> djh had said: > I'm trying to answer this as directly as possible dmb but you seem to keep > missing my point. ...Pirsig clearly explains that a metaphysics - which is > nothing but a bunch of definitions of philosophical concepts - is immoral and > degenerate *because* it is an attempt of intellect trying to devour a higher > mystic form of evolution (DQ). ...DQ isn't some mystical thing far away - > it's right here and we're both defining it and destroying it right now with > our intellectual discussion. Does that mean we should stop our intellectual > discussion? Or pretend - like Marsha - that static patterns are > 'ever-changing'? Of course not. We cannot help but destroy the ultimately > undefined nature of reality but because Good is a noun it's best if we be as > good as we can. Don't you agree with that? > > > dmb responded: > Oh. My. God. > > This is about the fifth time, David. Once again you have ignored the argument > and simply repeated the same notion again. Why are you not addressing the > argument? Look, David, Pirsig's sense of "degeneracy" only makes sense within > an evolutionary hierarchy of values. My argument hinges on that hierarchy, on > the moral codes of the MOQ and THAT is what you are repeatedly failing to > answer, address or even acknowledge. Look at what Pirsig is saying about > science in relation to DQ and in relation to the static levels below > intellect. This is what degeneracy means in the MOQ.... > in LILA Pirsig wrote.. In each case, degeneracy or immorality consists in > allowing the lower level to trump or subordinate a higher level. If you > don't use this hierarchy properly then all sorts of weird nonsense will > result. The prohibitions against marital infidelity would be misconstrued to > mean that any sexual activity is a betrayal even if you're not married. The > prohibition against "selling out" would be misconstrued to mean that it's > immoral to have a job or earn money in any way. And that's what you're doing > to the intellect. The prohibition against trying to define the mystic reality > is misconstrued to mean that it's always wrong to skillfully manipulate > abstract concepts or define any words...
djh responds: If you dictate whether you do something by not wanting commit an act against a 'prohibition' then it makes sense that you'll want to deny that by existing we're being degenerate. For this would be against a sacred 'prohibition'. You talk about prohibitions here as if they're universal and that our reasoning should be defined by them. Personally, I'm interested in what's good regardless of whether there's a prohibition against it. I'm not going to dictate my reasoning by what I shouldn't do. Isn't the MOQ all about what's good rather than what isn't? All the MOQ says is that all else being equal; if you have a choice between two things and they're on two different levels, then it's moral for you to choose the thing on the higher level. This isn't just true for you in your certain circumstances, but true for all things and people - everywhere. Anyway - I'll also speak to your specific charge that I seem to claim that it's 'always wrong to skillfully manipulate abstract concepts or define any words.' Of course I don't think it's always wrong for, as you seem to agree, the conclusion would be that there's no point in joining an intellectual discussion board if you think it's always wrong. But what I am claiming is that while it's not always wrong it is always ultimately degenerate. Can you see the difference between those two things? Explicitly; the difference is that the MOQ has its ideals and then it has its pragmatic realities. For example, according to the MOQ, all else being equal, given the choice between going to a friends party or eating a hamburgers - it's always wrong to eat a hamburger rather than go to a friends party. But then, let's say you're starving and you haven't eaten for days; if you don't eat the hamburger you'll die of starvation. Then is it wrong to miss the friends party and eat a hamburger? So along these same lines; according to the Code of Art, it is always degenerate to destroy DQ by defining it and ruining it with a whole bunch of concepts and fixed metaphysical meanings. But then pragmatically we can't help but exist and destroy DQ with our fixed metaphysical meanings and so pragmatically we ought to get our definitions of Quality as good as we can. > dmb continued: > ..As far as I can tell, NOBODY here is trying to define the mystic reality.. djh responds: Since when is what we 'try' the most valuable thing? We define the mystic reality whether we try and do it or not. "The only person who doesn't pollute the mystic reality of the world with fixed metaphysical meanings is a person who hasn't yet been born — and to whose birth no thought has been given. The rest of us have to settle for being something less pure." A better thing to be interested in is what we value. We define the mystic reality with what we value. > dmb continued: > Pirsig flirts with this and he knows it's absurd to even have a metaphysics > of Quality but he only defines it as undefinable, only describes it in terms > of what it is not. djh responds: By describing DQ by what it is not - that's still a definition! "Purity, identified, ceases to be purity. Objections to pollution are a form of pollution." - RMP However - To speak to your general point in this post here - according to the Code of Art - DQ is higher than intellect - therefore defining DQ or even by saying anything or even by existing - then that is being degenerate. And so because of that as Pirsig writes - 'Writing a metaphysics is, in the strictest mystic sense, a degenerate activity.. But a ruthless, doctrinaire avoidance of degeneracy is a degeneracy of another sort. That's the degeneracy fanatics are made of.' Because you seem to keep missing this quote and how it applies to what you've been saying. I'll explain it a little... Notice how Pirsig explains that there's two sorts of degeneracy? There's the degeneracy that you get from making an intellectual statement and thus destroying the ultimately undefined nature of reality.. And then there's the degeneracy that you get from pretending to *not* destroy this ultimately undefined nature of reality. This second type of degeneracy is what you seem to want to commit. You seem to want to pretend that simply by existing you're *not* being degenerate. As explained above by RMP - this is the degeneracy fanatics are made of because.. "The only person who doesn't pollute the mystic reality of the world with fixed metaphysical meanings is a person who hasn't yet been born — and to whose birth no thought has been given. The rest of us have to settle for being something less pure. Getting drunk and picking up bar-ladies and writing metaphysics is a part of life." > dmb said also: > And, even IF you were right it still would be a very useless argument because > the only one who doesn't commit this terrible sin of trying to think clearly > is a person who hasn't been born yet. So what is the point of pressing this > idea against one person and not the other? If everyone is unavoidably guilty > of this, then the criticism applies to everyone on the planet and so it is > quite pointless and useless. It distinguishes nothing from anything. If > you're right, then the point is relevant to absolutely nothing and it will > not settle any dispute. A thing that can't be distinguished from anything > else has no value and does not exist. djh responds: My criticism isn't that you're being degenerate dmb. It's that you're *denying* that you're being degenerate. And this isn't an insignificant distinction. This distinction runs to the heart of the distinction between DQ and sq. Whether you define something or not is whether something is sq or not. If you define something then, by definition, it is sq. By definition the only thing left out from all definitions is DQ which isn't anything at all. > dmb said finally: > Yes, there is such a thing as degenerate sex but not all sex is degenerate. > Without it, the species would go extinct. Yes, there is such a thing as > degenerate money-making and power-grabbing but not all social values are > degenerate. Without them, we'd still be living in caves and grunting at each. > Yes, there is such a thing as degenerate intellect but without intellectual > values we wouldn't have the Bill of Rights, Democracy, science, philosophy. > And all these static values are supposed to serve the ongoing process of > life, supposed to serve the on-going course of evolution. > Anti-intellectualism is degenerate because it thwarts the most highly > evolved, most moral level of static patterns, How in the world does any > figure that hating on the intellect will serve life? Socrates was right > about one thing, at least. For a human being, the unexamined life is not > worth living. The unexamined life is the life of a pig or a dog or a whore. > It's evil. Why don't you get that? How can you make these anti-intellectual > comments without feeling the need to take a shower? Don't you feel the sleaze > of it? djh responds: I can make these so called 'anti-intellectual' statements because they're actually not 'anti-intellectual' - far from it - they're the truth. You cannot say something or exist without destroying the ultimately undefined nature of reality. According to the levels of the MOQ and the 'Code of Art' - this is ultimately degeneracy. But we cannot help but exist so we might as well get these definitions as good as we can. Good is a noun.. "Of course, the ultimate Quality isn't a noun or an adjective or anything else definable, but if you had to reduce the whole Metaphysics of Quality to a single sentence, that would be it." 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
