[John] Hey Arlo. I think the point could be made. The problem with the word"definition" is the limits it places. It's a way of saying, here's the limit. So I don't see the MoQ as a definition, so much as a process of defining, infinitely and creatively. I don't think this is a "definition".
[Arlo] Hey John. I see what you're saying, but I am now convinced the problem is the acronym. The "MOQ" is not a verb, it is a "metaphysics of Quality", it is the result of the "defining process", one undertaken infinitely and creatively, but IT is an artifact not a process. I do agree, of course, that Pirsig's central thesis in ZMM was to showcase the artful nature of the "figure sorting sand into piles". Or, in Carse's terms (which I think you are referring to) to show how playful- an infinite game- the discrimination process is, that it is NOT fixed- a finite game. So I am not disagreeing that the act of defining- infinitely and creatively- is where our "sorting sand into piles" should be, only that the "Metaphysics of Quality" is a particular pile of sand as sorted by Robert Pirsig; a high-quality one to be sure, but again its an artifact of the process which points TO the process, not the process itself. Make sense? [John] An again, if fully fleshed out, a fully viable meta-twist. "Labeling" is synonomous with discriminating. The process of discriminating is based upon betterness. Conceptualization IS Reality, you could make a pretty good argument for that, I think. [Arlo] Discrimination is the "proof of Quality", as it were, and static patterns of value are a result of an infinitude of discriminatory value-responses. I think this is already in the Metaphysics of Quality. But again, I think a "label" is an artifact of the labeling process. Right, so a "label" is a static pattern of value that results from value-discrimination. So I see a "label" as a static pattern of value, but Marsha seems to see "labels" as being something other than SQ or DQ, something that precedes the discriminatory process, rather than the result of it. In any event, we're drifting from my original question here, and I'll restate it. Is the "inorganic level" itself a pattern of value, and if so what kind (inorganic, biological, social, intellectual), and if not then what it is? Bo's answer to this also posits a third metaphysical type, "levels", which is neither DQ nor SQ (exactly how Marsha added "labels", which are neither DQ nor SQ). I asked this because, of course, you can also ask "is the intellectual level itself an intellectual pattern of values?", or "is the set of all intellectual patterns itself also an intellectual pattern?" If not, what is it? [John] Instead, Bob went a different way. Lila's child is explicitly, part of an MoQ that includes the reader, the interpreter as part of the dialogic process and that's... unique. [Arlo] I'd argue the uniqueness is the recognition, but not in the form. ALL metaphysics are evolving dialogues, everything that has ever been said is said in response to, and in anticipation of, the historical dialogue (Bahktin). The difference then is on focus, one privileges the artifact another the process, but both are a process dialogue that creates artifacts along the way. 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/md/archives.html
