Hi Roger, David and Group:
I've been reading the exchanges between Roger and David with
interest. Seems their basic disagreement concerns Pirsig�s
definition of (to use Roger's words) "base reality.� Roger seems to
say that intellectual patterns are not base reality while David claims
they are. Since intellectual patterns are directly experienced like
base reality, one can easily side with David. But since ideas are
generated after direct experience (the hot stove), one could just as
easily side with Roger. As for David�s "mediation,� of intellectual
patterns by lower patterns, I can find quotes from Lila both pro and
con.
Perhaps some of the confusion comes from Pirsig's use of
"empirical" and "experience." Both words are usually associated
with the biological senses--sight, sound, taste, touch and smell--
implying that (for Pirsig) base reality consists of hard �sensory data�
which is then interpreted through culturally derived "intellectual
glasses." In other words, there's the primary, �pure� reality of sense
experience and a secondary reality of words and ideas.
But I don't think Pirsig is clear about this. Dynamic Quality is
apparently "sensed" by "living beings" in the same way the color
green is sensed, but not by any biological mechanism like an eye or
an ear. Pirsig leaves the ability to recognize DQ to an unidentified,
mysterious, intuitive "sixth" sense.
In addition to this gray area in the MOQ, Pirsig doesn't seem to be
able to settle on whether Quality is everyday experience or
something that is sensed only on extraordinary occasions. In
Chapter 9 and elsewhere, he defines DQ as "any phenomenon that
transcends the run of everyday experience." But, in Chapter 29, he
says the good is "direct everyday experience" and identifies pure
value (DQ) with pure experience.
One can argue that the contexts are different and therefore any
confusion is only in the eye of the beholder. My only point is that
while some details of the MOQ are subject to different
interpretations, it would be shame to get bogged down in them if in
the meantime Pirsig's major ideas were ignored. The notion that the
"physical order of the universe is also the moral order of the
universe" (Lila, Chp. 30) is a central concept of the MOQ. Yet,
perhaps because it seems so unbelievable, we spend little time
talking about it.
How do we observe reality the MOQ way? How do we change our
cultural glasses to observe (if only for a moment) not things but
morals? How do we change our s/o outlook to observe the physical
world as patterns of values? How do we observe the universe in a
way that prompts us to say, like the Dakota Indian, "Take care of
your goodness," rather than "Be good."
If the answer is, "meditate," or "take drugs," or become a Zen monk,
I pass. That route is a throwback to the failed so-called �New Age.�
As a major theme of MOQ suggests, "There must be a better way."
Platt
MOQ Online Homepage - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Unsubscribe - http://www.moq.org/md/index.html
MD Queries - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
