> David said: > ...The 'meaning' of logical consistency or coherence doesn't have to differ > between person to person for folks to still disagree about what has high or > low logical consistency and high or low coherence. Everyone knows what's > good. Everyone knows what's logically consistent or has coherence. We just > disagree about our words which describe that good… Coherence and incoherence > isn't a matter of personal feelings. Quality is universal. Our different > interpretations of Quality vary between person to person however - depending > on our life experience. So along this line of thought - Marsha *is* a > culture of one just like everyone else... > > > "'You're sort of another culture,' he said. 'A culture of one. A culture is > an evolved static pattern of quality capable of Dynamic change. That's what > you are. That's the best definition of you that's ever been invented. > 'You may think everything you say and everything you think is just you but > actually the language you use and the values you have are the result of > thousands of years of cultural evolution. It's all in a kind of debris of > pieces that seem unrelated but are actually part of a huge fabric. > Levi-Strauss postulates that a culture can only be understood by reenacting > its thought processes with the debris of its interaction with other cultures. > Does this make sense? I'd like to record the debris of your own memory and > try to reconstruct things with it… That's what I think can be done with a > single person. I can take parts of your language and your values and trace > them to old patterns that were laid down centuries ago and are what make you > what you are.'" > > > dmb replied: > The quote is evidence for MY point, actually. And it's quite fitting that > he's talking about Lila, the title character, who interprets the Captain's > questions and inquiries as a personal attack. She evades the questions and > then simply refuses to answer at all. I'm nobody, she says, you can't get to > me. Of course this is because she is intellectually nowhere. She just cannot > rightly read the situation. He's trying to help her but she's afraid him and > doesn't understand him, assumes he just like all the others who used her and > discarded her. She's sick and the diagnosis is made by examining her static > patterns and lack thereof. In any case, the quote certainly makes the same > point that I did. Where Pirsig says, "the language you use and the values you > have are the result of thousands of years of cultural evolution," I had said, > "we are composed of the static patterns of our time and culture and > language". Like the title, Marsha doesn't get to have her own private version > of intellectual values. She sees the value or she doesn't and it's quite > obvious that she doesn't… If Marsha doesn't care about truth and thinks > philosophizing is inherently immoral, I think it's going to be pretty much > impossible to show Marsha that logical consistency, the proper use of terms, > coherence, clarity, economy, evidence, elegance, etc.. are better than > logical inconsistency, the misuse of terms, incoherence, irrelevance, > verbosity, selective reading, and clumsiness. If she doesn't care about such > things, the only means of persuasion are ruled out before you can even begin > to try. She just can't appreciate what's happening, what's being said or why > it is being said...
David responds: Right - we have full agreement on this. But the key thing to me is why doesn't she see it? You mention it below too but I'm also sick of you two constantly bickering about this when it's painfully clear that logically explaining to her how she is wrong isn't going to change a thing. She's not interested in a logical discussion. We clearly both agree about that. So what to do about it? > dmb talks throughout about possible solutions (djh collected): > That's why she doesn't belong here and never says anything worth hearing. > It's just interference. It's just noise. She's just a parrot - doesn't even > understand the meaning of the words she uses and yet those words are played > over and over like a broken record. It's like the Groundhog Day of > philosophy; a nightmarish loop where you have to go through the same damn > thing every day, month and month, year after year. After a while you have to > start to wonder about her mental health. Some learning curves are shallower > than others, but jeez... That's exactly why Marsha should not be part of this > discussion group. Her anti-intellectualism is NOT our problem. It's her > problem, her deficit. If she hates water, then she should hang out at some > place OTHER the swim club. Isn't totally obvious that this is just not the > right place for people with attitudes and values like hers? Doesn't the MOQ > tell us that it is immoral to let social values dominate intellectual values? > That's what she's doing, at best…No, she's misusing and misconstruing the > basic structure of the MOQ and it might not be crazy, although I certainly > have my suspicions about that, but it certainly is incorrect and, frankly, > it's downright stupid…. And so, of course, I've spent some time and energy > trying to show exactly how and why her assertions are nonsense. Why? Because > I quite like Pirsig's work and I feel compelled to protect it from such > abuse. Marsha is probably a hopeless case but reasonable people are persuaded > by reason. It never happens instantly, not even with well-informed and > sincere conversationalists - but honest, reasonable people will eventually > change their minds and/or grow intellectually. Total incorrigibility is > simply unacceptable in a place like this; we're not just talking about a > frustratingly shallow learning, where you get held back to repeat the grade, > but a completely flat line...Logic has BECOME an issue because of Marsha's > actual and particular assertion of illogic. Same with definitions. They > became an issue because of Marsha's actual and particular misuse of the MOQ's > key terms and concepts. And of course these are intimately related because > the logical inconsistency and her contradictory use of the terms is one and > the same thing. To say that static patterns are ever-changing IS an illogical > misuse of the terms, which I've explained many times. She has proven to be > totally impervious to any kind of persuasion - dictionaries, encyclopedia, > philosophers, academic professional and of course an avalanche of textual > evidence from Pirsig's writings. She has amply demonstrated that is incapable > of finding value in any of it. David responds: But that's just it dmb. I don't think it's necessarily a matter of lack of intelligence or her mental health or her immorally valuing social values over intellectual ones. I agree with you about the problem but not necessarily all of the values which you've attributed the cause. What the MOQ tells us is that people are their values, or as Dan might like to point out to me - values are people. So what we know about what Marsha values are the words she uses on this forum.. So while there may indeed be a grain of truth to each of the causes you mentioned I think above and beyond everything else - Marsha values Dynamic Quality. If you look at her writing it mostly talks about one thing and is speaking to the value of one thing - DQ. It's Marsha's extreme valuing of Dynamic Quality above everything else which is blinding her ability to see the beauty of static quality being what it is called - static. She likes DQ so much she wants to include it in something which is *not* DQ… How else do we explain her continual insistence that static patterns are 'ever-changing', 'impermanent', and that they have 'no independent or inherent existence'? By trying to include DQ in things which clearly are not DQ - Marsha is undermining them and destroying them and her understanding of DQ all at the same time.. But herein lies the problem... Lila contains many, many quotes which support DQ over static quality and these undermine the importance of static quality. If you make a complaint to her that she isn't respecting static quality - not just intellectual values but any of them - then she'll just roll out(and has many times) another quote from Lila which shows that DQ is the source of all things.. So this is the problem - You cannot complain to Marsha that she isn't valuing any sort of static quality because she'll have quotes to show you and herself that this valuing DQ over static quality is supported by the MOQ. So what's the solution? The solution, I think, is to *show* Marsha that as a result of valuing DQ so much - the distinction between the two has disappeared and she's gaining neither.. We're not the only one's losing in this arrangement. Marsha is too… Until she sees that - then nothing will change. > dmb said: > The whole point of Pirsig work is to integrate intellect and values. That's > how rationality is expanded and improved. In the MOQ, there is a formal > recognition of Quality within the operations of intellect. The intellectual > level of values is protected by the code of art, which protects intellectual > evolution, and it is protected from degeneracy by the next highest moral > code. This is what Marsha is constantly trashing, insulting and > misconstruing. Pirsig has re-constructed things so that intellectual is no > longer that lifeless voice of reason, no longer meaningless, or hollow or > amoral. This is a matter of confusing the problem (Objectivity) with the > solution (MOQ). Marsha has warped the MOQ so as to turn it into its own worst > enemy. David responds: I disagree that Marsha thinks the MOQ is the problem because she is actually using the MOQ in her reasoning for behaving the way that she does. She doesn't think the MOQ is the problem. She values DQ over static quality - including intellectual quality. That's supported by the MOQ! But of course - as we both know - equally supported by the MOQ - is the importance of static quality. And folks could also roll out quotes to support the importance of static quality in response (and they have).. But if that's all we do - argue for one side or the other - then we'll be here forever. Pirsig purposely created the MOQ so you could find support for *either* DQ or static quality if you needed it. Because the most important thing isn't just DQ or sq but a good *balance* between the two. The trouble with Marsha, or with anyone else who is out of kilter in their perspective on this - is that she's all DQ this and 'ever-changing' that - she simply cannot see the value in a static - static quality. It's so very distant from her outlook that even the idea of a clear distinction between the two isn't something she could easily understand.. So again - I think showing her the pitfalls of this blurring and chaos is the key… > dmb also said: > It exactly the same error, phrased exactly the same way, regardless of > anything that happens between each posting. > > Funny how her performance of this never-changing static pattern is directly > contradicted by claim made within it. It's contradictory nonsense on so many > levels, and that's just one of the problems with the often repeated salad of > words. David responds: That's right. Because of her blurring of the distinction between DQ and sq - she gains neither… If she can ever see that - or someone can ever somehow show her that - then things will most definately get better. 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
