Paul says to Dan: > > First off, my intention is never to insult or in any way disrespect you, or > anyone here. I apologise if I made you feel insulted. >
Dan Quotes ZMM: "In class, the Professor of Philosophy, noting Phædrus' apparent good behavior and diligence, has decided he may not be such a bad student after all. This is a second mistake. He has decided to play a little game with Phædrus by asking him what he thinks of cookery. Socrates has demonstrated to Gorgias that both rhetoric and cooking are branches of pandering...pimping...because they appeal to the emotions rather than true knowledge. "In response to the Professor's question, Phædrus gives Socrates' answer that cookery is a branch of pandering. "There's a titter from one of the women in the class which displeases Phædrus because he knows the Professor is trying for a dialectical hold on him similar to the kind Socrates gets on his opponents, and his answer is not intended to be funny but simply to throw off the dialectical hold the Professor is trying to get. Phædrus is quite ready to recite in detail the exact arguments Socrates uses to establish this view. "But that isn't what the Professor wants. He wants to have a dialectical discussion in class in which he, Phædrus, is the rhetorician and is thrown by the force of dialectic. The Professor frowns and tries again. ``No. I mean, do you really think that a well-cooked meal served in the best of restaurants is really something that we should turn down?'' "Phædrus asks, ``You mean my personal opinion?'' For months now, since the innocent student disappeared, there have been no personal opinions ventured in this class. ``Yaaas,'' the Professor says. "Phædrus is silent and tries to work out an answer. Everyone is waiting. His thoughts move up to lightning speed, winnowing through the dialectic, playing one argumentative chess opening after another, seeing that each one loses, and moving to the next one, faster and faster...but all the class witnesses is silence. Finally, in embarrassment, the Professor drops the question and begins the lecture. "But Phædrus doesn't hear the lecture. His mind races on and on, through the permutations of the dialectic, on and on, hitting things, finding new branches and sub-branches, exploding with anger at each new discovery of the viciousness and meanness and lowness of this `àrt'' called dialectic. The Professor, looking at his expression, becomes quite alarmed, and continues the lecture in a kind of panic. Phædrus' mind races on and on and then on further, seeing now at last a kind of evil thing, an evil deeply entrenched in himself, which pretends to try to understand love and beauty and truth and wisdom but whose real purpose is never to understand them, whose real purpose is always to usurp them and enthrone itself. Dialectic...the usurper. That is what he sees. The parvenu, muscling in on all that is Good and seeking to contain it and control it. Evil. The Professor calls the lecture to an early end and leaves the room hurriedly." [ZMM] [Ron clarifies] Often I see people quoting the character "Phaedrus" as if they were quoting Bobs own explanation of the Metaphysics of Quality they can't seperate the character or the story narrative from his philosophy. This passage however has alot to say about the character and where the character is at in his philosophic understanding at the time. Especially this part: "Phædrus' mind races on and on and then on further, seeing now at last a kind of evil thing, an evil deeply entrenched in [himself], which pretends to try to understand love and beauty and truth and wisdom but whose real purpose is never to understand them, whose real purpose is always to usurp them and enthrone itself." This is worthy of examination philosophically, there is an evil in HIMSELF which PRETENDS to try,,,,, to understand dynamic quality (truth, beauty, love wisdom) BUT...and here is the kicker, dialectic never tries to understand DQ. this pisses Phaedrus off. It's purpose is to deconstruct static unexamined assumptions about what we think or "believe" we know about DQ, the undefineable good. The character Phaedrus discovers that he had been assuming dialectic was supposed to reduce down to an absolute certainty a "truth" when in fact dialectic arrived at truth by destroying any concept we have of it. He had been mistaken to view it as a chess game with a clear winner, the actual winner is the loser of the match. Dan comments: I offer this rather long quote in an effort to explain how I felt when you suggested I am saying that Robert Pirsig is "buttering up" the readers. I think it is as insulting being told I am pandering to my readers by making an effort to better my writings by offering them a firm grounding in the background of my stories. You are basically saying by writing down to a reader an artful author is pandering to them. I disagree. [Ron sez] Now an artful author ceratianly DOES pander to a reader the question is for what aim. The art of persuasion is noble when its aims are noble. Dan: Interesting. By asking if the MOQ is of the highest quality then it would appear (to me) that we are in effect asking whether there can be nothing better than the MOQ. I am pretty sure that something better will one day emerge. What I see you saying is that the MOQ begins with human experience. Well, actually that is exactly what you say. Now, it may be that I am misinterpreting your words but the MOQ is not so grandiose as to claim it begins with experience. Yes, the MOQ is a collection of intellectual quality patterns seeking to explain reality in a more expansive way than does our current prevailing mythos. Rather, I would say intellectual quality patterns emerge from Dynamic Quality. For me, it works better to think of experience and Dynamic Quality as becoming synonymous. It appears this statement bothers you (among others here) a bit though I have yet to discern why. [Ron sez] It bothers me because it neglects biological and social value in the explanation of the immediate now of experience. It neglects the assertion that even the immediate now is colored by personal history and culture. Ie static quality. Paul: > I know that a more conventional MOQ answer would be that Dynamic Quality is > reality and the MOQ is a static pattern so is not equivalent to reality and > I think that's a good enough answer in most cases but can't help feeling it > puts a little toe onto the Yellow Brick Road back to Athens.... > Dan: I hesitate to say Dynamic Quality "is" anything. We may say what 'it' is not and we may use analogies and synonyms to intellectually illuminate what we are on about when we say 'Dynamic Quality' but to say 'it' is reality, or this, or that, is to fall further into a trap of naming the unnameable. [Ron] Right, this important to realize, but it is just as important to realize that any and all human understanding is the only way we can perceive the immediate now. So it would seem that there is a distinction between the unnameable of the patternless and the good of the immediate now of human experience. I'd say, the Pragmatist would contend that the former is more abstract and less meaningful than the latter as an idea. Just as dialectic this abstraction seeks to usurp the good and enthrone itself. Simply on the merit that it refers to the outside of human experience, it leaves the term a hollow empty meaningless place holder in the human experience and really is not verifiable in this context of the immediate now. Dan: To state we experience static quality or we experience Dynamic Quality is to misunderstand the context in which the MOQ is using the term. [Ron] Then to say the MoQ is a form of Pragmatism is also to misunderstand the context in which Robert Pirsig is using the term. "DQ". according to you. > > Dan: > > Why bother with speaking about Dynamic Quality at all? We throw > > intellectual terms at 'it' but that is all we may do. In creating > synonyms > > and analogies we might better delineate what we are on about even if it > > cannot be described. > > Dan: Why doesn't emergence of static patterns from experience work better within the context of the MOQ? I understand there are many here who insist on using qualifiers like 'direct' and 'pure' to describe experience but I think it unnecessarily complicates an already complex metaphysics when we begin breaking up 'experience' into all these different terms. [Ron] Because it does not account for human meaning, its explanation neglects the good it does not answer the "why" or what for. Paul: > If, as you say, experience is synonymous with Dynamic Quality and human > experience is synonymous with experience, then human experience is > synonymous with Dynamic Quality, no? Dan: No. First, I didn't say it. Robert Pirsig said it. "Man is the measure of all things." [ZMM] "Man is always the"measure of all things, even in matters of space and dimension." [Lila] RMP Annotation 37 I don’t think they are fuzzy. DG: But they are human specific. RMP: Anders is slipping into the materialist assumption that there is a huge world out there that has nothing to do with people. The MOQ says that is a high quality assumption, within limits. One of its limits is that without humans to make it that assumption cannot be made. It is a human specific assumption. Strictly speaking, Anders has never heard of or ever will hear of anything that isn’t human specific. [Lila's Child] Dan comments: It appears to me that the MOQ begins with experience and to postulate non-human experience is a materialistic assumption which works within limits. To add qualifiers like 'human' and 'non-human' to the term 'experience' seems to complicate matters more than to simplify. [Ron] By saying that DQ is value-less you ARE asserting a non-human experience. That is the whole point. It is postulating a non-human, abstraction that is not veifiable in the now human experience. .. ... 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
