Hi Andre (and Marsha by reference), Sorry for the slow reply. Out of town all week.
I get what your concern is now, and would say that it's easy to sound like you're going too far one way or the other when trying to explain DQ/SQ. Both are misleading. Here's what I know from the material, and I imagine we agree on 99% of it. DQ is undefined. That means you can't make any claims about it at all. You can't say what it is or isn't, and you can't compare or analogize it with anything that is known. Any and all words reduce it immediately to something it is not. Correct? Definitions, analogies, concepts, and descriptions of DQ are off the table according to Pirsig. He never compromises on this, does he? He goes to great pains to explain that all reality is SQ and all SQ is derived from DQ. So, if you are talking to a person who's never considered anything but a subject-object reality, it would be helpful to explain that reality is not objects, but is composed of Quality, and if they asked where that came from, you would be right to say all reality is derived from DQ, wouldn't you agree? That's why, though I probably wouldn't put it that way, I don't have much problem with Marsha saying SQ=DQ and DQ=SQ. Because, they really do and she's really right. I wouldn't say it that way only because it would be misleading to people who haven't been reading this stuff for 10 years. There are certain basics you have to get comfortable with first. Marsha speaks at what I'd call an advanced MoQ level while most people are still equating the levels with relationships between objects and subjects. The 4 static levels are not groups of objects or subjects. The twist is that Pirsig's static levels are so ingenious; that is, they have such great explanatory power, they can be interpreted like that and still hang together as an explanation of why the world is the way it is. That's genius, but also sort of too bad, because if you stop right there, you miss the most profound things he has to say and all you've really got is a catchy little mental device you can use to figure out if something is better or worse than something else. We'll probably never see the MoQ get acceptance much beyond this rudimentary level of understanding, though, precisely because it does work so well. In a SOM-MoQ, the levels grade out subjects and objects in a moral hierarchy and DQ=God. It's so simple and non-threatening. You don't have to challenge your world-view at all - only tweak it, it gives you this cool nifty system for a moral hierarchy, and it defines God to boot. Your sense of self is intact, your perceptions are justified, and hey - even Hitler gets a moral argument. You can justify anything and the world just rolls along as a big ball of objects with individual egos all having subjective experiences. Yuck. Best, Mary Mary before to dmb: The reason for my question refers back to a series of posts last weekin which Marsha's statement that SPOVs are ever-changing received strenuous objection from yourself, Andre, and perhaps others. Andre: Marsha (Dec 18, 2010 to Tim): 'DQ is sq, sq is DQ. Most of us know this...' and further in the post she repeats it: 'Right. DQ is sq, sq is DQ. This is what I and others attacked. And earlier in the year: Marsha: (July 23(?), 2010):'... a pattern is not limited to finite definition. Patterns can be amorphous and still stable'. To which dmb responded:'Amorphous means 'shapeless' or 'without form'. So you are saying, in effect, that patterns are shapeless and without form. This is simply a contradiction of the definitions of the terms. Again, that's why they're called STATIC patterns'. To my knowledge, Marsha has never retracted this conviction nor detracted anything from it. It is in this context you must see the 'fuss' being made. Marsha HAS conflated DQ and sq. So this is not 'some kind of straw-man set up with the intent to discredit Marsha'. Marsha's 'ever-changing' statement denotes DQ=sq/sq=DQ. It has been Marsha herself saying it 'loud enough and long enough' and yea I therefore 'actually believe that's what she thinks'. Your own statement that you do not think this is correct (i.e. conflating DQ and sq) should put you on your back heels as well because this particular statement contravenes and contradicts the most basic element of the MOQ. It makes an undifferentiated mess of things. Are you not concerned about this? 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
