Greetings to all,
So many intriguing and insightful comments! Where to begin? This is like
drinking from a fire hose - and I've not even re-read THE BOOK in this
century. At one time I knew it well; could quote chapter and verse with the
best of 'em. :)
Am I the only one who plays the MoQ trivia game? How fast can you classify
something into the correct static level?
An attempt to condense, but hopefully not trivialize, some of the responses,
pretty much in chronological order. If I've left you out, that probably
means I agree with you and have nothing further I could possibly add.
[Khaled]
this thought of mine, that Quality is a derivative of time and space. The
local and Period are the defining factor, therefore quality is constantly
evolving to its surrounding. being Dynamic in every sense of the word.
[Mary]
I have also thought something similar to this. Quality as an aspect of the
space-time continuum. Speaking of which, where would you classify time?
Inorganic. Really?
[Platt] The American Ruling Class
Your assumption is that when someone exchanges his wages for a box
of cereal,a bottle of milk or a stack of chips at the blackjack table that
somehow he is getting ripped off. So long as his choice is free I don't
see the problem.
[Mary]
But Platt, I would argue that most of our choices are not really choices at
all. We are not nearly as free as we think we are.
[Horse] Why isn't the hot stove obvious?
Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving
safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but to skid in sideways,
chocolate in one hand, wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally
worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!"... Hunter S Thompson
[Mary] Hunter S - The poster boy for the biological level. His problem was
making it all come out even.
[craigerb] Why isn't the hot stove obvious?
One thing that is lacking is: an ultimate outcome or goal of Quality.
Pirsig's explanation for this variety: the life experiences of the four
family members are different.
[Mary] Pirsig as Einstein - all things are relative. A recurring theme in
answers and one I find alternately attractive and unattractive. More on
that.
[markhsmit] "The Quality of Freedom "
I know something because I can relate it to something else. In my opinion,
"knowing" is beyond the intellect (definition: a mechanistic method for
relationships). Such knowing happens through something deeper. If we feel
we know something, what we are saying is that the words, actions, and logic
make us feel content. When one changes his mind, it is not because of
logic, but because it feels better. Illumination happens when the
glow of emotional attachment grows stronger. So, while it may be possible
to "define" things in relation to other things, such definition may appear
to be inadequate to a third party. Knowing through definitions is quite
different from Knowing. One can know beauty, but not be able to define it.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that greater than 90% of what we Know,
we cannot define.
[Mary] Again we hear, all things are relative. One point. There are a lot
of things I know that do not make me feel better. If you were to substitute
'believe' for 'know', I'd be with you 100%. Everything I believe is
designed to make me feel better (or, ok, to be really honest, superior) in
some way or another. Who among you can stand up and disagree with that? :)
markhsmit MOQ's "to be or not to be"
If Quality is not subjective, then it is not quality. One could
simply say that a higher level of expression is occurring. Of course,
higher is also subjective unless we all agree on the same assumptions.
Then we are talking about mass hypnosis and where is the freedom there?
{Mary] Wait, wait! Not to pick on you, markhsmit, but Quality is
SUBJECTIVE? Hmmm gotta think about that. As I dimly recall, Quality is the
pre-experiental. It is Quality before you are even aware it is there. It
is the hot stove in the instant before you realize it such (or lack of I
should say). So where do I go from here? I could say that Quality is
definitely not subjective - Quality IS. But everybody is telling me Quality
is relative, Quality is dynamic. Must not be an absolute, then.
[Arlo] Why isn't the hot stove obvious?
A human beiing, WITH social or intellectual enabled agency, can
respond with a broad range of biological-social-intellectual agency,
and depending on the "life experiences" of the individual, the
selection of response from this repertoire will vary greatly.
[Mary] Ah ha! I am rescued by Arlo. Quality could still be an absolute in
this view - it's just that I'm too stupid to see it. Maybe my set of life
experiences have not set me up to discern Quality properly?
[Steve]
Below is Phaedrus' first attempt to answer your questions in Lila. It
is an unsatisfying answer. He spent pretty much the rest of the book
trying to give better ones. Does Lila have Quality?
[Mary] Steve brings in the Richard Rigel guns. Richard, our straw-man
embodiment of the evil Social Level gets nothing past Phaedrus. But you
notice that Rigel wasn't convinced, either.
[Dan]
We do see it coming. But often times I believe we're predesposed to
looking for something when in fact we should just be. ...There is no tree.
There is no forest. There is only
[Mary] Well, Dan (great to see that you are still around, by the way!) you
bring order and calm to the conversation. The Eastern perspective. As
Pirsig himself knew, however, the fastest way to turn off the American
public would be to explain Quality in terms of Oneness. And this before the
days of Ipods and American Idol. I do believe that Quality is akin in
concept to things like Buddha nature. But I don't know much about that -
being an American, you know. Is Buddha nature absolute or relative? No,
Dan, you don't have to answer that... "it just is", right? :)
[Matt]
If it's a telos, it is an impotent one because knowing it to be one does
nothing for us in practice.
[Mary] Believe it or not, I actually do have a college education, just not
in the humanities. So, when I read this I had to scurry to look up "telos".
Telos - The end of a goal-oriented process. An ultimate end.
Ok, so Matt possibly falls into the camp of Quality as an Absolute, albeit a
"useless" absolute. Geez, lighten up! Yes, we're all here and then we
die. No point, really, and we're all swimming in this veritable sea of
Quality, but we can't define it, and can't appreciate it, or know in advance
which direction to take to get at it. I guess you wouldn't try to teach
Quality, either. Ok. I'll go off and write 1000 words about a brick.
[Matt]
I think Pirsig intended to demonstrate that the low quality
of the situation preceded our static patterns--that the
low quality was universal. The argumentative riposte is
the example of the masochist If that's true, then what could cause that
abberation then the fact that the low quality _doesn't_
precede the static patterns, but is just another function of them
[Mary] I agree that Pirsig intended to demonstrate that Quality preceeds
experience. In fact, I have always pretty much thought that was the point
of the hot stove story. But I could be wrong...
[Matt]
Some think that Pirsig simply intended to show that _value_, whatever the
individual takes it to be, precedes everything else, that the only
universal thing in the example was the causation of value to valuer.
[Mary] Yes.
[Matt]
Many are driven back to their felt elegance or completeness in the MoQ as to
why it is useful: it's a good way of arranging reality.
[Mary] The MoQ trivia game speed round.
[Ian]
My view is that this "ambiguity" - a paradoxical aspect - is its
strength. When the "as if" telos is added to a more reductionist
Darwinian take on causation, then moral behaviour is all too
predictable, now and in future - that doesn't make it uniform. The
problem is most people still look to SOMist arguments to justify their
predictions - and are surprised when they fail, as any SOMist argument
containing a paradox will.
[Mary]
The Intellectual level abhors a paradox as much as the Social level abhors
an athiest. Difference is, the Intellectual level is smart enough to know
there are things out there it cannot dissect with rationality - or it
should.
Fortunately, Bodvar comes to my rescue. Is Quality absolute or relative?
Bo weighs-in in a most decisive way. Were it absolute, it would beg the
question of where THAT came from, and that, and that, and that...
[Bodvar] to be or not to be
The MOQ says that Quality's dynamic aspect is indefinable and that the
static ditto is laid out the known way. If this violates Quality there is a
super-metaphysics - a Quality/MOQ one - and if THAT ...etc. another
super-duper metaphysics ...and another, and another "ad infinitum".
[Mary] and just in case my little intellectual level ego should throw an
intellectual level tantrum and not stand it, I am brought to humility by the
purposeful inability of SOM to comprehend DQ.
[Bodvar]
For the MOQ to be revolutionary SOM must be made its highest static
level - all of it, every last bit!! If SOM is made one intellectual pattern
and the MOQ another, the 4th. level becomes SOM's mind - a mental
container where ideas reside - and SOM goes on unperturbed.
Thank you one and all, quoted and not. Be certain every word written was
read and appreciated. I truly feel like a wanderer in the desert who has
found her way home again. :)
Best wishes,
Mary
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/
