close only were subjective descriptions of an enigmatic something. I knew the impossibility of this dualism, but it did not alleviate my oppression, it merely looked like an added sadistic game that existence played with us. Like a child playing with an ant not capable of understanding that the huge shape above it was its tormentor. I wandered through libraries and browsed through books in a search for some answer, but no one seemed to care.I mean a lot of thinkers addressed the M/M paradoxes and problems - the empiricists for instance - but only like myself in a more abstract way, pointing to the strange "thing in itself" world that we subjectively added qualities to. The more modern philosophers that DMB promotes I hadn't heard of, but they would not have helped, as said there's no lack of "criticisms" of the mind/matter schism, but no one has identified it as a metaphysics - as a SOM - entering history at a particular time. Not until Robert Pirsig. I came across "Zen and the Art .." in 1978 and it turned my tables. Phaedrus seemed even more oppressed than myself, but more capable of challenging it, as said I believed it was the way existence was "prefabricated". I need not repeat my first reading but even writing about it some thirty years later it moves me. Well, as we know, he had his Quality epiphany and by and by he made the in-out turn of the reality "sock": The subject/object divide was no abyss but a Quality fall- out. Most revealing for me was the section on how SOM emerged with the old Greeks, it had not existed as SOM itself wants us to believe "always, just for the Greeks to discover". Then, even more exciting, the sketch of a new metaphysics, and now NOT in the classic sense of just another theory about an enigmatic reality, but in the sense of CLASSIC being degraded to a part of the new world order. It was this that meant revolution for me. In ZAMM (translated to moqish) DQ only had SOM as its static component, but it was also called INTELLECT!! When LILA arrived the SQ range had increased to four levels and that was fine with me, but SOM no longer was the intellectual level, and that destroyed its value. Intellect had again become the dreaded "mind" where ideas - theories - are produced about the enigmatic Quality Reality. The MOQ itself just another mind-intellectual idea- theory Phaedrus giant step for humankind had been reversed. Hope this conveys my frustration. Bodvar > > You protest > > the "MOQ being reality itself" assertion on the grounds that > > theories are conveyed by language and language is subjective > > concepts in our minds, different from reality it describes . But > > this is SOM - the MOQ seen from the intellectual level - not > > intellect seen from the MOQ. > OK, but right away I'm in trouble. When you say "intellect seen from > the MOQ" you are in a SOM description that assumes a seer and a seen. > Is there any way to express the MOQ has you "see it" without falling > back into SOM? > > > SOM (intellect) forms everything in its S/O mold. If there isn't an > > objective reality - described by a "describer" - then all is > > description, all is language. It leaves no other alternatives WE > > must break out of this S/O pattern to understand the MOQ. The said > > pattern is the highest static value, but not reality itself. > > OK. But how do we break the S/O pattern and still describe the MOQ? > > > I had said: > > > > Scientific theories can be presented as independent of the > > > > theory and the latter-day Pirsig tries the same with the MOQ, as > > > > if he accidentally discovered Quality's unique position, but as > > > > he demonstrated in ZAMM (the Newton Gravity example) he Quality > > > > Reality is the MOQ. Not as an idea in Pirsig's mind, but as the > > > > metaphysics, wherever it had its origin. > > But didn't he say in that ZAMM passage that nothing exists except in > the mind, making the Quality Reality ghost like all the other ghosts > that comprise "the whole blessed world we live in." ?? > > > Platt: > > > I need further explanation of this. Is the MOQ separate from the > > > idea of the MOQ? > > > > I would drop ideas in the "concept ... in our mind" sense.when > > talking about the MOQ because it invokes SOM's mind/matter split > > that the MOQ rejects. > > OK, the MOQ is not a concept in our mind, although in the ZAMM > passage Pirsig says, "The world has no existence whatsoever outside > the human imagination." (I presume "imagination" here means "concept > in our mind.) So if the MOQ is not a concept, it doesn't exist. Yet > you say it does. > > You see why it gets confusing? > > > > If so, where does the idea of the MOQ fit into the MOQ? > > > > The MOQ as an idea belongs to intellect. The MOQ began as an > > intellectual pattern but turned too unruly (dynamic) for comfort and > > tore loose. . > > Can you expand on that concept? > > > > Or is paradox our lot in life when it comes to thinking about > > > reality? > > > I don't see it as paradoxical unless we regard intellect in its SOM > > role as shuffling around of ideas in our mind. It's MOQ role is the > > value of the subject/object (mind/matter) DISTINCTION or AGGREGATE. > > OK. Let me try to summarize. The "Quality Reality" as you call it is a > synonym for the MOQ. So concentrate not on what the MOQ says as a > metaphysics. Instead, concentrate on what it points to -- a world of > values, best understood not by words, but by pre-verbal direct > experience. > > Some time ago I listed what I thought might be indications that > someone was in "MOQ-Land." Please let me know iff any the following > gets close to what you are driving at by restricting the intellectual > level to SOL: > > You know you're in MOQ-Land: > > When you visit an art gallery. > When you say, "That's class." > When a poem touches your heart. > When you hold a baby in your arms. > When you go with your gut instinct. > When you find meaning in mythology. > When a chill goes down your spine. > When you have a feeling of coming home. > When you lose your sense of self while working. > When you hear a jazz performer improvise. > When you deliberately seek a break from routine. > When you think, "There must be a better way." > When you consider doing nothing a viable option. > When a solution to a problem suddenly pops into your head. > When you ponder the difference between a jelly glass and fine crystal. > When you identify one who says "outrageous" as an armchair moralist. > When on seeing a butterfly your think, "A nice biological value > pattern." When you imagine that a gun pointed at you is an inorganic > value pattern than can destroy all the values of your direct > experience. > > Thanks, Bo. > > Platt > 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/
