Yes Marsha,

You do indeed follow your own logic.  Your logic follows what you value.. While 
I may disagree with large chunks of that logic it is still your own logic and 
you still do logically use the MOQ and its levels in your thinking.. I didn't 
highlight that enough in my post to dmb.. Thanks for pointing that out.

-David.


On 29/04/2013, at 9:39 PM, MarshaV <[email protected]> wrote:

> 
> Gentlemen,
> 
> Utter nonsense!  Dynamic Quality is undivided & unpatterned (Krimel might say 
> chaos.  I prefer undifferentiated.) and offers nothing to live with or live 
> by, and I DO APPRECIATE LIFE.  You just seem to think that to accept 
> intellectual value is to agree with your interpretations and your beliefs.  
> 
> The great ones say see for yourself.  
> 
> 
> Marsha
> 
> 
> On Apr 29, 2013, at 7:10 AM, David Harding <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
>>> 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.   
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