Hello. This is my introduction to the focus group and I want to express my appreciation to the posters for the strength of mind exposed in the October archives. You folks have covered and provided a great deal of information in the process of discussing MF 5th Level. I do have some disturbing thoughts to share on the underlying models expressed throughout the threads. The thoughts, at least, are disturbing to me! In my reading of Robert M. Pirsig's works on the Metaphysics of Quality, I have not encountered any teleological approach by Robert M. Pirsig to answering big questions. The discussions' postings all seem to have a set of suppositions that the MOQ was developed/discovered with a purpose to define the 'next big thing'. I would like to suggest that this idea or MEME virus of the mind) is an artifact created by each of our own experiences. We want a happy ending or to be able to predict what happens next. Please bear with me for a few short moments and then, hopefully the underlying concepts that are bothering me will be exposed through the use of the MOQ. Language is the current medium of communicating and as such understanding it(language) presents a formidable barrier to accurate and clear expression of the mental processes we each undertake in the dialogue of the MOQ. I defer to Steven Pinker in his "The Language Instinct, How the mind creates language" for a much longer and very precise description of language and its place in the human condition. The short version is "Language is a site specific suborgan or system in the physical brain." Language does not consist of "English, or Spanish or Bilt!thong" but of a universal grammar that preexists the audible word in each brain. The language connection to MOQ was traversed by Robert M. Pirsig in his pursuit and use of rhetoric. Rhetoric is a tool with which to approach understanding of the MOQ but it is not without is flaws as a tool. If we confuse language with MOQ than examination of language with MOQ raises the fallacy of using a tool to build the very tool in use, not unlike Escher's Hand drawing a Hand sketch. I assert that language can usefully be examined by using MOQ because MOQ preexists in the creation of the "mind or intellect" 'before' language. Internal examination of language is necessary in my opinion to show the underlying structures or bias with which I view events like the MOQ and to understand what bothers me about trying to communicate about MOQ. Language is a sign post or pointer to the MOQ, but using language to 'define' or elucidate the MOQ results in a very uncomfortable feeling of non or not Quality. Language clusters ideation in groups of threes, and utilizes tone, intonation, s p a c ing, volume and pitch(as examples) to convey meaning. Language is mutable and can undergo radical shifts and changes in a generation. MOQ tracks and clarifies the twisty path of language, the obverse is not true of language for MOQ. Applying the inherent models of language to MOQ results in confusion and internal mental pain for me, so I strive weakly to avoid using language models to examine MOQ. Now what else is really bothering me is the tone or 'direction' of the discussions assuming that MOQ "has to define a next level". Teleological thinking or belief is a world view of systematic and continuous progression toward some ultimate and not necessarily defined goal. I find nothing in the MOQ that requires abstraction or bucketizing of the known universe into binaries or ternaries or other 'aries with some subsequent outcome or destination goal as an objective. What I do find is a solid and consistent framework of idea modalities which are both humanly reassuring and very capable when applied outside the mental cages which observation, belief, experience, introspection and intellect contrive to build up as obstacles or explanations to the impulse to quality recognition inherent in each of us. Yeah, I believe I know quality when I see it. :) Thank you. Of course the ideas and opinions expressed here-in are the sole responsibility of the author. bens MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
