Hi Dave,
> As you are aware this site originated with Lila Squad which purpose was in > general to compare, contrast, and understand both ZaMM and Lila. As much as > some would like I don't think they can or should be isolated. But when in > doubt on RMP's position later should trump earlier. Agreed, so when Pirsig says this in Lila: “The Metaphysics of Quality resolves the relationship between intellect and society, subject and object, mind and matter, by embedding all of them into a larger system of understanding. Objects are inorganic and biological values; subjects are social and intellectual values.” (Page 344). ...and these in Lila's Child (about Bo's SOL thesis): "43. This seems too restrictive. It seems to exclude non-subject-object constructions such as symbolic logic, higher mathematics, and computer languages from the intellectual level and give them no home. Also the term “quality” as used in the MOQ would be excluded from the intellectual level. In fact, the MOQ, which gives intellectual meaning to the term quality, would also have to be excluded from the intellectual level. If we just say the intellect is the manipulation of language-derived symbols for experience these problems of excessive exclusion do not seem to occur." "79. Since in the MOQ all divisions of Quality are static it follows that high and low are subdivisions of static quality. “Static” and “Dynamic” are also subdivisions of static quality, since the MOQ is itself a static intellectual pattern of Quality." "88. I don’t remember not responding, so it must have been an oversight. I don’t think the subject-object level is identical with intellect. Intellect is simply thinking, and one can think without involving the subject-object relationship. Computer language is not primarily structured into subjects and objects. Algebra has no subjects and objects." "122. I’ve always thought this is incorrect because many forms of intellect do not have a subject-object construction. These include logic itself, mathematics, computer programming languages, and, I believe some primitive languages (although I can’t remember what they are.)" ...and later this is the Paul Turner letter: "The argument that the MOQ is not an intellectual formulation but some kind of other level is not clear to me. There is nothing in the MOQ that I know of that leads to this conclusion." ...and still more recently this in the Baggini interview: "PIRSIG: The alternative to “The Metaphysics of Quality says,” would be “I, Robert Pirsig, says,” and that repeated many times sounds worse to me. I don't understand this objection to a complete metaphysical system that someone has worked out. It seems to imply that some kind of confusion is preferable. It also seems to be an objection to the rhetorical style of the Metaphysics of Quality rather than a discovery of any falsehood in it, and in philosophy rhetorical styles are supposed to be irrelevant to the truth. If the term, “static” is being used here as it is used by the Metaphysics of Quality itself, then the answer is, “All metaphysical systems are static intellectual patterns. There isn't any other kind of metaphysics.” This is so because the MOQ describes intellect itself as a set of static patterns." ...then it seems very clear that the MOQ says that the MOQ is an intellectual pattern of value. How many times does Pirsig need to say it? If someone doesn't understand that point, then that person does not know what the MOQ says, because Pirsig has said it again and again. Best, Steve 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/
