[DJH] As per the correction -- all static quality is (mystically) degenerate.
[Arlo] Two questions to this point. (1) do you think there is/is not a contradiction/problem with static patterns of value being both "degenerate" and "moral" (according to Pirsig)? (2) If all static quality is, by definition, mystically degenerate, then what would be the point of embracing ANY static pattern, from food to poetry to painting to language to baseball? How is this not an argument for something along the lines of asceticism? [DJH] All things are mystically degenerate; so it's a matter of being as good as you can be (by living in line with the ultimately undefined nature of the universe) thus avoiding as much mystic degeneracy as possible.. [Arlo] So cooking food and eating should be avoided as much as possible, as above along the lines of the ascetic? If it is more "mystically degenerate" to paint than not paint, then isn't not painting morally superior? Isn't non-writing, be it poetry, prose, literature, etc. morally superior to writing (as they are all attempts to 'capture' the ineffable in 'words')? And, of course you may see this inevitable question, isn't it more mystically degenerate for you (for us all) to be here than to be off doing something more mystically immediate? If so, then why are you (we) here? Should Horse shut this place down for our own good? [DJH] Along these lines - if the landscape painting truly is just a static representation of inorganic patterns then a metaphysics (which best intellectually represent all patterns and DQ) is higher quality than the painting. [Arlo] >From a semiotics perspective, both are (to simplify) symbolic and cultural >languages for encoding/transmitting meaning. They are forms of communication. >In many ways, like the polar/Cartesian discussion in LILA, I think the value >emerges from the context. As I read Pirsig, "art" is a term that refers to "a high-quality endeavor" and applies to both painting and a metaphysical treatise. As such, I don't see one as "art" and one as "not art", I see both as artifacts of the artistic endeavor (to be deliberately redundant). So, according to that view, the goal should be in both painting a landscape and writing a metaphysical treatise to be as "high quality" (or open to quality, or channeling of quality, or however you want to frame this), but of course as different semiotic forms what is "high quality" in one may not be "high quality" in the other. (I think this is one of DMB's central points, things like coherence, definition, and clarity are all "high quality" tools for crafting a metaphysics, just as color, depth and focus may be "high quality" tools for painting a landscape.) 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
