dmb,
First let me state that I am glad to hear from you after the horrific damage
reports coming out of Colorado. I was worried. Now back to business.
Here is the original statement which initiated dmb's complaint:
Re: [MD] Questions for Marsha.
On Sep 10, 2013, at 10:29 AM, MarshaV wrote:
[djh]
Logical consistency is better than vagueness and incoherence.
Without standards, these are all relative concepts, and that's fine by me, but
don't hit me over the head with your relative opinions.
[djh]
Why are you removing the standard of Quality? Quality exists. If something is
good it is good. End of story. Or do you disagree with this?
I accept the MoQ's idea that the world is nothing but value. From a Dynamic
Quality (unpatterened) view nothing is right or wrong, better or worse. From
the static (patterned) view a pattern exist because it is useful. I also
accept that on the static (conventional) level *individual judgements* of
what's bad or good will differ because of different static pattern histories
and differences in the present dynamic conditions.
-------------
Marsha:
Here is how I represented the paragraph, with RMP quotes, for clarification:
1. I accept the MoQ's idea that the world is nothing but value.
"The Metaphysics of Quality's central idea that the world is nothing but value
is not part of any philosophic tradition that I know of."
- RMP
Marsha:
There was nothing wrong with the wording of my statement.
---
2. From a Dynamic Quality (unpatterened) view nothing is right or wrong,
better or worse.
Changed to:
2. Value judgements, like *right or wrong* and *better or worse* do not apply
to Dynamic Quality.
"... my statement that Dynamic Quality is always
affirmative was not a wise statement, since it constitutes a limitation or
partial definition of Dynamic Quality. Whenever one talks about Dynamic Quality
someone else can take whatever is said and make a static pattern out of it and
then dialectically oppose that pattern. The best answer to the question, “What
is Dynamic Quality?” is the ancient Vedic one——“Not this, not that.”"
- RMP
Marsha:
Please note that it is RMP using "Not this, not that" and reaffirming that
Dynamic Quality should be undefined.
---
3. From the static (patterned) view a pattern exist because it is useful.
---
4. I also accept that on the static (conventional) level *individual
judgements* of what's bad or good may differ because of different static
pattern histories and differences in the present dynamic conditions.
---
Marsha:
Within this post, I cannot identify your specific complaints. It cannot be
that I used "neti, neti" because it was used by RMP in the quote I provided.
How does quoting RMP's statement that Dynamic Quality should be undefined and
recommending meditation as a method for obtaining direct experience represent
solipsistic subjectivism? Your disease/cure complaint is too abstract; the
MoQ is a carefully presented theory not a pill, and SOM is not merely a disease
to be destroyed.
I would be happy to respond to specific complaints if you make them clear and
provide specific evidence within a properly cited context.
Marsha
On Sep 18, 2013, at 3:18 PM, david buchanan wrote:
>
> In the "Questions for Marsha" thread, Arlo said to Ron:
>
> Marsha's "neti neti" is another way of saying "undefined". No one disputes
> this. No one has said Dynamic Quality is definable. [...] So once we've
> left the meditative trance on the mountaintop, once we're immersed in a
> metaphysical dialogue, meaning is important. Once we call that undefined
> 'neti neti' by the term "Quality" or "Dynamic Quality" or "Value" or
> "Experience", we are pointing to something salient and meaningful. Seeing
> this primary undefined as Quality/value is the root of all Pirsig's
> subsequent writings. It 'points to' meaning, even if 'definition' is
> impossible. As with you, Ron, I'm not sure what sense it makes to suggest
> that 'not this, not that' is the evolutionary force. All this does is say "we
> can't define the evolutionary force". Hell, even the attribute "evolutionary"
> points to meaning, as does "force". To be genuine, Marsha would have to
> object to Pirsig referring to the undefined as "Quality" as even this
> violates the 'neti, neti' by assigning
> specific meaning to an undefinable.
>
>
> dmb says:
>
> Yea, I guess everybody knows that DQ can't be defined. The problem is that
> Marsha is constantly invoking this indefinability without understanding what
> it actually means. It's important to understand WHY it can't be defined and
> HOW Pirsig's metaphysics can be built around DQ despite its ineffability.
> You probably don't need an explanation, Arlo, but let me put one on the table
> for anyone who's interested in the MOQ and/or not interested in nihilistic
> relativism.
>
> One way to approach this is to recall the question that started the
> metaphysical ball rolling in the first place. Pirsig was just trying to teach
> some teenagers how to write but a faculty asked him if undefined quality is
> subjective or objective. Well, that's exactly where the answer would be
> "neither this nor that". Subject-Object metaphysics says it has to be one or
> the other and that the former isn't really real. Within SOM, quality is
> usually considered to be "just" subjective.
>
> As we can see, I think, Marsha's half-baked invocations of DQ's
> indefinability and constantly citing her own meditative experience has the
> effective of turning the MOQ into some kind of solipsistic subjectivism. Thus
> the cure is re-infected with the disease; the MOQ is converted back into the
> worst kind of SOMism. This not only introduces the relativism and the
> "psychic solitary confinement" of SOM but it also turns Quality back into
> that whimsical and capricious "whatever you like". The MOQ is not just
> whatever you like. It is static, knowable, divisible, definable and
> intelligible, as any metaphysic must be. And that's what's really in dispute.
> Basically, Marsha cannot accept the idea that she, or anyone else, can be
> right or wrong about metaphysics. Sigh. So static patterns aren't necessarily
> real or true and DQ is just not this and not that. Nothing is real and
> nothing is right or wrong.
>
>
> Pirsig says the MOQ is a "contraction in terms" precisely because metaphysics
> must be definable and yet the whole thing is built around an undefined term.
> And it's no accident, of course that this basic claim is reflected in the
> MOQ's first and most basic distinction: static and Dynamic. The most succinct
> statement about this distinction tells us quite simply and clearly that
> concepts are static and reality is Dynamic. That sums it all up pretty well
> but that pithy little slogan is packed with meaning and import. Once this
> distinction is clear, the distinction between concepts and reality,
> everything else in the MOQ can be understood in that light.
>
> One thing we really must NOT do, of course, is try to understand the MOQ's
> "reality" as objective or as a "reality" that is opposed to mere appearance,
> as Ron pointed out. One of the reasons we can rightly refer to subject-object
> dualism as a "metaphysics" is because subjects and objects are considered to
> be the primary realities which make experience possible. In philosophy they
> are the conditions for the possibility of experience, what reality must
> really be like prior to experience. Metaphysics is sort of infamous for
> making up all kinds of explanations involving structures of reality that
> underly appearance or are beyond the realm of experience. Pirsig doesn't do
> that. That's what he means when he says DQ is NOT a metaphysical chess piece.
> In the history of metaphysics, this is pretty damn radical. To cut things
> into static and Dynamic is a big move. The distinction between concepts and
> reality REPLACES the distinction between subjects and objects. It replaces
> the distinc
> tion between appearance and reality. DQ is not intellectually knowable or
> definable but it is not beyond appearances. It is direct, everyday
> experience, the cutting edge of experience and we all know it directly at
> every moment. Obviously, we experience concepts too. They're quite familiar
> and knowable and not at all beyond appearances. In a very important sense,
> Pirsig's MOQ does not posit any metaphysical explanations or ontological
> structures that supposedly give rise to experience. Instead, the starting
> point is experience itself. Reality is experience itself. This is radical
> empiricism, where experience and reality are the same thing. And if we look
> to the hot stove example, it easy to show how "experience" is this sense is
> neither this nor that and yet it is quite real and directly known.
>
> "Any person of any philosophic persuasion who sits on a hot stove will verify
> without any intellectual argument whatsoever that he is in an undeniably
> low-quality situation: that the value of his predicament is negative. This
> low quality is not just a vague, wooly-headed, crypto-religious, metaphysical
> abstraction. It is an experience." (LILA)
>
> One might be unmoved by arguments about the effects of hot stoves on human
> flesh but experience will keep one honest because there's no arguing with
> reality. The one who refuses to listen to those static warnings will
> certainly get burned. Concepts lead us through experience well or badly and
> that's all that real or true can ever mean within the pragmatics of the MOQ.
> The MOQ rejects the correspondence theory of truth precisely because it
> construes truth as a representation of the "real" structure of reality. In
> the MOQ, reality is not a structure or entity of any kind but rather the
> ongoing process of experience itself. This reality is indefinite, an
> ever-changing flux, an aesthetic continuum, undefined yet always charged with
> value, either positive or negative, rightness or wrongness.
>
> And, as the hot stove example shows, we can even act on this value even
> before we have a chance to think about it. We respond to reality immediately
> all the time. This is not some special mountain-top experience or even a
> particular meditative disciple. It the immediate of flux of life, direct
> everyday experience. As the native American mystics show, there's no need to
> make a big fuss about or turn it into some exotic esoterica. Zen ain't
> supposed to be fancy either, as in "just fixing," and both of these
> associations are consistent with the MOQ non-theoretical starting point:
> experience as such.
>
> This is the cure that kills the disease. It's static and knowable and
> definable and we can contrast the MOQ with all the metaphysical systems that
> put the real reality outside of experience. Experience is no longer merely
> subjective nor is it contrasted with reality. Instead, experience IS reality
> and all static concepts are derived from that experiential reality.
>
> Just one more point:
> Please notice what happens to concepts in this view. Since they are all
> derived from experience, they are all secondary formations, even the concepts
> that supposedly stand for primary realities. There are many such concepts
> even outside of philosophy. This includes subjects and objects, of course,
> but also gravity and God, time and space, heaven and hell. In the MOQ, no
> concept can rightly be taken as referring to a primary ontological reality.
> This is the Copernican revolution writ large. Just as the astronomer's new
> conceptualization virtually changed the very structure of the universe, the
> MOQ arranges everything around a new center point. The MOQ puts everything
> else in orbit around DQ. It's neither this nor that, but it's the focal point
> of everything we can say about the MOQ.
>
> And this focal point, around which all of the MOQ's concepts are arranged, is
> NOT Marsha's private pet or some room for which only she has the key. That
> attitude is way too sanctimonious and it's as pretentious as a monkey in a
> tux.
>
>
>
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