[Marsha] ----------
Arlo Bensinger Instructional Designer College of Health and Human Development 109 Henderson Building Email: [email protected] Phone: 863-6707 ----- Original Message ----- From: "MarshaV" <[email protected]> To: "moq discuss" <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2013 2:23:22 PM Subject: Re: [MD] Intellectual Discussion and Dialectic - Finding agreement, Quality and beauty in the world. Arlo, Marsha: Why don't you form a committee to isolate all the offending RMP quotes that you think should not be presented or discussed? If that becomes a MD rule I will most certainly comply. Do you think you should ban these quote? RMP: "When early Western investigators first read the Buddhist texts they too interpreted nirvana as some kind of suicide. There's a famous poem that goes: While living, Be a dead man. Be completely dead, And then do as you please. And all will be well. "It sounds like something from a Hollywood horror-film but it's about nirvana. The Metaphysics of Quality translates it: While sustaining biological and social patterns Kill all intellectual patterns. Kill them completely And then follow Dynamic Quality And morality will be served. ... "When Phaedrus first went to India he'd wondered why, if this passage of enlightenment into pure Dynamic Quality was such a universal reality, did it only occur in certain parts of the world and not others? At the time he'd thought this was proof that the whole thing was just Oriental religious baloney, the equivalent of a magic land called 'heaven' that Westerners go to if they are good and get a ticket from the priests. Now he saw that enlightenment is distributed in all parts of the world just as the color yellow is distributed in all parts of the world, but some cultures accept it and others screen out recognition of it." (LILA, Chapter 32) * * * * * * * * * * * * * RMP: "The purpose of mystic meditation is not to remove oneself from experience but to bring one's self closer to it by eliminating stale, confusing, static, intellectual attachments of the past." (LILA, Chapter 9) Marsha: This quote might be offensive because it contradicts dmb's notion that DQ is ever-changing: RMP: "... Change is probably the first concept emerging from this Dynamic experience..." (RMP, 'LILA's Child', Annotation 57) Marsha: Or maybe you will find something in these quotes offensive: RMP: "Quality is indivisible, undefinable and unknowable in the sense that there is a knower and a known, but a metaphysics can be none of these things. A metaphysics must be divisible, definable and knowable, or there isn't any metaphysics. Since a metaphysics is essentially a kind of dialectical definition and since Quality is essentially outside definition, this means that a 'Metaphysics of Quality' is essentially a contradiction in terms, a logical absurdity. It would be almost like a mathematical definition of randomness. The more you try to say what randomness is the less random it becomes. Or 'zero,' or 'space' for that matter. Today these terms have almost nothing to do with 'nothing.' 'Zero' and 'space' are complex relationships of 'somethingness.' If he said anything about the scientific nature of mystic understanding, science might benefit but the actual mystic understanding would, if anything , be injured. If he really wanted to do Quality a favor he should just leave it alone. "What made all this so formidable to Phaedrus was that he himself had insisted in his book that Quality cannot be defined. Yet here he was about to define it. Was this some kind of a sell-out? His mind went over this many times. "A part of it said, 'Don't do it. You'll get into nothing but trouble. You're just going to start up a thousand dumb arguments about something that was perfectly clear until you came along. You're going to make ten-thousand opponents and zero friends because the moment you open your mouth to say one thing about the nature of reality you automatically have a whole set of enemies who've already said reality is something else.'The trouble was, this was only one part of himself talking. There was another part that kept saying, 'Ahh, do it anyway. It's interesting.'" (RMP, 'LILA', Chapter 5) RMP: "Strictly speaking, the creation of any metaphysics is an immoral act since it's a lower form of evolution, intellect, trying to devour a higher mystic one. The same thing that's wrong with philosophology when it tries to control and devour philosophy is wrong with metaphysics when it tries to devour the world intellectually. It attempts to capture the Dynamic within a static pattern. But it never does. You never get it right. So why try? "It's like trying to construct a perfect unassailable chess game. No matter how smart you are you're never going to play a game that is 'right' for all people at all times, everywhere. Answers to ten questions led to a hundred more and answers to those led to a thousand more. Not only would he never get it right; the longer he worked on it the wronger it would probably get." (RMP, 'LILA', Chapter 32) Marsha: Instead of being a general and free-ranging forum for the discussion of Robert M. Pirsig's Metaphysics of Quality, it can be a controlled forum for the philosophical discussion of approved RMP quotes. Maybe you'd like that only academic philosophers should be permitted to participate? Marsha On Apr 30, 2013, at 1:39 PM, ARLO JAMES BENSINGER JR <[email protected]> wrote: > [David] > Not social value. I think above all else Marsha values DQ. DQ is also > outside of intellectual value and logic. > > [Arlo] > I think this is generous, but wrong. For two main reasons. First, "dynamic > quality" is the source of intellectual quality. It is not an "either/or" > option, it is not "intellectual quality OR dynamic quality", Pirsig's > intellectual thesis was built by Pirsig 'valuing' DQ (I'm using your way of > speaking here, but I find wordings like this cumbersome and redundant). What > is valued intellectually all derives from the impetus towards 'betterness'. > Think of it this way, 'coherence' IS Dynamic Quality manifest at the > intellectual level. Being coherent is not in opposition to DQ, any more than > being harmonious is something musicians should deliberately avoid just > because its 'a static pattern'. > > Second, there a hundreds of more "DQish" forums around the internet, from Zen > lists to lists about poetry and art and lists devoted to sharing free-form, > unstructured 'words'. If this was simply a rejection of all 'intellectual > values' under the auspice that such a rejection was ipso facto 'artistic' or > 'DQish', why is she here, in a philosophy forum, built around the premise of > intellectual quality and Pirsig's ideas. As I said, Marsha is here for social > quality, and I include under that umbrella the psycho-egotistical roleplay > that she gets out of 'being Lila'. I've already mentioned the baiting and > evidence of attention seeking in the increased frequency of "I define..." > posts. Do you think that is following Dynamic Quality? If she genuinely was > pursuing "DQ" this forum wouldn't even make its way into her awareness, she'd > be off sculpting, or painting, or making rotisseries, or writing koans, or > meditating, or any of the myriad of activities that she seems to think are c lo > ser to DQ than wasting time on intellectual quality. To join a philosophy > forum to tell everyone that philosophy is pedantic is rather arrogant and, > from the MOQ's perspective, stuck in an SOM view of intellectual quality. > > [David] > Like all intellectual values - what we deem logical or illogical is > culturally derived. > > [Arlo] > Agree. > > [David] > To the extent that we are each our own values - we will each have our own > sense of what is and is not 'logical'. > > [Arlo] > I'll agree in part, although I think 'have our own sense' needs some > unpacking and clarification. Perhaps you mean although we all share the same > basic understanding of the word, we will generate nuances to how we > understand it based on our ontogenetic and sociohistorical development. > Although I don't think 'nuancical' differences in understanding 'logic' are > at play here. What I think is at play is the SOM-driven rejection of ALL > intellectual patterns versus the MOQ-driven expansion of rationality to move > beyond SOM on the intellectual level. > > Compare the 'rhetoric' between Marsha and DMB. DMB attacks incoherence > (whether or not you agree with his manners), whereas Marsha attacks > philosophy itself. DMB attacks contradictions, Marsha attacks DMB for talking > about James or pragmatism or, basically, for what she miscontrues as > 'philosophology'. DMB is trying to strengthen the intellectual level, Marsha > is trying to destroy the intellectual level. When you look beyond their > heated choices of words, that is the pattern that comes out time and time > again. > > To be fair, I've found Marsha's comments relating to eastern philosophies > interesting, and I think Pirsig's ideas can be strengthened by aligning his > ideas with the East in the same way DMB is aligning his ideas with the West. > These are, in and of themselves, not incompatible, and even a cursory read of > Northrop can see why Pirsig himself tried to forge a bridge. But, again, look > back over the archives and you'll see that DMB is not condemning or > dismissing Nargarjuna (for example), he is condemning and dismissing > incoherence. Marsha, on the other hand, IS condemning or dismissing James (or > at best passing it off as irrelevant but quaint for a simpleton like DMB to > find interesting). Again, look over what they are attacking in each other > behind the heated rhetoric, and you'll see this specific tension over and > over in the archives. > > 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 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
