Steve said to Matt, dmb, etc.:
One important Pirsigian usage of "DQ" is talk about being attentive to the
distinction between concepts and reality, between DQ and sq, but then such "DQ
talk" is always conceptual. It's sq. That's the only "trivializing" that is
going on from my view. It is part of being attentive to the distinction between
concepts and reality to say so. "Talk about DQ is sq" is what I think is meant
by "DQ is a compliment paid after the fact."
dmb says:
Yea, that's roughly what Matt said. I think it's more than a bit confused. It
undermines the MOQ's central distinction and, even worse, you end up converting
DQ into sq. Once you do that, just about everything in the MOQ is going to get
messed up. I mean, because the distinction is so central, the effects of this
mistake are very far reaching.
Yes, talk is static and conceptual while DQ itself is neither static nor
conceptual. All three of us agree on that part, apparently. And yes, since
talking is always static and conceptual, talking about DQ is also static and
conceptual. Okay, but now you're only talking about the talking, not about DQ
itself. The MOQ is full of words and concepts and definitions, as any
philosophical system MUST be. This simply isn't a problem, not even when the
central term is undefinable and refers to a pre-verbal and pre-conceptual
experience.
It's a silly kind of specious reasoning. Goes something like this: "You said
your feelings were beyond words but you were using words when you said that, so
your feelings are not at all beyond words." It's not just that the logic is
goofy. It also has a way of just breezing right past the meaning and substance
of the feelings and the claim about them and instead redirects the focus of
attention to a rather trivial and irrelevant point.
It goes without saying, I suppose, but the nature of this medium is such that
words and concepts are the whole game. That's what we get in Pirsig's books and
that's what the MOQ is made of. This whole deal is static intellectual quality
from wall to wall and that's not a problem. The central term within this system
of static concepts is static and conceptual, of course, but it REFERS to direct
experience prior to static concepts. The term itself is static and
intellectual, because that's how talking works, but it POINTS to the immediate
experience itself. I mean, the words "static" and "Dynamic" mean what they mean
in relation to each other. They are opposites. That's what they mean when we're
talking about the MOQ. Nobody thinks experience itself can be known directly
through an e-mail. So we are just talking about the MOQ's concepts and what
they mean in static intellectual terms, with words. No problem if some of those
words dare to reference something other than more word
s. Gasp!
DQ is the pre-verbal present, which is exactly what compliments after the fact
are NOT. By conflating DQ with DQ-talk, you have converted DQ into sq. To say
DQ is a compliment paid after the fact is to say that the dynamic present is
the static past. It's nonsense. To say DQ-talk is talk is to belabor the
trivial and the obvious for no good reason. It's no good either way.
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