[MD] "RMP: Ignoramous or fraud?
John: So "ignoramous" non-perjorativel then, but the fact is, he DID at least read some AN Whitehead. Quotes him from reading his book on history of philosophy, in the bowels of the troopship. dmb: And speaking of fraudulent ignoramuses, nobody around here will be surprised if John has tried to slander Pirsig or if has dishonestly tried to smuggle in a theistic view. Again. It's like a hobby, I guess. Trolls will be trolls. Andre: And not only that but John bases the slander on false claims he invents himself. Phaedrus did not read A.N. Whitehead at all in the bowels of the troopship! He was reading F.S.C. Northrop ‘ The Meeting of East and West”. A simple reference to page 117 of ZMM will suffice (Corgi edition). 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
Re: [MD] Zen
John: I choose to believe that we live in a dualistic world Andre: What a pity and travesty of reality. John: The dualism can be expressed in many ways, but is best expressed, DQ and SQ. Andre: What drivel. It shows your complete lack of understanding of Pirsig’s MOQ. John: DQ is the world that is not - the world of dreams, and ideals and ideas about hopes for the future. Andre: More drivel. What you are stating is nothing but sq. Seems to me that after all these years you grasp absolutely nothing of the MOQ. Better go back to preschool John…or rather play school. You have nothing to find nor contribute here on this discuss. I,m off for a week. Namaste 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
Re: [MD] Dissertation re/Pirisig and Postmodernity
[Arlo] Like you, I am making my way through this. Bearning in mind that this is NOT a dissertation on Pirsig's philosophy (as is Ant's), I was reading it with less scrutiny, perhaps. So, I've went back and reread the author's introduction and conclusions several times. I don't see the misunderstandings you imply above (can you give specific instances in the text where you read this?). Andre: Thanks Arlo, it indeed is not a dissertation on Pirsig’s philosophy. I have read the pieces on her reading of ZMM and LILA from her perspective and must say that von Dahlern makes some worthwhile and interesting comments once again from her perspective. However I must say that there are still things irritating. I’ll cite a few below: On page 209 von Dahlem asks: If intellectual activity does not automatically lead to the right understanding of Quality, how can we prove that the MOQ is correct? How can human beings ever be sure that every single person is able to live truly morally? How can they make others find the right path? ...Yet, it is impossible to logically defend the position that certain human beings have been intellectually wrong for centuries…and that Phaedrus…can suddenly be right. On page 210: There is no good and evil, there is only power… . This literary quote could be altered to describe the MOQ as follows: There is no good and evil, there is only Quality. From footnote 890: In the end the MOQ has to prove that Dynamic Quality exists and is really the source of the whole universe, which is done indirectly. Communicative foundationalist ethics has to prove that human beings are first and foremost communicative human beings,which is done directly….In addition, the communicative foundationalist world view can explain the human individual who is able to describe and understand reality far more clearly than the MOQ. I could go on for a bit longer where von Dahlem assesses the relationship between Lila and Phaedrus (he is not a very compassionate human being) and even the notion that she (von Dahlem) appears to have difficulties with Pirsig’s secluded lifestyle. But leave it for now. Even though she did refer to Anthony’s PhD she clearly does not refer to the AHP tapes or the annotations in Lila”s Child nor to other valuable materials available (e.g the DvD’s Anthony produced and made available). I can only speculate of course if this would have made a difference but still contend that her remarks/judgements/valuations here and there throughout the relevant sections are somewhat contentious and certainly open to questioning. dmb: But it's still pretty cool that Pirsig's work increasingly appears in academic literature. Nothing will advance the MOQ like a good debate in that arena. Andre: Yes David, very true. Thanks to you both. 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
Re: [MD] Dissertation re/Pirisig and Postmodernity
Hi Everyone, Arlo: Below is a link to a dissertation, Nina Michaela von Dahlern (2012) at the University of Hamburg, The Ethical Foundations of Postmodernity ? Communicative Reality and Relative Individuals in Theory and North American Literature. Beginning (primarily) on page 140 (Deconstructing Traditional Values: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance ? An Inquiry into Values) and continuing through at least page 240 (including The Creation of a New Ethics: Lila ? An Inquiry into Morals) is some interesting discussion on Pirsig. to which David replied: What a fantastic find, Arlo. Thanks. Hello David and Arlo: I thank Arlo as well for finding this piece on ZMM and Lila but wonder if both Arlo’s and dmb's enthusiasm last as they actually read the way von Dahlem treats both ZMM and Lila? I haven’t read the hundred odd pages von Dahlem has devoted to ZMM and the MoQ in their entirety (am at page 229) but, reading what she has to say from the perspective of this communicative foundationalist ethics” which she thinks is perhaps the latest saviour but I sincerely wonder if she understands the MoQ or its implications as I sense that it is beyond this narrow, advocated perspective. All I read is an attack on the intellectual level (which Phaedrus represents) as developed in Pirsig’s MoQ. There appears to be a great psychological/interpersonal thing going on from the S/O perspective and there appears to be little by way of interpersonal relationship understanding from the MoQ perspective. Am interested to hear your comments/thoughts. Perhaps I completely misunderstand. Andre 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
[MD] An experiment
John M to Andre: The various ways you showed, in Issue 11, how DQ escapes our linguistic and intellectual constraints gave me an idea. Here's something that came to me sort of dynamically, and I'd like to try it out here. It may be total nonsense or total crap. Linguistic and Logical Analysis of the Concept of DQ Andre: This does not seem to be a good start John because DQ is not a concept in the MOQ. Dynamic Quality denotes the unconceptualised part of reality. Consequently, the term Dynamic Quality is not meant to be a concept but only a referring term: ¨It’s important to keep all concepts out of Dynamic Quality. Concepts are always static. Once they get into Dynamic Quality they’ll overrun it and try to present it as some kind of concept itself (Pirsig,1997 e) Anthony’s PhD, p 35) John M: From the totality of my experience and perceptions of my world my intellect abstracts a concept to which I apply the word-symbol DQ. Andre: You cannot abstract DQ from your intellect John. It’s interesting that you use the expression „ it came to me sort of dynamically,” . I’d suggest that that is it. Whatever came to you dynamically (and here you are referring to DQ experience…whatever that is) is always static. John M: The concept corresponding to the word DQ is such there are no logical contradictions in, or among, any of the following statements. Andre: From the above you can see that there are no concepts corresponding to the word DQ. DQ is referring to an ineffable ¨unconditioned . It refers to the undifferentiated aesthetic continuum (Northrop). William James’ flux. The Buddhist formlessness, the Void. The way Pirsig refers to it as ‚ a vague sense of betterness” ( referring to the Zuni)…’ a dim perception of he knows not what” gets him off [the stove] Dynamically (LILA p118-9). The entire evolutionary progression as consisting of ‚ spur of the moment decisions…” (LILA, p147). The trick with all these terms is NOT to imagine anything related to what they may be referring to or what they mean. Then you have already turned that to which they refer into something static. These are only meant as pointers. Need this game be continued any further John? My logical capacities have been impaired somewhat through my accident. It literally makes my head spin and that is not a nice sensation, so I avoid it when and wherever possible. Perhaps somebody else will have a go at it. I suggest you put them through an analysis a la the tetra lemma. Whatever happens, the answer you may seek will be more static stuff. But who knows. Good luck. 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
Re: [MD] MOQ is good. What is it good for?
On 13/10 John Carl wrote: I don't see how a metaphysics of undefinable Quality can be static. In fact, I'd say its in the very nature of Value to be dynamic and evolving. Andre: We’ve been going over this perspective more than once. It’s a shame that some still do not experience the difference between the menu and the food. Eat the metaphysics John…learn all its concepts, understandings, perspectives,…it may even evoke smells, feelings, tastes…just by experiencing the menu ( this works better if you close your eyes)… and I guarantee you that that toward which it points…once eaten and thereby directly experienced will blow you away! Then you will realize the difference between the menu and the food. Undefinable Quality is as you say not static and yet it is. It is it is this and that and neither this nor that. It is working and yet no working . Remember what Phaedres’ conclusion was`: He had done nothing for the Tao. (ZMM) ‚ rationality benefitted that is all…a way of reasoning, a way of conceptualizing a way of putting together a perspective of experiencing the universe.. Quality has no nature to which to refer or seek refuge and neither has it any value or does not have any value. It contains value and brings it forth. But the Quality that can be spoken of through value is not the true Quality. Quality is not evolving because there is nothing there to evolve. Value, as part of the MOQ, can be said to be evolving and therefore is considered to be in constant change. If you still do not grasp the difference between DQ and sq, between Quality and static patterns I would simply suggest to read LILA once again. Sorry to suggest this but what you write invites such a response. JC: The MoQ is a sort of metaphysics of evolution and thus it itself is all about evolving. Andre: Yes JC, it is arguing all about evolving. And the menu is all about the food being prepared (evolving) and with a bit of luck being presented daily and nightly. But no matter how detailed the description…( including all the sensory data) you will not know (including all the sensory data) what the food tastes like until you eat it, smell it, see it taste it and feel it. This does not require day nor night. You cannot experience the MOQ John! JC: How can something that is about evolving toward betterness, be called static”? Andre: By realizing Quality and understanding that the reference to it is a pointer. When I say to you that that is a bird…do you see the bird or are you seeing that mystery flying through the air without leaving a trace? What you are arguing is that the bird is real…that it is a static and accurate representation of experience. Krishnamurti argued something devastating once. He said something like…as soon as you teach a child the word bird... that child will never really see a bird again. That is something that happens when conceptualizing. You tend to forget that to which it refers. And when you try to remember you try to include all that to which the concept refers so as to make the concept as whole and representative as possible. And you fail dismally because you are relying on memory…the killer of direct, pure experience yet we cannot function without it. Phaedrus has a lot to say about that. JC: I guess it could be if it's author chose that it be static, but that seems a low-quality choice to me! Andre: It appears to me to be a very wise and therefore high quality choice because it captures two things at once…the realization that there must alway be a discrepancy between the concept and that to what is experienced. And that, my friend, is referring to the realization of something beyond concepts and beyond the experience to which it points. DQ/sq. 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
[MD] MOQ is good. What is it good for?
Dear MOQ’ers Some time ago ( Wed, sept 14) John M said: The MOQ isn't a living, dynamic entity. It is a static intellectual pattern. It was made at a point in time by one person, in the midst of his own unique circumstances. But it doesn't fit mine,…’ Andre: This „ it doesn’t fit mine” keeps on bothering me a bit. We’ve had so many people here who eventually left (in frustration may I add) because there crept in an anomaly with what they considered to be the MOQ…i.e.what Pirsig was talking about and their own experience of the perspective furnished by this self same MOQ as devised by Pirsig. We have seen good, well-intentioned people leaving this discussion because their experience did not seam well with the MOQ as represented in LILA, defended by the likes of Anthony, dmb, Arlo, Ron and Dan. They argued a discrepancy between their living of the MOQ (as they experienced it) and Pirsig’s deposition thereof in LILA. LILA is a book…an exposition of the insights of a very special person who, as Cat Stevens once poetically said ¨turned the world to order” ( the song Jesus on Buddha and the Chocolate Box). And, boy this world needs to be turned to order… . It’s a karmic mess…we all know it, see it, feel it and when we look honestly we see that the MOQ tells us how. The nice thing of course is that it does not give us any definite answers! Thank goodness for that. Otherwise we’re be stuck with another dogma. It does give us pointers. And because Pirsig did ( when you are…and certainly you are) lend assistance to a living, sentient being with the ordering of the interpretation of our experience he thereby presents us with a clear starting point that is ever changing and ever renewed. It is good to have a solid foundation from which to see, feel, hear and argue. This is not dogma…it is realizing that words are simply pointers. And it is important to get the words right. And once the words are in place they are properly understood…in the context within which they receive their fullest meaning and explanatory power. In the same way that a menu is a pointer to the food it does not and cannot be a substitute or a guarantee for the quality of the food that ends up on your plate. No matter what the menu says…there is no guarantee that it is going to be to your liking… and pay special attention here to the word/concept YOUR. If the food does not agree with you…are you going to blame the menu…the waiter, the cook, the butter, the oil, the heat, the oven, the weather…your mechanic. your wife, your children, the maid, your bank manager, your pet, your tools, the class room, the sun set, the Middle East, the IS, the Buddha, Jesus Christ, Krishnamurti…Pirsig? I have said it before and will say it again: the MOQ is NOT a personal scrip for changing the world. It is a worldly scrip for changing your self. It is a signifier dancing (DQ) the conditioned towards…? It is a sign pointing towards the moon. We can pretend to be responsible for the best sexual experiences in the world. We can pretend to be the best celebrities in the world with the the highest status and the most money in the bank. We can pretend to be the smartest intellectually productive thought producers in the world . But that is NOT what it’s about. Were here to see the moon…that’s all. Realize Rta/dharma. That’s the clearest pointer of an idea you can get. And there is nothing personal in that. As a matter of fact, it has nothing to do with ¨mine” or yours or me or you. Perhaps that is the most difficult illusion to overcome. And it is the oldest idea known to man. (LILA,p 390) Namaste. 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
Re: [MD] Zen and theArt of Religion
JA to Andre: A social motorcycle is a social pattern that can be maintained, not by using a monkey-grip but by social tools. That?s what the MOQ is good for, kind-ness, social quality and friendlyness. The art of how to enter a public house for a beer and some small talk. Andre: The point you are trying to make JA still eludes me. Is it the language? Am I thick? The MOQ suggests that there are moral codes that establish the supremacy of the social order over biological life and other moral codes that establish the supremacy of the intellectual order over the social order (LILA p 167). I guess I am now unsure as to what you mean by social tools designed to maintain a social pattern. Are you talking about celebrity? Are you talking along the lines of: ¨Do as your told child, pass your grades, get a good job, find a nice friend, settle down with your house, tree and pet and generally keep your nose clean? And all will be well? I suppose when it comes down to it each level has its own self-regulatory values as well. In your example not necessarily kind-ness and friendliness but also their poles (un-kindness and un-friendliness) to maintain some sort of balance. JA: My point is, the existence of something seem to be differently confirmed at the different levels. One of my favourite examples is from Kant, he was talking about ?Das Ding an Sich?, Andre: It seems to me unfortunate that you are trying to confirm the existence of something through the use of Kant’s Ding as Sich. In the MOQ there is no ¨ding an sich”. They are patterns of value in a universal context of co-dependent arising. JA: Social patterns are detected by social behaviour. Civilized manner is measured and compared to another. Celebrity is therefore not an absolute like social patterns. Andre: Here you’ve lost me again. First of all: there are no absolutes in the MOQ. Social patterns are NOT considered absolute. Secondly: who suggested that celebrity is an absolute? Fame and fortune…are the twin forces in the Dynamic generation of social value (LILA,p262). What is absolute in that argument? Are you suggesting JA (hence my confusion) that organic values cannot be detected by social values or intellectual values for that matter? Or that social values cannot be detected by intellectual values? It appears to me that we are a long time past the observation where a social pattern is unaware of the next higher level. We are supposed to be living as a (civilized) culture which contains social and intellectual values but not biological or inorganic. What exactly you are arguing here JA still eludes me. Perhaps we are talking past each other or what? 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
Re: [MD] Zen and theArt of Religion
JA to Andre: My point was that we can beat something material with a stick but we can?t hit a concept at the intellectual level with a stick. Each level has its tools. To maintain a social motorcycle we have to use social ?sticks? and vice versa. Andre: What is a social motorcycle? JA: I know there are people trying to talk with vegetables and even think that rocks too can listen to small talk but these people are wrong because they don?t understand the 4 levels of the MOQ fully. Andre: This reminds me of a passage (p 165) in ZMM: A rush of wind comes furiously now, down from the mountaintop.” The ancient Greeks,” I say, ¨who were the inventors of classical reason, knew better than to use it exclusively to foretell the future. They listened to the wind and predicted the future from that. That sounds insane now. But why should the inventors of reason sound insane?” Talking with veggies and rocks may provide us with insights which classical reason, certainly in the West, has ridiculed for too long. I think the MOQ is open to those perspectives. Whether these persons understand the 4 levels of the MOQ or not is beside the point. Live and realize the four levels but be open to DQ I’d suggest. And it seems to me that they are. Or would you, JA rather talk to your local politician/banker/businessperson/marketing manager/ image engineer to find out what is going on? JA: Descarte?s test works only at the same level. Andre: Wow!!! I think therefore I AM??? At the same level??? Please explain JA because this is very confusing. Or are you conversing with the woods? JA: We can prove that a thought is, by comparing it to another thought. Andre: Interesting. How do you do that? How do you prove that a thought………is? by comparing it to another one? Have you eaten mushrooms JA? JA: Social patterns are fooling around with lawyers and people in love and so on. Andre: Oh dear. You have been at them mushrooms or perhaps had some smokey dope? We ARE the patterns JA. Who is fooling around with whom? JA: It?s like talking moral or ethics to a SOMer, quite fruitless.We must begin with to convince the person that there IS art and moral, at first. Andre: I do not agree JA. SOM has its own values and morals…plenty of them. Just follow Phaedrus’ conversation with Rigel, Chapter 6 in LILA. Plenty of moralizing at the social level…underpinned which plenty of assumptions, worship, faith and liturgy (ritual) and of course the pursuit of fame fortune and glory. All great morals to have and pursue and pursue and pursue, as Pirsig suggests: to find Paradise…Paradise…Paradise. You want to intellectually convince someone that art and morals exist? Good luck. 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
Re: [MD] MOQ is good. What is it good for?
JC to Andre: I think his point might have been something along the lines of the following essay, composed by Royce in homage to his friend and mentor, William James:... Andre: So you are arguing that because Royce, being a friend of James, puts Royce on equal footing with the intellectual pattern the MOQ represents? Oh boy…you are still trying to sneak god/the absolute in…through the Royce backdoor . Shame on you JC. JC: In order to win James's most enthusiastic support, ideas and men needed to express an intense inner experience along with a certain unpopularity which showed that they deserved sympathy. Too much worldly success, on the part of men or ideas, easily alienated him.” Andre: And this is exactly the type of flavor the MOQ represents…and you are lamenting the unsuccessful path of the MOQ as you have reproduced time and again through many posts…why do philosophers not adopt Quality? Why do the mainstream academia not follow the MOQ? Is it perhaps due to its social unacceptability or, more like;y its -in-comprehension? You have received many responses to the contrary but you keep on finding exceptions. It is suggested here that to find the exceptions... you have to be representing an exception as well.You say that you have to speak in SOM terms ( whatever that means) to your friends otherwise they do not understand you. Don’t blame the use of your own language JC. Jesus (sound familiar to you?) used the same analogies and it got him hung on the cross. Why? Because he expressed an intens (whatever that means) inner (whatever that means) experience which wasn’t shared. Not even his disciples knew what he was talking about…no exceptions!. It made him unpopular. But now you are suggesting that, because the MOQ is still not popular with mainstream academia or the common man it needs adjustment…it needs watering down…it needs to be palatable to satisfy the needs of the masses? More importantly, it needs adjustment because it does not fulfill YOUR needs or expectations? This tells me enough. You simply do not understand it. 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
Re: [MD] MOQ is good. What is it good for?
JC to Andre: I think John McC might have had a different point in mind than the one picked out here. On Sat, Sep 20, 2014 at 11:59 AM, Andre Broersen andrebroer...@gmail.com wrote: It is sad really but, since the above mentioned pattens? gripe seems to be that the MOQ does not fulfill their innermost longing Andre: I responded specifically to what John M said in his post on Sept 10: ¨The MOQ isn't a living, dynamic entity. It is a static intellectual pattern. It was made at a point in time by one person, in the midst of his own unique circumstances. But it doesn't fit mine, so I try to bend it into something I can use, and I get chastised by some in this forum for doing that.” My response JC simply came down to saying: If the MoQ, with its referral term DQ doesn’t fit what you are looking for you either misunderstand the MoQ or you want to get somewhere the moon ain’t at. Quite simple. The MoQ can be seen as a finger pointing to the moon…there are many fingers pointing to the moon. If the MoQ ain’t a static high quality intellectual pattern that works for you then don’t use it…go somewhere else. But stop abusing Pirsig by suggesting he is wrong about certain things or doesn’t understand certain things or is being vague or simply mistaken. Stop mistaking the finger for the moon and vice versa. All static intellectual patterns are provisional…Pirsig is aware of the MoQ as having the (provisional) same status. The MoQ will work beautifully until something better comes along. Just read Pirsig’s response to Final Comments in ¨The Role of Evolution, Time and Order in Pirsig’s Metaphysics of Quality” paper by McWatt and Priezkalns. And if one resorts to worship, faith and the liturgy as John M does, to attain the moon I’m afraid you are fiddling with social patterns of value alone. And that will probably not reveal the moon… . And I will repeat the challenge to anyone not agreeing with Pirsig’s MoQ: ¨What is there ¨outside” of the MOQ other than that for which DQ is a referring term?” In other words…to the MoQ critics: what is it about the MoQ that stops the moon from being revealed? 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
[MD] MOQ is good. What is it good for?
John M to Andre: The MOQ isn't a living, dynamic entity. It is a static intellectual pattern. It was made at a point in time by one person, in the midst of his own unique circumstances. Andre: I would like to come back to this observation by John M which undoubtedly is arrived at through a deeply felt sense of separation caused by a (psychological) conviction/belief of individuality/independence/ego-centricity. John M’s observation that the experience of what Pirsig presents through the MOQ ¨doesn’t fit mine” is indicative and very misleading.. ( On Sept 13 John M said: But it doesn't fit mine, so I try to bend it into something I can use, and I get chastised by some in this forum for doing that.(and the other John as wel). I’m really sorry to say this but what this jungle of patterns of value (give them a name if you want ) argue for is: look at me, my experience is different…and that is why the MOQ and Pirsig is weak, flawed, wrong, mistaken, faint-hearted…ladida . Remember the observation in ZMM as to why people respond differently to Quality? Oh boy… . But is seems that the argument by these two ( and we have had many in the past) is that nothing good can come out of the organic and social patterns ( especially when they have been labeled ¨insane’ ) and the, when they ¨pretend” ( oh dear God this cannot be true) towards revealing insights that show, and are reflected/translated into intellectual patterns ( as if nothing good can come out of this ) and, moreover using these patterns ( Pirsig’s so called insanity) to discredit (!!!) the intellectual pattern (the MOQ) it has produced. And the ¨sane” dominate and make judgement? In Buddhist terms it is as though the insane are passing judgement on the sane/ awake. Never mind…this happens all the time. You do not need to be a buddhist to see through this. It seems of the utmost importance to maintain this position of chastising these patterns (if we all want to ¨bend`’ Pirsig’s given insights) and reduce them to instances of one’ s individual experiences. If we keep on doing this and insisting on this we keep on arguing with each other simply because some of us do not understand the MOQ ( let’s say the written MOQ) as ¨opposed” to he living/breathing/ever-changing world it talks about. It is sad really but, since the above mentioned pattens’ gripe seems to be that the MOQ does not fulfill their innermost longing I do want to conclude with the poem Pirsig” s MOQ reflects… and follow it up with a poem of a non-dual teacher I have learnt to admire and respect over the years: While sustaining biological and social patterns. Kill them completely And then follow Dynamic Quality And morality will be served. ( LILA, p:406) The waves of mind demand so much of Silence. But she does not talk back does not give answers to arguments. She is the hidden author of every thought every feeling every moment. Silence. She speaks only one word. And that word is this very existence. No name you give Her touches Her captures Her. No understanding can embrace Her. Mind throws itself at Silence demanding to be let in. But no mind can enter into Her radiant darkness Her pure and smiling nothingness The mind hurls itself into sacred questions. But Silence remains unmoved by the tantrums. She asks only for nothing. Nothing. But you won’t give it to Her because it is the last coin in your pocket. And you would rather give her your demands than your sacred and empty hands. I will repeat the challenge: what is there outside of the MOQ other than that for which DQ is a referring term? Find opportunities within yourself and do not blame Pirsig’s MOQ…it is a finger pointing to the moon. And that is what we are here for: to see the moon. 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
[MD] MOQ is good. What is it good for?
Andre: Apologies to all who know the poem which I, inadvertently failed to reproduce properly. Here it is again…in full: While sustaining biological and social patterns Kill all intellectual patterns Kill them completely And then follow Dynamic Quality And morality will be served. Oh, the poem that followed is by Adyashanti from his My Secret is Silence. 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
[MD] MOQ is good. What is it good for?
John M to Andre: The MOQ isn't a living, dynamic entity. It is a static intellectual pattern. It was made at a point in time by one person, in the midst of his own unique circumstances Andre: As I said to you privately John, it is risky to suggest, as you do above, that Pirsig’s MOQ is a personal metaphysical account of his life and perspective. The MoQ is trans-personal…it was presented to Pirsig dynamically as was Gautama’s answer to suffering and, for Jesus his relationship to God ( which wash’t a relationship at all). John M: But it doesn't fit mine, so I try to bend it into something I can use, and I get chastised by some in this forum for doing that. Andre: Yes, that is making something trans-personal into making something personal. You need to get tapped on the fingers for that because you are making something universal into something personal. Which is fine but until you have reached the moon (so to speak), until you have reached the universal perspective ( as I think the MOQ is representing) all you do is contorting, misconstruing, manipulating, controlling and partial-izing in a self-striving, self-centered way. John M: The MOQ points to the moon. That makes sense, and I was trying to use it to get there. Andre: Where are you trying to get? Also in Zen Buddhism this is an analogy. What D.T Suzuki in his Essays in Zen Buddhism has to say about this analogy is this:¨ By personal experience it is meant to get at the fact at the first hand and not through any intermediary, whatever this may be”. (p 19) Pirsig has devised the MOQ around everyday experience as the first and only true measuring stick for anything good. So has James and countless others. If you need faith or worship to sustain something you may have experienced then all I can suggest is to throw them overboard. Faith and worship are not a measure of truth. Here’s the rub John…you do not need to get anywhere. You spoke of the liturgy and faith and worship. Jesus is attributed to have said to his apostles, when they asked the very same question ( different culture, different analogy) that the kingdom of heaven is right here yet men do not see it. It is not somewhere over there John… it is right here…you are walking in it, it is closer to you than your nose. If the MOQ is a monism then where else can it be? John M: They are saying, and the MOQ seems to be saying, There is no moon. Andre: Perhaps you can see this as the Zennie gateless gate analogy John. An endpoint that you thought was there but once trespassed realizing it was never there in the first place, it was all in your imagination…the endpoint as well as the gate…there is no conclusion but to realize this…ah. What was it that Gautama Buddha said when people asked him what he had gained upon his awakening? He sai nothing, absolutely nothing!!! Brilliant and very very simple. 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
Re: [MD] Zen and theArt of Religion
John McConnel to Andre: Andre, you fight like an adolescent girl, snapping and spitting and biting and scratching. Go to your room! Andre: Hi John, nice of you to chime in with your evaluation of my interaction with JC’s posts. I cannot find anything substantive to respond to since it seems most at a psychological level you are operating from. Do my posts come across as pompous? Well, that may be, but anyone who thinks they find fault with Pirsig and then attempt to improve his MOQ by showing an absolute lack of understanding and a great mass of confusion needs to be responded to in one way or the other. Yeah, Phaedrus struggled with this aspect of Lila as well and, despite the havoc she produced…boy she’s dynamic. I’m glad that, in view of the aftermath of the accident I experienced some time ago and my age I am still able to upset certain people on intellectual grounds. JM: (Where was MD during JC's absence??? It was pretty quiet there for a while.) Andre: This is a good one but what point are you making? I have experienced that many, many people feel uncomfortable when a quiet moment opens. What is the problem with stillness…with quiet…with silence? Does it make you feel uncomfortable? JM: Philosophy in general, and Pirsig's philosophy in particular, are vitally important to John and me. Andre: I appreciate that John. Pirsig’s MOQ is a high quality intellectual pattern of value. But I do get iffy and alert when I sense that posters are taking Pirsig’s MOQ for some sort of living, dynamic entity. It’s not. Many, including Bodvar for example, suggest that the MOQ IS reality. It is the be all and end all of ontology and epistemology. Problem is it ain’t. As Pirsig says himself: ¨The Metaphysics of Quality itself is static and should be separated from the Dynamic Quality it talks about. Like the rest of the printed philosophic tradition it doesn't change from day to day, although the world it talks about does.” And this includes us…we change in the process as living and experiencing human beings. But the MoQ must be seen, as they say in Zen Buddhism, as a finger pointing to the moon. And I can make a long story very short: we are here to see the moon. And if some poster fucks with the seeing or with the moon…i.e misrepresents or misconstrues Pirsig’s MOQ (as a guide) it needs to be made clear. And if this comes across as pompous well so be it. English is my second language. I am doing my best and as everyone else, there is sometimes just a feeling of being totally pissed off. 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
Re: [MD] Zen and theArt of Religion
John to Andre: Your words are absolutely clear, Andre. I can see right through them. To the exact wording that Pirsig used and while I have to give you an A for scholarly accuracy, If that's all there is to your MOQ then I’m afraid you’ve missed the whole point. Andre: You’re right John and I apologize for not recognizing your profound intellect and ¨deep value” understanding of Pirsig’s MOQ. John: All can be seen in a religious context, if you think of religion as it truly is - the sharing of deep value. Andre: Yes John…you’ve opened my mind (or is it heart?)… sharing of ¨deep value”. Gosh, I wished I’d have come up with that one. It is so profound. So that is REALLY what Pirsig means by the social level. Wow! I mean, I’ve heard of low value and high value but DEEP value. This really adds to my understanding of the MOQ. Thank you John, thank you. John: You can narrow it down to human society, and it still has wide scope - football, economics, academic associations, rotary club minutes, etc, etc. What would you call a single term that encompassed all that territory, if not of wide scope? Andre: Yes John…wide scope. Instead of merely suggesting ¨social level” Pirsig should have said religious level as this would have included everything. But YOU thought of it John. Fantastic! Your genius has hit on something profound and put Pirsig to shame! John: You've made your point perfectly and I smell your pain. You think the MOQ experience can be confined to words and exact definitions. You are sadly lost, my friend. And I doubt I can help you. I know the way out of the dark wood you're in, but you don't like or trust me. There's not much I can say. Andre: Again profound John. Now you think you can master the art of mind reading as well. I have one word for that: brilliant. Andre previously: A good definition does not narrow the context?it broadens it John. John: You've crossed the line to the irrational now. I got nothing to say to de-constructive nihilists. Andre: ¨Good is a noun. That was it. That was what Phaedrus had been looking for. That was the homer, over the fence, that ended the ball game… if you had to reduce the whole Metaphysics of Quality to a single sentence, that would be it” . ( The Dakota Indian considers goodness to be a noun rather than an adjective) (LILA p 418). John in response to Andre’s just capture the MOQ [ and all is said]: And here we are, less than 50 years latter, Andre-Buchanan can utter the same idea, dressed in an MOQ blanket, and nobody on this forum but I can see the great error, the huge mistake that is. Andre: John, you are proving your brilliance once again. Do you feel lonely John? I mean, you’re intellectual circumference has not been equalled on this site and, as you mentioned earlier the people you talk with do not comprehend what you say when talking MOQ so you talk SOM. It must be lonely at the top John…come on…show some human frailty. John: A statement that violates the very heart and spirit of the MoQ, That any sort of static pattern holds the keys on all there is to say”. Andre: You are assuming that the word ¨capture” denotes ¨all there is to say”. Actually there is very little to say John but you know that already. John: In the area of Religion, the rational relationship of Quality to the Godhead needs to be more thoroughly established, and this I hope to do much later on.” Andre: I can’t wait John. Am so looking forward to your brilliant insights. Can’t you give us a preview? John: And I'm sorry to embarrass you so. Its bound to happen when we all get thrown together in one group, the idiots and smart-asses in one place. I can't help it that I uncover your shame. It's just my nature to be honest. Andre: And honesty is a virtue John…and you display it over and over. You are the smart ass and I am the idiot. You are s profound. I love you John. 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
Re: [MD] Zen and theArt of Religion
J.A to John and Andre : But anyone of you still can't hit one of these DEEP values with a stick nor talk to the stick. Aint that peculiar? Andre: That ain’t peculiar J.A. Nr one: I do not know where John gets the DEEP values from…perhaps from his groin…could be anything but as Pirsig pointed out: do not confuse the different levels of values…they are empires all on their own, evolutionary developments one should not mess with…even in the head. That is why Pirsig suggested that inorganic and organic levels are ¨objective” in the sense that you can measure them ( i.e. touch, see, hear, smell, taste, feel them) and that social and intellectual values are ¨subjective” in the sense that you cannot measure them ( i.e.you cannot sense them [in the usual way of sense perception]). Your stick endeavor doesn’t make much sense in that regard. I mean, what are you trying to prove or what are you suggesting? Evolution seems to be a development from the gross toward the subtle (in Ken Wilber’s terms). I fail to see or appreciate the point you are making or trying to investigate. 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
[MD] Zen and theArt of Religion
John Carl: Here is the passage I recently read, that sounded like an MOQ approach to religion. Andre: The „ MOQ” approach to religion is very clear John. We all know this. In the MOQ religion is a social pattern of value…just one of many. Unless you consider dancing an expression of religion or attending a game of football an expression of religion or going to secondary school an expression of religion ( or, for that matter Law, economics, politics , warfare,watching TV, having a shower… it is endless as far as social patterns are concerned). John says to Dan: But whatever Pirsig said, the point should be obvious to any reasonable person - social is a term with wide scope. Andre: Dan has been very kind and very patient with you John…to the point of healing doctors making stinking wounds. You just do not get it do you? Social, as far as the MOQ is concerned does not have the scope you suggest it is. Pirsig clearly said that if you extend it to the level of organic values… it loses all its meaning. May as well talk of a society of flowers instead of a bunch of flowers…a society of air bubbles instead of the sky, a society of inorganic patterns and we call a mountain. Pirsig made it clear that if and when you fuck around with definitions you get screwed as far as the MOQ is concerned. Whatever turns you on John. John suggesting ( to Dan ) an improvement to LILA: Well, I don't think the slice was rotten, I just think it needs further slicing. Andre: Wanna slice DQ/sq any further? Into what…1/4, 1/8,?…you seem to not understand one fart ( and that ain’t much…) of MOQ experience. John: What is culture then but codified social patterns - turned into rules and truisims, matters of law and matters of courtesy? Andre: Culture, in the MOQ is a combination of social and intellectual patterns of value John. It is one of the ways through which the intellectual level distinguishes itself from barbarism ( as I see it this is a combination of organic and social values…that clash vehemently [ NOT a competition as you seem to maintain… just realize the fait of your countrymen at the hands of IS] John: Definitions are social agreements. You can't go your own way on this. Andre: They are not John. They are intellectual agreements…if they are agreed upon intellectually. It has nothing to do with fame, fortune or glory . The rate of exposure to these sorts of social values intertwining with intellectual values is embarrassing…and quickly destroyed. John: Well more definition doesn't take the term out of context - it narrows the context. Andre: A good definition does not narrow the context…it broadens it John. Just capture the MOQ [and all is said]. John: I've got a lot more to say on this subject, inspired by some reading that I'm going to share soon. Different thread, probably. Pirsig raised the issue of resolving science and religion in ZAMM, but somehow since then its become a verboten subject. Andre: Verboten for whom? Seems that the connotation YOU give the subject is not in line with the MOQ. Maybe you need to think about this some more John…or rather perhaps you need to do some growing up about this and ruthlessly confront yourself with your values. Are you really certain you understand what Pirsig means by the world being composed of nothing but moral value? That is, amongst other things the argument that he resolved wirth the issue of science and religion? For fuck sake…re-read LILA John. Your posts are embarrassing 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
Re: [MD] Injury and illness.
Dan had said: For those who haven't heard, our friend John suffered a fall while trimming trees. He broke both wrists as well as his neck and what sounds even more dire, when they did the scans on his head they discovered a brain tumor. From what I understand he is doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances and hopefully (at least for me) we'll see him back here soon. Andre: From a place in mourning my thoughts go out to JC and his family. 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
Re: [MD] Post-Intellectualism
dmb said: Yep. His position has already been totally defeated but he just continues obliviously repeating the same nonsense over and over again. You can lead a horse to water but this one thinks death by dehydration is a good thing, apparently. Andre: Total agreement dmb (and Arlo of course). John's confusion (or rather ineptitude) with some of the core,fundamental MOQ insights is startling. Pirsig 'defined' the intellectual level as being the 'skillful manipulation of symbols...'. It is easy to substitute the 'skillful' into 'artful'. Leaving us with the artful manipulation of symbols...'. And the denials continue. I suggested he is following Bodvar and Marsha, which he denies of course. But to John intellect IS SOM (a la Bodvar) because he 'sees' and 'hears' it all around him. Similarly he retorts that his position is correct because his 'experience' tells him so (a la Marsha). Yet despite the corrections with presented evidence he remains ignorant or at least hopelessly confused. He's not arguing against Pirsig, he's arguing within his self created problem space. He's arguing with himself. It's a soliloquize really (a la Marsha). I bet he's not accepted at the stoics site either. 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
Re: [MD] Post-Intellectualism
John said to Dan: Jc: I have trouble with that, at least as it pertains to the 3rd and 4th. Society and Intellect are so intertwined - all intellect is predicated upon socially derived symbology and all social patterns have some sort of guiding 4th level metaphysical underpinnings of which they are unconscious. When you try and apply the analytical knife, the subject gets very slippery. Pirsig himself said when it comes to social patterns, it's hard to picture anything that isn't one. Andre: To distinguish the social level from the intellectual level let me offer an example John. It is rather _simplistic_ but see it as a starting metaphor: imagine a game of football or soccer...the players are representing social patterns of value. There are rules to this game and codes of conduct. Enter the umpire. This is representative of intellectual patterns of value. The umpire keeps an eye on adherence to the rules of the game and the codes of conduct _of which the players are aware_. But that is not their prime objective. Their prime objective is to score points or a goal (fame, fortune and glory). All the umpire does is making sure the game is played within the rules and codes of conduct. Sometimes he or she acts/intervenes when an infringement or violation occurs. At other times he or she just watches to keep an eye on developments. Now, are the players in competition with the umpire (as you claim)? NO!!! But the umpire is most definitely in conflict with the player(s)and vice versa (usually pleading innocence or ignorance) who commit an infringement or violate a rule. Are they 'intertwined'? That depends on one's state of confusion. Can you still see the forest for the trees? Usually, as in the example, the dress is quite different and the umpire or referee has a whistle. That is how they are easily distinguished. If you do not know the game and wonder what this bloke or lass is doing with a whistle in their mouth? Just watch the game unfold and you'll soon find out. So now, forget the bodies and the dress and the whistle and see patterns of value...social patterns and intellectual patterns. Are these patterns intertwined? That depends on how carefully you look. It may seem that way but they are not because we talk of two different sets of values. (Perhaps here John you may want to consult Gregory Alvord's response to Anthony's PhD to be found at the robertpirsig site). The rules of the game and codes codes of conduct(derived from)intellectual patterns of value. A famous Dutch trainer/coach argued that soccer is war. (remember here the Geneva Convention where, even in wartime, there are codes of conduct based on intellectual patterns of value...justice, human rights etc). This is where, for example the International War Tribunal in The Hague finds its existence in[...not recognized by the USA by the way]. Hope this helps a little. 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
Re: [MD] Anti-intellectualism revisited
Andre: I think it ought to be very clear from John’s latest response to my post that he is indeed following in Marsha’s footsteps. Nothing but mocking insults to both dmb and me (least of which is confusing the quality of the posts of these two) and, by implication, making a mockery of LILA and ZMM i.e. Pirsig has failed (in some way), Pirsig doesn’t know what he is talking about etc etc. I will not take up more space than needed (eg by going over and responding to John’s wanking) as it is a waste of time. I predict that if John keeps passing wind like this his days on this MD are numbered. 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
Re: [MD] Anti-intellectualism revisited
John to Andre: oh piffle, Andre. How is this contributing to either clarifying my so-called confusion, or advancing Pirsig's MoQ? Andre: Your confusion John has been pointed out and clarified at least a dozen times by the posters I mentioned…but you take no heed. I see no point in repeating a similar exercise which these posters have so patiently, clearly and skillfully presented you with. You just keep on gibbering and jabbering like a twittering headless chook. John: So I take it that you believe Pirsig never made a single mistake? Andre: Tell me, referencing ZMM or LILA where Pirsig makes a ¨mistake” . John: It also seems rather school boy to reflect the exact ideas of the teacher, without thought or understanding. this has been you and dmb’s style for as long as I've observed. Andre: Now this is another one of those silly retorts John. How can one reflect the ideas of the teacher without thought or understanding when making a point in response to another person’s post. There may be individual differences in rhetoric and/or presentation but the bottom line is that we are discussing Pirsig’s ideas here as they reflect our, hopefully, common understanding. It is not only starting at the baseline. It is meeting the teacher where he/she is coming from and in that exchange the distinction between teacher and student dissolves. I think it is schoolboy behavior to try to advance the MoQ by re-introducing Rorty (for example) or suggesting that Pirsig is wrong because your experience is different. Again and again (as I have told Marsha often) you do not seem to understand that there is experience first and then the interpretation. I am not quibbling over your experience I am making remarks on your interpretation of that experience as they relate to your understanding of the MoQ. In the same thread you say to Ron: Described intellectual patterns, must always be outmoded. therefore, for the MOQ to survive, it must be dynamic, not static. Andre: The MoQ is a static intellectual pattern of value. These are Pirsig’ words John. It ¨should be separated from the Dynamic Quality it talks about…it doesn’t change from day to day, although the world it talks about does” ( MoQ summary by Robert Pirsig). Your concern about the MoQ’s survival is rather odd because you are displaying tendencies here, from day to day, (anti-intellectual rhetoric and trumping social patterns) that, if and when unchecked and not corrected, would lead to a very, very premature demise of that which you claim to defend and understand so well.. This kind of rhetoric smacks of Bodvar who wants to include Dynamic Quality inside the MoQ. John: Now who will free us from the stuckness of the present? Andre: Here we go again. The present is all we have John. It is as dynamic as it comes.The full-blown DQ/sq. The past is gone and the future is yet to come. If you feel you are stuck in this moment then something is really amiss. Ron had asked John about Pirsig not accounting for something in his explanation: Man, that's a big question, Ron. In a word society. In Pirsig’s metaphysics, intellect is on top of society and distinct from it. I think this was the way Pirsig himself experienced life, but that's not the general experience. Andre: So Pirsig is not accounting for ¨society” ? I could be pedantic and ask you for your definition of ¨society`” but Pirsig deals with this concept widely. But I think you mean ¨culture” (since your reference includes your concern about ¨ intellect”) . A culture contains social and intellectual values (Annot 28) . A social pattern which would be unaware of the next higher level ( i.e. intellectual values) would be found among prehistoric people and the higher primates when they exhibit social learning that is not genetically hard-wired but yet is not symbolic.” (Annot.52). So what is your gripe over John. What did Pirsig not do? John: The MoQ was turned over to a community, and that community-process has reveal the weakness of denigrating social patterns. Andre: And again. Nobody is ¨denigrating social patterns” John, least of all the MoQ community (whatever that means). Perhaps you need to be a little more specific with regards to exactly which social patterns you mean. 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
Re: [MD] Anti-intellectualism revisited
John to Ron: I think there is an aspect of intellect, that is very close to DQ. Intellect is indefinable and yeah, I know everything is, but intellect is indefinable in a special way - since it's the means of defining as well. So defining intellect, is most of all, more a creative art than a rigorously logical process. That's all I'm sayin’. Andre: I’ve been keeping quiet John, following your twittering Facebook enhancing drivel. Let’s just say I agree with Arlo, Dan, dmb, Ron and Ant about your social media exploits and the quagmire of confusions you are finding yourself in. I also agree with Horse suggesting that he isn’t about to throw anyone off this MD who may have difficulties or misunderstandings about Pirsig’s MoQ but who IS willing to listen and learn and then puts those learnings, offered by other posters into practice. I do draw a line however with the poster who, justifying his/her own misunderstanding blames Pirsig for being responsible and that is just what you do John. This practice follows Bodvar and Marsha (just to name two) who also had a way of blaming Pirsig for their OWN ignorance, lack and subsequent drivel. The above excerpt from you to RON is just a small sample of your preschool logic John and I wholeheartedly agree with dmb suggesting you look for another hobby. Perhaps your own initiative of joining the stoics is an idea but if you display the same preppy level of skillful manipulation of symbols you continue to display here on this MD I doubt very much if they let you in. All the best anyway. 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
Re: [MD] Introduction
Ian to Dan: All I would question is why a negative reaction to veiled religious fundamentlism - dogmatic fundamentalism bad sure, but what about faith in quality as the basis of a living metaphysics. Andre: Because 'faith in quality' suggests a belief, a trust in whatever one means by quality. In this sense the MoQ is anti-theistic BECAUSE 'Everybody knows what quality is. Some people know that they know it, and other people, particularly Freshman rhetoric students, don't know they know that they know it'. (Anthony's PhD, p 45). Every 6-year old knows what quality is Ian. You don't need any faith whatsoever and, given Pirsig's MoQ arguing that 'we are the patterns' your suggestion 'faith in quality' would be as much as saying 'faith in myself'. The MoQ is not just a 'synthesis'. It is the COLLAPSE of dualism (through an expansion of rationality). In other words, with your suggestion you are setting up a dichotomy, a division, a duality which the MoQ has destroyed (and which anything with any religious flavor seeks to maintain). And the more one starts to think about your suggestion the more it gets a SOM flavor. So I'd better stop. 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
Re: [MD] Introduction
dmb says: Good point, Andre (and Ant). DQ is experience itself, which is also known as the primary empirical reality, while faith is approximately the opposite of that. Andre: Thanks dmb. The grotesque problem with Ian's suggestion is that it seriously nullifies Pirsig's effort and shows a complete misunderstanding of Pirsig's achievement. The suggestion really reintroduces a religious faith again, in this case in 'quality'. One can only look on in horror and disbelief what a philosopher like Plato would do with this and since most subsequent philosophies are mere 'footnotes to Plato' we return to what?...faith and superstition, Absolutism, Objectivism, Realism, Subjectivism, modernity, post-modernity, post-post-modernity? dmb to Dan: Good point, Dan. I think art, science and religion are all under one umbrella, as you put it, because DQ is the source of each. Andre: Yes and this refers of course to what happened with the three during the Enlightenment Era... . For obvious reasons they were ripped apart but as Ken Wilber argues, the tragedy was that they were left dangling on their own. They were never reintegrated because one never identified the ground, the root, the foundation from which all three sprang...i.e. DQ or Quality. The result was and still is devastating: Ken Wilber: 'We have flatland. We looked at this as good news, bad news. The good news of modernity was that the Big Three were differentiated- art, science, morals (religion). The bad news was that they had not yet been integrated, and this allowed an explosive science [without any morals] to colonize and dominate the I and we domains'. (Ken Wilber, A Brief History of Everything' p 226). Of course Wilber has his own agenda and his own ways of saying and doing things but I am pretty sure he is no enemy of the MOQ. Pirsig of course reintegrates the lot of them and many others because: 'a Quality-centered map of the universe provides overwhelming clarity of explanation where all has been fog before. In the arts, which are primarily concerned with value, this was expected. A surprise, however, came in the fields that were supposed to have little to do with value. Mathematics, physics, biology, history, law- all of these had value foundations built into them that now came under scrutiny and all sorts of surprising things were revealed. Once a thief is caught a whole string of crimes is often solved'. (LILA, p 109) Without wanting to interfere/disturb too much it seems that Ian as well as John are trying to put on a burglary act without realizing (?) what they are potentially robbing us of. 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
Re: [MD] Introduction
John to All: But I see my way clear now to a masterly thesis. I'ce got three paragraphs already circled in Randy's book that I KNOW are MoQ orthodox, and while I can't sell anyone on the idea that Royce co responds with Pirsig, (even tho they never once corresponded at all) I'm thinking I bet I could interest the Royceans in the same fact. So far I haven't been able to sell it, because it's just my word for what the MoQ actually says. And even I admit I'm no expert. Andre: No expert on the MoQ John? Well, you've always maintained to understand it well. So you want to keep on pushing Royce down the MoQ layers? May we all be reminded of John's letter to Horse more or less pleading to be re-admitted to the MD: On September 16, 2013 John wrote: Greetings MD Pirsigians, I've missed you all. The reasoning behind my resignation from MD was valid, but has changed and I'd like a chance to explain in detail, if you don't mind. The main reason at the time I left, was escaping the conflict that came from my pushing of the Roycean idea of an absolute. Andre: Yes? John continues: I really like Royce, and didn't want to lose him, so I clung to the idea that the Q in moQ was a sign of absolutism. Andre: Yes? And you found out that there are no absolutes in the MoQ perspective...so NO to Royce. John continues: I believe the MoQ orthodoxy is opposed to that idea, to such an extent that it's too destructive to hammer away at an unsolvable problem. So it seemed that resignation, was called for. Andre: Right, so you resigned and were not dismissed by Horse or anyone else. It seems you were also not invited to reappear by Horse or anyone else (see below). Quite simply because your adherence to the Roycean idea of an absolute is incompatible with Pirsig's MoQ...with the idea of Quality. John continues: In that time, I've gotten more educated on the subject, and even attended a conference just lately, in my home town, on Royce, where the president of the Royce society made the argument that he found the idea of an absolute block universe logically unsupportable and yet considers himself a Roycean. There was sharp conflict, on this subject, but much applause too. I realized then and there, the quality of the mistake I had made. And realized I'd been wrong, and it was right that I was rebuked and criticized so harshly by Andre, Adrie and DMB. Andre: Nice to hear. John continues: Some day I hope to rejoin a dialogue with you again, and ask to rejoin, [!!!] but first there is a book I've been dying to read, that I hope will fill in all the missing pieces, Sprigge's James and Bradley. i'm also greatly enjoying the Varieties of Religious Experience and find it funny that I've finally gotten to James through Royce! Andre: So here you are again John, pushing Royce saying: 'But I don't see it as my mission to persuade anybody over here, that I'm write - espectially dmb and Andre. We've argued it out so much that sides are hardened beyond rationality. There's no reason to go on and on about it.' So why go on and on about it John? Want to 'interest the Royceans' as you suggest (despite the fact that you 'have not been able to sell it' [I wonder why???]) above or you want to impress the MoQ adherents? YOU know where to go John! 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
Re: [MD] The Social aspect of SOM
John to Andre: I am sorry if my use of rhetoric gives you that impression, Andre. I assure you with all sincerity that I'm not interested in merely ridiculing or misleading in an attempt to make you look foolish. But I do believe there are some grave mis-interpretations at play here in our reiteration of Pirsgi's work and I guarantee I will work my damnedest to root them out. Andre: Okay John, lets have a look then. John: My idea of the higher levels being DQ to the lower is just that - an idea. Some ideas are better than others. If mine is bad, fine, it'll die of its own in-aptness. But you don't think there's something inherently wrong in positing ideas, do you Andre? How intellectual is that? It sounds like a social rejection rather. Andre: You are referring to Phaedrus'law (intended to have the humor of a Parkinsen's law) which states that: 'The number of rational hypotheses that can explain any given phenomenon is infinite' (ZMM,p107). This is why you find nothing wrong with asking the most absurd/ridiculous questions not realizing they invite the most absurd/ridiculous answers. You justify these statements by arguing that they are posited for rhetorical reasons. If I do not like your rhetoric then there is something amiss with me. The problem with these questions, as Phaedrus found out, is that they lead to chaos...'Scientifically produced antiscience-chaos'. In your case socially produced antisocial-chaos. I use the designation 'social' as I do not think they are intellectual at all and if they are they have a defect in it. At the very best I can only agree with what Phaedrus argues:'The cause of our current social crisis...is a genetic defect within the nature of reason itself. And until this genetic defect is cleared, the crisis will continue. Our current modes of rationality (which 'inform' your questions John) are not moving society forward into a better world. They are taking it further and further from that better world'(ZMM, p 110). Do you see how ridiculous it is to state that 'the higher levels being DQ to the lower'? This is beyond 'rhetorical' purposes John. This, once again, points to a fundamental misunderstanding/ representation of Pirsig's MoQ. This is supposedly an intellectual/philosophical discussion site of Pirsig's MoQ...then why do you throw ridiculous socially informed statements in your posts that only seek social answers? 'To understand what he was trying to do it's necessary to see that /part/ of the landscape, /inseparable /from it, which /must /be understood, is a figure in the middle of it, sorting sand into piles. To see the landscape without seeing this figure is not to see the landscape at all. To reject that part of the Buddha that attends to the analysis of motorcycles is to miss the Buddha entirely'(ZMM, p76). What you seem to be doing John is that what you do when you generate these silly statements, designed (as you claim) to be rhetorical devises, is to miss the Buddha entirely. And it is for social purposes seeking social//answers. Perhaps it is better to stay with your mate Platt. You can both feed on each other and instead of having the Budddha in the background you play with the Giant as s/he's watching you/waiting for you and ready to embrace you anytime,anyplace,anywhere. John: What I mean is, we get a feeling of injustice or unfairness first, then rationalize it after the fact. Nobody does it the other way around unless they are completely rule-bound (social) Andre: I have a very strong impression that our 'lawmakers' do not rely on direct experience John. They are very rule bound and build, where necessary upon the rules...section 5 c, subsection 1-g paragraph 6 clause 8 to be amended by... . It's a political process guided not necessarily by intellectual values as such but, as said by social norms. Over and out. 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
Re: [MD] The Social aspect of SOM
Andre said to John: The Law is into a popularity contest? It appears to me that the more you try to explain your position the messier it gets John. To which John replied: Heh. Well that's true of just about any intellectual exercise Andre. It's the corollary of the Pirsigian postulate: the more you know anything about a given phenomenon the more hypothesis occur to you. Andre: It's part of the defect called SOM John. Your wholehearted support is a dead giveaway of where you are operating from. John: You believe people dance from a sense of justice? Andre: You give me the impression that you are deliberately misreading and ridiculing me John. I thank dmb for praising me for my patience but I'm afraid I am running out of it. This sort of reply to me making a point about inter level conflict is almost insulting. The MoQ does not support this idea. John: I think the most helpful way to view it is in terms of SQ and DQ. Intellect is DQ to society's SQ. Andre: You're getting very close to blowing it John. This is the most ridiculous statement you've made thus far and you are doing your best to trump the previous one. Put simply: the MoQ does not support this idea. John: Hmm. I don't know if I can go with calling Justice, intellectual either. Fairness seems to be a feeling beyond intellect. Andre: You've blown it John. This is even more ridiculous than the one mentioned above. Are you in the contest of prime celebrity nut as far as your understanding of the MoQ goes? Put simply: the MoQ does not support this idea. John quoted Pirsig: f you compare the levels of static patterns that compose a human being to the ecology of a forest, and if you see the different patterns sometimes in competition with each other, sometimes in symbiotic support of each other,... Andre: Notice that Pirsig uses the analogy of the forest John? Inorganic and biological patterns of value. Competing and sometimes in symbiosis. See what you make of it: John: I think competition is a purely social thing. Andre: Read your own quote again and again John. Pirsig uses the expression COMPETITION when talking about inorganic and organic patterns of value! In other words the MoQ does not support your idea. John: Life and death are not in competition...In order for life to thrive it needs more life. Life doesn't compete and put down, it supports and builds up. Andre: The MoQ does not support your ideas John and as you know, we are not discussing your MoQ but Pirsig's simply because Pirsig's is very high intellectual quality. Yours isn't. John: I believe personalizing values is the most important task at hand. I'm trying to illustrate my ideas with concrete examples. I fail to see how that's some kind problem for you. Andre: You too easily fall into the trap, as discussed in ZMM, that value either exists in the subject or the object. This is an instance of SOM thinking. Values are NOT in the person. They are NOT in the object either. Values make up the person. The MoQ 'transcends' SOM and you fail to do just that. That's the problem. John: He who personalizes values also values personality. And I do. Andre: Yes, I know and that's the problem John. The MoQ does not support your ideas. If you ask me why I will suggest you read ZMM and LILA again...which will send Ian's eyes rolling once again. John: I said I'd scream if you said something along the lines of you obviously don't understand the MoQ ... Andre: I'm sorry John but these sets of responses you gave make me conclude that you obviously don't understand the MoQ. This will not satisfy your ego but we all know that, when it comes right down to it, the ego is just a figment of one's imagination. So don't take my comments personally John, I'm sure you have a lovely personality. I cannot think of anything to gain from further discussion for either of us John. All the best. 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
Re: [MD] The Social aspect of SOM
John to Andre: Intellectual ideas struggle to gain social success but intellectual values do not compete with social values. Andre: The Law is into a popularity contest? It appears to me that the more you try to explain your position the messier it gets John. We want to dance all night, preferably with music as loud as possible. There are intellectual values (the Law as an expression of the intellectual values of Justice) which state that we can do so until 10 pm...a special permit may get us to 12 midnight. After transgression there will be social sanctions (a fine, imprisonment, ban whatever). Intellectual values are in direct competition for dominance over these social values. Intellectual values struggle for control over these social values. The Law IS an expression of intellectual values in competition with social values. Let me put it another way: when something is defined as 'lawful' there immediately appears what is 'unlawful' (two sides of the same coin). Intellectual values called 'justice' immediately conjure up the idea of 'injustice'. Now, can we say the values we hold signifying justice are struggling with those values we hold signifying injustice? I prefer to suggest that there is competition between lawfulness and lawlessness. With justice and injustice. Freedom and un-freedom. Truth and populism. There is an ongoing struggle for domination between the two. They are in direct competition with each other. If you want to concoct something else of this competition well...whatever John. John: Intellect should be concerned with truth, not celebrity. Andre: It is not concerned with celebrity John...that's what YOU make of this competition/struggle. John: I believe the levels are like this - that it's no competition for a society to beat up a single biological individual. Andre 'Society' does not 'beat up a single biological individual' John. Your bias shows again and again:to you society is made up of individuals. It isn't John. John: And certainly there is no competition between the organic and the inorganic levels! But there is a struggle to stay alive. Andre: It is a life or death competition John no matter what you make of it. John: I made the distinction for rhetorical, not logical reasons. You could certainly say it, An idea may struggle for popular acceptance but it does not compete with popular acceptance. I mean how can you compete with what you strive for? That would be absurd. Andre: As said above John: to see intellectual patterns of value as somehow part of a popularity contest is absurd. Einstein's Theory of Relativity (E=mc2) in a social popularity contest? As you argue above: 'intellectual values should be concerned with truth'. They are. They certainly are NOT interested in, nor determined by social popularity contests. John: A parent may struggle with his child but a parent that competes with his child has got problems. Andre: Well John, not wanting to put too fine a point on it but one can also see parent/child issues as the patterns of value a child holds are in competition with the values the parent(s) hold. This can be cheeky playfulness or it can be a head-on confrontation or anything in between. Again you seem to be personalizing issues when we are supposed to be talking about values. John: Right now the MoQ is in a position of opposition to SOM and SOM as a metaphysics has a certain kind of society associated with it. Our struggle isn't with social patterns per se, but bad social patterns that flow from a bad metaphysics. We can't overcome existing social patterns by mere intellectualizing. Andre: 'As far as I know the MoQ does not trash the SOM. It contains the SOM within a larger system. The only thing it trashes is the SOM assertion that values are unreal'( Annotn. 135 ). '...the MoQ only contradicts the SOM denial that value exists in the real world. The MoQ says it does. Thus the MoQ ia an expansion of existing knowledge, not a denial of existing knowledge' (Annotn 58). I think a good place to start will be to stop personalizing values John. John: I think it's more fruitful to apply Value to our objects of discussion, than making Value the object of discussion. And if you tell me I don't understand the MoQ after *that*statement, I'll scream. Andre: As far as I am aware we do not 'apply Value to our objects of discussion' nor do we make 'Value the object of discussion'. We are _exchanging_ values John. And some of them clash, some compete, some agree, some struggle, some compete etc etc. Okay...SCREAM! 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
Re: [MD] The Social aspect of SOM
John to Andre: I thought about this some more Andre, and I can see Struggle, like a fish struggling to make it out of the sea an onto the land. There is constant struggling and striving between the levels. Andre: Hi John. Well...in view of what you are saying further in your post I don't want to press the point too hard but the fish (or whatever it was) is in competition with all the 'above water elements' resulting in the change of gills to lungs and whatever (I am not a biologist by any means) requiring a profound redevelopment and adaptation of its organic patterns and the invention of new ones to assist in the process of survival. The struggle you seem to be referring to above seems like one that takes physical effort which can be exhausting and that will certainly be part of the adaptive process of working out what's best i.e. which will ensure the survival of the species. But struggle or as I maintain, competition (both apply) isn't confined to (in)organic patterns of value. John: But competition has a different connotation - of an equal opponent. Andre: I'm not sure what you are getting at here John. An 'equal opponent'? Remember we are talking about patterns of value here. It has little to do with size or numbers or weight i.e.(in)organic patterns. John: An idea may struggle for popular acceptance but it does not compete with society or social patterns. Andre: Here we go again. Popular acceptance as distinct from social patterns? Take the idea of human rights (as an example)...does that not compete? This universal idea does not compete with parochial/national social interests?? Come on John. The news/media is full of it. Remember, as an example, that the Children's Bill of Rights has not been signed by the US of A, for 'economic' reasons. Remember Martin Luther King (civil rights for blacks/minorities...everyone)? Remember Lincoln (Abolition of Slavery)? There was no struggle? No competition? The beauty of high quality intellectual patterns of value is that they are universally applicable. That makes them high quality patterns...applicable everywhere and for everyone at any time. And what makes them universally applicable? Because they are the highest intellectual quality representation/ manifestation of what is Good. However, this creates a problem for societies (and social patterns) that are (typically) dominated by national/parochial social patterns. And which society isn't? Each society has it's defining features...its defining values which it feels it needs to protect. Otherwise it wouldn't exist or deserve the status of separate 'country'. There must be a boundary (SOM all the way). And when something (intellectually) universally applicable comes along there is going to be competition with those social values because it is seen as a threat. A threat to one's identity, sovereignty, character... you name it...all the social and psychological values you can think of. John: Perhaps that's a bit semantically esoteric, but it seems important to me. Andre: I appreciate that John and I think I have addressed that. Please remember we are talking about values. 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
Re: [MD] The Social aspect of SOM
John to Andre: I admit they do struggle. Andre: That's a start John. I mean, you don't have to be a genius to experience that there is struggle and competition between the levels. John: But is it necessary? That is, is this the metaphysics of Quality? Following the idea that it's all struggle and competition, is a low Quality way to live. Andre: I think I won't tread on anyone's toes if I say that we all would like to see the world a better place John, that's one of the reasons Pirsig developed the MoQ: to make the world a little better. But don't underestimate the force 'behind' this 'struggle and competition'. When you think about it and place this struggle and competition within a historical/evolutionary context you'll find that that is the only way to live. It is the highest quality we have evolved thus far. I mean, life IS dynamic! John: You're always on edge and unhappy, if you think that way. For all your examples, anything that could be offered as struggle and competition between the levels - its a bad thing. A life out of balance.I know such occurs, but I'd hope we aim higher. Andre: Speak for yourself John! 'Higher' as in what? God and a 'religious' way of life? The Absolute? What? If you're looking for stability, serenity and harmony, go to the cemetery. Oops, that is actually lower... metaphorically speaking. Perhaps you'd rather go up with the daisies then? 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
Re: [MD] The Social aspect of SOM
John Carl said to Andre, Feb 27th 2014: I agree there is competition at all levels. I do not agree there is competition between the levels. John continues on March 3: You may prefer to look at it as competition between your brain and your asshole, but I'm of the mind that if I can get them to cooperate by using my head and finding toilet quick, thus I won't have to be stuck with my toilet taking over my head. Andre: You're missing the point John. There IS competition between the levels and you admit as much in this post. Just look at what you write: '...if I get them to cooperate...' this is the ongoing struggle and can never be taken for granted. The 20th Century is an example of this struggle and it ain't finished yet. Evolutionary theory is an example of this struggle and it is every one's struggle. Why can't you admit that you are mistaken; that you cling to an idea which is simply without foundation? 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
Re: [MD] The Social aspect of SOM
Andre presented a 'real experiential example' of levels competing: It's not very difficult to figure out the levels that are in competition with each other and why. Is this a 'real experiential example' enough for you John? Ant McWatt comments: LOL Andre! I'm going to love seeing Platt's/John's response to THIS POST! Andre: Well Anthony, defending their position will take some solid intestinal fortitude I reckon! 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
Re: [MD] The Social aspect of SOM
John Carl then said to Andre, Feb 27th 2014: I agree there is competition at all levels. I do not agree there is competition between the levels. Ant Mcwatt comments: John, that doesn't ring true to me, certainly as I understand the MOQ. John Carl continued to Andre, Feb 27th 2014: I certainly don't see, for instance, how inorganic and organic patterns can in any way compete. But rather than trying to support Pirsig by quoting Pirsig, why can't you support Pirsig with real, experiential examples of what you say? Where on earth has any intellectual pattern, all by itself, competed with a pure social pattern? Ant Mcwatt comments: Well John,for example, let's take the (social pattern of) money.? Andre: And here Anthony tells us the trials and tribulations he has with his three wives...which inspired me to suggest the following: I have finally taken up the courage to present the MoQ in a public forum. People of note have been invited to attend and lo and behold: they are there. I'm a bit nervous and start the lecture on the shortfalls of SOM philosophies. Their attention is roused and I am about to launch into the MoQ proper when...oh no...I have to have a shit! I don't mean a simple feeling of having to pass wind. No! I really have to fart and I know there are going to be huge lumps in it. I am trying to 'keep myself together' but this 'organic' level knocks very hard. It's not a matter of 'putting it off' it's a matter of priorities and I know what level demands what. Not in 5 minutes' time, not in 1 minute time. I need to take action right NOW! It's not very difficult to figure out the levels that are in competition with each other and why. Is this a 'real experiential example' enough for you John? 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
Re: [MD] The Social aspect of SOM
John to Andre: I agree there is competition at all levels. I do not agree there is competition between the levels. Andre: I agree John and am unsure whether I have stated otherwise. I have always maintained that between the levels there is a struggle for domination, a competition for domination, a conflict of interests (if you like) where a higher 'form of evolutionary value patterns' competes for domination with the lower evolved value patterns. It may be that the confusion is sorted in annotation 52 where Pirsig suggests that 'the conflicts mentioned here (of the social level being aware of the intellectual level,in Lila's Child, p 126) are intellectual conflicts in which one side clings to an intellectual justification of existing social patterns and the other side intellectually opposes the existing social patterns...' p143. 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
Re: [MD] The Social aspect of SOM
Joe to Andre and All: Is there a difference between intellectual ideas and perceptions? Is the difference between static ideas and poetic expression significant SQ DQ? Andre: Not sure what you are asking Joe. It seems to me that 'intellectual ideas', 'perceptions', 'static ideas' and 'poetic expression' are all static patterns of value. 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
Re: [MD] The Social aspect of SOM
John to Andre (arguing that intellectual patterns do not compete with social patterns and never have): I would say I have a good understanding of the confusion generated by the MoQ on this subject. Andre: The (your) 'confusion' is 'generated by the MoQ'?? Pirsig advances numerous examples of this struggle for domination John. LILA is full of them. It seems a waste of time to present them to you as many have already been given. And you come across them in everyday experience. John: I stand by my assertion that all competition is social. Andre: Actually, the MoQ identifies five moral codes establishing the competition of supremacy over it's lower 'host'. 'What was emerging was that the static patterns that hold one level of organization together are often the same patterns that another level of organization must fight to maintain its own existence' (LILA p 167). Read this a dozen times John. Maybe you'll get it...eventually. This 'fight to maintain its own existence'..this 'competition'(as you call it) is what is called evolution...the dance of Lila. It is not confined to just one level. It is an ongoing 'process'. John: I don't see how you can get around that. But I note that you don't really try. Andre: It appears to me that it is a waste of time to show you otherwise. I could ask you to read LILA again but who knows how many eyes start rolling. Perhaps Ian's again? John: Things beyond do not compete, they dominate. Andre: Or they do not. And this 'domination' is not characterized by anything? I mean, it just sits there doing nothing but 'dominate'? There is constant competition to dominate John... at all levels. John: ...but intellect alone does nothing but analyze and philosophize. Andre: The entire scientific endeavor has turned into an analytical philosophy? John: There are societies which hold intellect as a very high value and there are societies that hold the will of allah as a very high value and these societies can be seen as intellect vs. society because that's the labels on the flags they fly. But this is not the same as intellectual forces struggling with social forces -... Andre: They are in conflict with them John. Intellectual patterns are in conflict with any notion of unquestioned (social/religious) dogma be it god, allah, intelligent design...you name it. It's a battle and an ongoing battle. In my previous post I gave plenty of examples but you just dismiss them out of hand. John: I'm saying that every human is composed of 4 levels...Phaedrus's conflicts and harmonies with Lila were not levels clashing, they were people clashing. Andre: Read this again John...the way I cut up your paragraph...and yes, let the eyes roll...! Do you NOT see how silly and contradictory this statement is? 'People' are the patterns John. LILA is an exposition of the battles between patterns of evolution. They're given names. 'And all these battles between patterns of evolution go on within suffering individuals like Lila. And Lila's battle is everybody's battle, you know?' (LILA, pp 367-8) Tell me John, from your perspective, do you believe that there is a somebody, a self, a person apart from these patterns? 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
Re: [MD] The Social aspect of SOM
John to Andre: Intellectual patterns do not compete with social patterns and never have. Andre: This just about summarizes your entire paragraph John and it's an indication of a very confused understanding of the MoQ. How you can reach such a conclusion is beyond me. And you maintain that you have a good understanding of the MoQ? As Phaedrus, reflecting on what Rigel threw at him at breakfast, exclaims in almost desperation: 'Where has he been during this whole century? That's what this whole century's been about, this struggle between intellectual and social patterns. That's the theme song of the twentieth century'(LILA p168). But don't take my or Pirsig's word for it: Look at what is happening in various parts of the Arab world. Look at what is happening in the Ukraine at the moment. Look at what is happening in various parts of Africa. Look at the underground movements in China and the not-so-underground activities in other parts of S-E Asia. And let's not forget by taking a critical look at what's happening in our own backyards (eg intellectual values vs populism) John: 'that sounds right - the highest inclusive. Note then that the highest is not competitive with all the others nor antagonistic toward those below'. Andre: See my note above and look at the MoQ's take on evolutionary theory. As Pirsig argues: 'Morality is not a simple set of rules. It's a very complex struggle of conflicting patterns of values'...'This has been a century of fantastic intellectual growth and fantastic social destruction. The only question is how long this process can keep on'(LILA p 169) And you are suggesting that all is milk and honey between Lila, Rigel and Phaedrus? C'mon John. I'm sorry but my impression is that you are very, very confused about Pirsig's MoQ. 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
Re: [MD] The Social aspect of SOM
dmb: Right, I also selected and presented several pieces of textual evidence that show quite clearly that John is simply wrong about this. What's really sad is that John doesn't care what the evidence says. Andre: And even worse dmb, as you point out, John fails to simply learn from everyday experience. Just watch the news, listen to the radio...open your eyes,ears, senses and...well... put the whole lot together and draw your intellectual conclusions. It ain't that difficult you know, unless you keep on staring at your own self created map I suppose...believing is seeing...as a blind man. 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
Re: [MD] The Social aspect of SOM
John to Andre: According to the MoQ, intellect should rrule society - but this is plainly impossible. The only way intellect can rule over social patterns is within the mind of an individual... Andre: I fail to understand what you are trying to say here John. The attempt at intellectual supremacy over social patterns is the story of the 20th Century and it is continuing to this day. To say that the intellectual supremacy over social patterns is 'plainly impossible' is an indication of this battle. It suggests that the social driving forces of fame,fortune and glory (celebrity and 'greed is good')still appear to be dominating. And you suggest that it should be so. But there are compelling forces, from the (in)organic and the intellectual showing that the current dominant social values adhered to will inevitably lead to a destabilization of (in)organic values that will destabilize social forces to such an extent that its own base will be severely weakened. An Moq perspective will show that this is due to the notion that the intellectual pattern appointed to take over society i.e. science, has a defect in it. This is so because it has no provision for morals. (You know the story). It seems to me that the MoQ perspective i.e. its expanded intellectual value system shows that we do not need to go down the cataclysmic path the Victorian social system went to i.e the First World War with its half million rotting corpses in one battle alone! Intellect shows that our current progress i.e. (as an example): economic growth at all cost, will inevitably lead to its own downfall. The battle is of course that the environmentalists are ridiculed, the notion of the warming of the earth is ridiculed, the silencing of the economists, university professors, researchers and the like who DO carry a moral agenda as well... are placed in the box of 'alternatives' because they are placed outside of the mainstream of this debate. But they are very much part of this battle of supremacy. And this is NOT only possible 'within the mind of an individual'. You are personalizing all the patterns the MoQ talks about. Forget Lila (as a person), forget Rigel (as a person), forget Phaedrus (as a person). They all represent values of the differing levels...the differing perspectives...the highest being inclusive of all the others. John: who is trying to be objective. Andre: There is no such thing as 'objective' when talking about the social or intellectual levels. John: The minute that individual tries to rule over any other person or society we are at the level of social conflict again. Andre: See my earlier comment about 'personalizing' values. John: more questions, that's what. The more hypothesis you have, the more you generate. Andre: From a SOM perspective...yes...there will be no end to it. John: And if you ask me what reality is, well it's a value! So sure, the argument goes in a bit of a circle but then everything does. Andre: Here we differ John.'Reality' is not a value. It's the ground from which values are abstracted.This 'ground' is ineffable. It is the 'undifferentiated aesthetic continuum', the void, emptiness, Quality. The end and the beginning of a circle and not an end nor beginning...throw the whole tetralemma on it. It just is. 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
Re: [MD] The Social aspect of SOM
Horse to John: But what I don't see is that ...the Giant perpetuates itself over the generations and grows - via intellectual SOM patterns. I think it's a lot more complex than that. Andre: Or it could be a lot less complex than that Horse (with all respect). That which Pirsig is referring to is a social pattern of value. Dan and dmb have already shown this. If the phenomenon of 'power politics' (as John calls it) leading to such wonderful successes as can be seen in Japan and China (John's examples) and he fails the ability to see 'the Giant' as social patterns of value and instead resorts to a subject-object stance to explain it then what can we expect next? Instead of the world being composed of nothing but value we get the scenario: well, it is partly value but also a bit of subjects and objects. This simply will not do for an MoQ'er. It undermines the MoQ no end. In fact, it makes the MoQ laughable. 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
Re: [MD] 42
Anthony to John: Anyway, I thought I better jump in and issue a caveat about Pirsig's comments in the Copleston Annotations before anyone got too carried by his comments there i.e. he never read most of the primnary sources that Copleston is referring to.? Moreover, it's the only document at robertpirsig.org that he would have re-written or edited as it was originally written just to assist me in my PhD work and was originally not meant for the wider world. Andre: Thank you for clarifying this Anthony as I never quite understood what the 'status' of the Copleston Annotations are. I have always regarded Pirsig's treatment of the Copleston document as [an example of] a critical thinking exercise from the MoQ perspective. You seem to confirm this. Anyway, I'm glad you 'jumped in'. 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
Re: [MD] The Social aspect of SOM
John to Andre: The essence of the Giant is SOM and if you can't see that then I don't even know what you're doing here. Andre: Since you say you have a good grasp of the MoQ John let me ask you: do you agree that 'the Giant' is a social pov? And do you agree that SOM is an intellectual pov? And lastly, do you agree that there is a difference between social pov's and intellectual pov's? If you say yes to all three questions, which you should, 'cos you know the MoQ so well, then how can you maintain that 'the essence'(Hamilton's spirit?)of the Giant (a social pov) is SOM (an intellectual pov)? John: SOM says values are subjective. SOM says subjects are real. Therefore, SOM must say that values are real and you are contradicting yourself. Andre: Sorry John but the SOM asserts that values are unreal. John: I don't expect to get bombarded by charges of you just don't get the MOQ all the time simply because my questions and searchings go beyond the normal orthodoxy of interpretation, prevalent amongst MDer's and most particularly you and dmb. Fair enough? Andre: This is fair enough John but I have yet to find an UNorthodox interpretation of yours that trumps an MoQ interpretation. Thus far I have seen only confusion and a lot of twitter. 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
Re: [MD] Step one
Ian: The distinction between levels 1 and 2 is life - not necessarily organic life, or DNA-based organic life, that just happens to be the most-obvious form in the circumstances of human history. Andre: Can you enlighten us with your knowledge of life that is not 'necessarily organic life' i.e. DNA 'based' life? Just interested in the non-obvious. 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
Re: [MD] SOM is what?
John: Thus from a power politics view, nothing can defeat such a society as the one that is cold hearted, objective and calculating, no? When Japan learned this lesson of SOM, It became a dominant economic power like a phoenix from the ashholes. And now China is adopting a more pragmatically objective society also. So what is there that limits Objectivism, when turning everything into an object of control is so overwhelming? Andre: So what are you saying John? Is that the way to go? Will this save the world?...should you consider it worth saving? What does the MoQ say to all this? Do you agree with the pursuit of SOM instead of MoQ? Would you rather follow 'cold-hearted, objective and calculating' an ever revolving search for truth or would you rather do what is good (MoQ)? And if you want to know what is good just read ZMM amd LILA. What do you want? 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
Re: [MD] 420
John: Society is ruled by laws... Andre: And here you go yet again John. You have it backward. Authority (in modern terms 'Law')'create' society. 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
Re: [MD] Step one
J-A: Yes, we all know that, but what is the difference? What was it that triggered this shift? DQ of course, but how did it happen? The basic cause for step one? Andre: Life is heading away from patterns, from whatever laws we may invent to explain them. As Lennon sang; 'Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans'. Value cannot be contained by static patterns. It's the other way around J-A. It's 'life' or 'death'. I guess 'life' seemed to have more potential? How did it happen? All our mental constructions cannot explain this. All you come up with is static patterns while the real creative force is DQ. Ineffably striving 'betterness'. Whatever that means. 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
Re: [MD] Step one
J-A: How can we describe the difference between moral 1, the inorganic, and moral 2 the organic? Andre: My guess is that the inorganic level is 'informed' by the morals of the laws of (quantum)physics, My guess is that the organic level is 'informed' by the morals of the laws of nature. J-A: And where did those annotations come from? Andre: Lila's Child. You should be able to purchase a copy from Dan (he compiled it) or from Anthony. 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
Re: [MD] The Social aspect of SOM
John to Andre:
Is SOM inextricably tied to modern society?
Andre:
Look John, 'modern society' is the way it is. Is this perspective based
on a subject-object metaphysics? No, because a SOM does not accept the
reality of values. SOM _simply_ says that only subjects and objects are
real. I think the first quote dmb provides by Livingstone captures it
well: pragmatism and postmodernism:
...do not believe that thoughts and things inhabit different
ontological orders: they do not acknowledge an external or natural realm
of objects, of things-in-themselves, which is ultimately impervious to,
or fundamentally different than, thought or mind or consciousness.
Accordingly, they escape the structure of meanings built around the
modern subjectivity, which presupposes the self's separation or
cognitive distance from this reified realm of objects.
John:
Whether or not anything is ultimately subjective or not, seems a pretty
inane point to make in the context of the MoQ's insights onto the
relativistic nature of subjective. So if you are correct and this is
dmb's and Dan's main point to me, I fail utterly to grasp it's relevance.
Andre:
Sorry to hear this John. From your response it appears to me that you
are mixing the MoQ insights (eg the 4 levels as patterns of value) and
interpret those from a SOM perspective. And this is where the confusion
comes in. And I guess led to Dan's observation that you do not
understand the MoQ.
John:
No problem here. The fact that the self is derived (from social,
intellectual, biological patterns) is not a problem for me. The
assertion that the self does therefore not exist, is.
Andre:
And here you are doing it again John. This is NOT what the MoQ argues.
The self is NOT derived from the patterns (here we enter the realm of
self/ego formation, internalization and objectification something our
parents, conventional authority, religion and the education system is
very good in).
We ARE those patterns. Nothing derived from...we are the patterns. You
argue a 'separation' and 'cognitive distance' from the patterns (see
dmb's quote above). You thereby reify them and set yourself apart from
everything. This is SOM as well and something the MoQ obviously
disagrees with.
John:
So to recapitulate: your, David's and Dan's view (and Pirsig's in your
opinion) that the Giant - and social systems in general, work according
to no conscious plan or guidance and just sort of evolve?
Andre:
Strange conclusion to make John and I smell Ham in here (with his
intelligent design) and/or some sort of religiously conceived plan. I
mean 'work according to a plan'? What plan? You mean an intelligently
conceived plan? And when did this plan start then? You mean to say that
before the beginning of the earth, before the sun and the stars were
formed, before the primal generation of everything, this intelligent,
conscious plan existed?...Sitting there, having no mass or energy of its
own, not in anyone's mind because there wasn't anyone, not in space
because there was no space either- this intelligent, conscious plan existed?
If that plan existed I honestly don't know what a thing has to do to be
/non/existent. It seems to me that this intelligent conscious plan has
passed every test of nonexistence there is. There is no single attribute
of nonexistence that that plan doesn't have. Or a single scientific
attribute of existence it does have. And yet you still believe that it
exists? (freely adopted from ZMM,p32-3)
John:
Are the evolutionary impulses mysterious or are they explicable? Can
they by encapsulated by some label and can you (or Dan or David or
Pirsig) then answer my question as to their necessity?
Andre:
The MoQ suggests that evolution occurred due to 'spur of the moment
decisions' based on Dynamic Quality i.e. undefined betterness.
'Dynamic Quality is not structured and yet it is not chaotic. It is
value that cannot be contained by static patterns. What the
substance-centered evolutionists were showing with their absence of
final 'mechanisms' or 'programs' was not an air-tight case for the
biological goallessness of life. {nor goal of life programs of divine
ordination or Ham's essential intelligent design, for that matter). What
they were unintentionally showing was [that]...the patterns of life are
constantly evolving in response to something 'better' than that which
these [physical] laws (or intellectual design plans) have to offer.
(Anthony's PhD, p 91)
That 'label' you are looking for John: Dynamic Quality.
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[MD] Step one
Jan-Anders: By inspiration from Andre I'll suggest that we start a discussion about how to define the difference between level one, the inorganic and level two, the organic. I couldn't find any consistent thread in the Archives. Andre: 'Everything that has not been created by life (defined as DNA) is an inorganic value pattern'. Annot.42 Ipso facto an organic pattern is the 'presence of DNA in a self-perpetuating pattern'. Annot.23 The boundary between inorganic patterns and organic patterns is the virus 'because it is the simplest organism that contains DNA. I have read there is some dispute about the virus being living or dead, and I take this dispute as evidence that it is the boundary' Annotn. 48. 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
Re: [MD] 420
Andre; That was an excellent post dmb. Thanks for clarifying the social level in such a clear way. 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
[MD] absorbing the immoral
Ian asked: ...which concerned (this is paraphrasing) absorbing something which was immoral, and not passing it on (as a high form of morality). Does this ring a bell with anyone? If so, where in Lila can it be found? Many thanks, Andre: Ian you can find it on page 407 of LILA (chapter 32)citing the likes of Christ, Lincoln, Gandhi and others involved in NOT passing on all the karmic garbage but rather absorbing it ...that's the highest moral conduct of all. 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
Re: [MD] 42
Jan Anders: That was the reason for me to write Money and the Art.. because I thought that if the MOQ perspective will be able to compete with SOM, there must be economically superior to SOM. Andre: Hi Jan-Anders. With all due respect, when will you stop plugging your book on this discuss? We are here discussing the metaphysics of Pirsig and not its economically superior or inferior status. Also, when will you learn to cut and paste? Sorry but every post you have written since its publication contains a reference to your book. I'd rather see a decent post. 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
Re: [MD] The Social aspect of SOM
John said to Dan: I know what a social pattern is. John to Ham: What is tiresome to me, are those who conclude from the significance of valuation, that it completely negates it's creations - the individual and his society. John to Dan: I find Pirsig to be very clear and understandable and I don't have any trouble understanding him. Andre: Well John, if Dan or dmb cannot persuade you into realizing your error just remember what Pirsig says about the social level: 'Societies are subjective. No objective instrument can detect a society' (see Annot. 18) This is pretty much what Dan and dmb have been telling you. This is one reason why Pirsig, writing the MoQ did not focus on any specific society. He 'subsumed' it in 'social patterns of value' and within this level of the MoQ hierarchy there are no bodies found anywhere. In other words, one should not see a society as consisting of individual human bodies/people. Annotation 19 should make this clear: 'In /Lila, /societies are...patterns that emerge from and are superimposed upon organic bodies of people, but they are not combinations of these organic bodies of people'. And, for good measure here is Annotation 29: 'The MoQ...denies any existence of a 'self' independent of inorganic, biological, social or intellectual patterns. There is no 'self' that contains these patterns. These patterns contain the self. This denial agrees with both religious mysticism and scientific knowledge...' (Lila's Child p 64-5) Combine these three and your notion that the Giant operates from a subject-object point of view just evaporates...dissolves. And I hope a lot more confused bits and pieces you are grappling with at the moment are cleared up as well. And Ham will only confuse you more John. He has his own agenda. 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
Re: [MD] The Social aspect of SOM
Hamilton said:
Nor do I believe, as Andre apparently does, that There is a moral code
that establishes the supremacy of social order over biological life ...
[and] moral codes over the social order. In other words, I don't
believe in a world that is moral by divine or executive fiat.
Andre:
A strange assertion on a site discussing Pirsig's MoQ and the rejection
of which leads to a perspective whereby, indeed, all morality appears to
vanish. But discussing 'human rights' as an example i.e. an intellectual
pattern of value asserting supremacy over social patterns of value
Pirsig argues that these rights are not 'a kind of vague, amorphous soup
of sentiments' of which it is 'reasonable' to be expected to take into
consideration. No, these human rights do 'not just have a sentimental
basis, but a rational, metaphysical basis'. (LILA, p 313)
Ham:
For, if that were so, there would be no quest for moral virtue, no human
need to discriminate between the good, the bad, and the indifferent.
Andre:
'In a subject-object understanding of the worldthese terms ('human
rights' and 'reasonable') these terms have no meaning...There is no such
thing as moral reasonableness. There are subjects and objects and
nothing else(ibid). In Ham's terms 'man' having 'value sensibility'. But
patterns of value are not properties of 'man' any more than cats are the
property of catfood or a tree is a property of soil.
It is therefore absolutely moral for the doctor to kill the germ.
This morality at play, this moral reasonableness is established in the
MoQ's 'codes':
inorganic-chaotic,biological-inorganic,social-biological,intellectual-social
and Dynamic-static (LILA,p307).
Perhaps, by reading LILA properly (and not through your essentialist
glasses) you come to realize that the discrimination 'between the good,
the bad, and the indifferent' as you put it is what is happening
everywhere. It is the dance of LILA...the quest of moral virtue. This is
the heart of the MoQ.
It's hopelessly confused thinking (and living) if you do not consider
yourself part of it. You are fooling yourself.
Ham:
It is my belief that we exist in an amoral universe,...
Andre:
Believe what you like Ham. To you it appears that believing is seeing
(ZMM). Since, from an MoQ perspective/consciousness the world is
composed of nothing but moral value(LILA,p101)it follows that 'we'are
patterns of moral value. These patterns of value have 'us'. You cannot
be anything else but moral value, the static patterns of value that make
up this world capable of apprehending Dynamic Quality. These are the
static patterns as they live. They are manifestations of Quality of
morality.
And you are living it Ham! Whether you accept it, like it, or not. You
are these patterns.
Ham:
Is this where we have an 'SOM' problem, John?
Andre:
I won't speak for John but yes, from a MoQ perspective YOU have a great
problem identified by Pirsig called 'SOM'.
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Re: [MD] The Social aspect of SOM addendum
Andre to Ham: This morality at play, this moral reasonableness is established in the MoQ's 'codes': inorganic-chaotic,biological-inorganic,social-biological,intellectual-social and Dynamic-static (LILA,p307). Andre: What I should have made clear to Ham is that 'this morality at play' is established in Pirsig's MoQ on a rational basis...a scientific, rational basis. There is no 'divine or executive fiat'(Ham's terms) needed. These moral codes are hierarchically structured within an evolutionary context: inorganic-chaotic,biological-inorganic,social-biological,intellectual-social and Dynamic-static. 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
[MD] The Social aspect of SOM
Ham said to John: Society depends upon individual (not 'concrete'?) identities who collectively establish their moral standards, and ideally vote for representatives in government who will foster those standards. Andre: No Hamilton! Social patterns of value do NOT comprise 'individual identities' and they certainly do NOT establish their 'moral standards'. We are here discussing Pirsig's MoQ, not your essential psychological need. There is a moral code that establishes the supremacy of social order over biological life (your individual identities) these are the 'conventional morals' and then there were moral codes over the social order i.e. the intellectual order over the social order. Nowhere is an individual to be found within any of the social or intellectual patterns. Individual bodies are found at the organic level. I apologise to any MoQ'er for the kindergarten standard followed but some (SOM?) posters need to be (re) aquainted with the very, very basics of Pirsig's MoQ. Don't get me wrong Hamilton! I like your mention of Schroedinger's insight but the way you go about integrating this insight leaves much to be desired. Hamilton: And everything in existence, including its values, is differentiated from every other. The human being itself is a differentiated entity. There can be but one Absolute Source, and it ?creates? otherness by negation. Andre: SOM to the core. The manifestation of 'otherness' is negated by the source itself Hamilton!! There are no persons, there are no individuals, there is no self! Read something (at least) of what is attributed to Gautama Buddha's sayings and insights. He made them 2600 years ago! I gather that you have not properly understood Schroedinger nor your own life lessons. Whilst this scientist points to the unity, you immediately transform this into negation by individuation and differentiation and interposing a relational relationship not only between the individual (which creates a differentation) but also between the 'unity' and the 'individual'. It's time to realize that the MoQ seeks to include rather than exclude... . To use other expressions, pointing to the same thing, there is no individuation at the social level nor at the individual level. The MoQ seeks to combine, integrate, and harmonize that which is patterned (DQ/sq) and it is wonderfully successful. I hope you know why the MoQ does not adhere to 'absolute sources'? 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
Re: [MD] 42
Arlo to Dan:
Finally, as DMB mentioned, Granger's ideas are exemplary here, and I'm not trying to skip
over citing his work. In fact, I think Dewey brings a strong voice into what I personally
feel is deep in the roots of the our educational dilemma; and that is we lack a coherent
answer to the question why do we educate?. What is the purpose of public
education? What is the purpose of college? Interestingly, vocational and trade schools
(in what I hope is taken in a Pirsigian sense, I'd include schools like the Julliard
School in this category) often have the most articulate answer to this question.
Andre:
Hi Arlo, Dan, dmb and All:
Educational questions are pertinent questions about purpose. I think that is
well put Arlo. Through my own wanderings and wonderings around some parts of
the globe I have been fortunate to have been exposed to a taste of four
educational systems and their environments: the Dutch (pre-,primary,lower
theoretical/technical)to Australian (high...theoretical/practical), Chinese
(middle...as a teacher where I taught at a teachers college)and Dutch again
(higher...theoretical/practical).
The conversation has been interesting thus far and I am not sure whether I can
add anything to its significance or pave a way for answering some of your
questions...especially regarding purpose.
I have two things in mind: a very general question of why are we here on earth?
What is our purpose here?
The second thing that mingles with this is Pirsig's variant on the Buddhist
poem on page 406 of LILA:
While sustaining biological and social patterns
Kill all intellectual patterns...and then follow Dynamic Quality and morality will
be served
It appears to me that these lines refer to a non-dual perspective...the fusing
of what Paul, in his paper terms an epistemological and an ontological context.
Presently the vast majority of the purpose of education seems to lie not even
close to either the epistemological nor the ontological context: it is
presented as driven by the given: driven by economics, industry, private and
public business corporations...their values incorporated and reinforced through
('personal') exposure to and internalization of values serving their vested
interests (this is the ground stuff of mainstream education including parental)
plus a vast network of public service type values to keep the system
going...the political economy...the giant as Pirsig refers to it in LILA.
I see this as an emphasis on static patterns of value. My own experience (as a
beginning teacher) left very little room for reflection let alone talking about
purpose (apart from satisfying the needs of the giant...which is 'the
given'...the economic garbage). A strict adherence to policy was called for and
the (politically determined) guidelines were changed every 1 or 2 years
(depending on which party swung the scepter). There was no room for
professional innovation, autonomy or adjustment. So very soon, realizing that
certain prescribed methods simply did not work, one was told to simply follow
policy...and to lower standards of academic achievement if it was seen that
most students failed to pas exams. This of course in the context of a fair
amount of money being available for the educational institution for every
student who graduated.
Currently there appears to be too much emphasis on this nowhere land
(flatland). It is the 'sustaining (and incessantly improving) of biological and
social patterns'...with variations/innovations occurring on the same old
themes...and stamping these as 'creative'. The driving force of which, for
sure, is DQ but received, guided, maintained and projected into the future by a
commonly shared consciousness that is egocentric and narcissistic...just what
the giant wants and feeds on (fooling everyone of course because the only
winner is the giant and there really is no heaven above!).
This is the sq side of the equation.
As I hinted there appears very little to no time (or energy) to address the
other side of the equation...the DQ side. Times to reflect, ask question about
purpose, about arete (and not just in an economic or social status sense). But
not only reflect on static patterns. I mean it the way Pirsig argues...rta,
dharma and karma (evolutionary garbage and the dumping of this garbage).
Those moments when it is painfully obvious (and we see this every day on the TV
news and hear it on the radio and other social media) what the results are in
the clinging to the static patterns of the world and the role that current
educational policy and practices play in the perpetuation of this state of
affairs (plus of course the consequences when you don't).
Moments to detach oneself from these static patterns (LILA p407). Perhaps ways
should be found to build that right into the education system and not have it
relegated to one's 'personal/private' meditation room, one's whim ...or
whenever time and energy is found
Re: [MD] George Steiner interview
John L. McConnell said: If you qualify experience as physical experience, then a level of experience beyond that makes perfect sense. Andre: The MoQ is not only about 'physical experience'. It identifies at least 5 that I am aware of. JLM: I can think of two self-imposed limitations of the MOQ: 1. Its deliberate avoidance of theistic language constrains it. How can you talk about absolute reality without using the language of Absolute Reality? Andre: The MoQ is, as far as I understand it, non-theistic. Where from the need to use theistic language in a non theistic metaphysics? What is Absolute Reality? JLM: 2. It remains open-ended. To the extent that open-endedness allows it to be extended, expanded, enhanced, and in general, used in many ways to make living, working, and thinking better, that's not a limitation. I thin that's what Dr, Pirsig intended. Andre: Agreed, but I can't see NON open-endedness as an inherent aspect of the MoQ. What makes you think it is NOT open-ended? The only qualification, I suppose, would be that any extension, expansion, enhancement and betterment is that it meets the standards of the MoQ itself. Unless you can think of a better metaphysics than Pirsig's MoQ? 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
Re: [MD] 42
Arlo to Dan: Before we move any further on this path, Dan, let me ask a question. Given the above, do you think Pirsig's expertise (in content? in pedagogy?) was in any way valuable to the student? Overall, do you think there is a role for an expert/mentor/instructor at all? In the above, it suggests (to me) that motivating/encouraging is the optimal role, so an ideal instructor would be someone who simply says keep trying and nothing more. Moreover, as I read your points, it seems to suggest that simply providing libraries or information repositories is a better model than having an expert presence at all. So, let me ask, given your criticisms, what would something better look like? Andre: Good exchange of ideas Dan an Arlo and forgive me for butting in but (and I may have the timelines not quite correct here) but wasn't Phaedrus just as much a student of Qualiy as his students were? That is Phaedrus was struggling with this whole question of what Quality is and he involved the students in the exploration thereof. He was looking for ideas well. In this sense I think that Phaedrus' expertise in pedagogy was very valuable (as a guide) as he was just as interested in the answer as each individual student was (and perhaps even more so). Perhaps I see this in the wrong way? 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
Re: [MD] 42
Andre: Sorry about my last post Dan, Arlo and John. Just read the latest posts from the next issues edition where my point had been raised already and adequately answered. Thanks guys. 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
Re: [MD] Ron
Ron said: Broken ribs make life Difficult, coupled with The herniated disc it Really effects me and My ability to think. Andre: Wishing you a speedy recovery Ron. Take care. 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
Re: [MD] George Steiner interview
David Morey said: 'Thanks Dave that is great,? George's Grammars of Creation is a great book about transcendence if you fancy it,? all about the need to think about what may or may not lie beyond experience and how important this has been in human culture,...' Andre: Lie 'beyond' experience? You sound like Marsha who tried to find out what lay 'beyond' the MoQ. And you call that 'An interesting work that could, given an open mind,? help develop the MOQ beyond some of its self-imposed limitations as I see it'. It would appear, as you phrase it, that the MoQ has 'self-imposed limitations' and that there must be something lying beyond it. Which limitations of the MoQ? are you thinking of David? And what could be lying 'beyond' the MoQ? Within this context let's look at what Phaedrus suggests in ZMM: 'All the time we are aware of millions of things around us...We could not possibly conscious of these things and remember all of them because our mind would be so full of useless details we would be unable to think. From all this awareness we must select, and what we select and call consciousness is never the same as awareness because the process mutates it. We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world'.(ZMM p75) In LILA the terms have changed but my take on the last line from ZMM and transposing that into MoQ terms is: We take a handful of sand (static patterns of value)from the endless landscape of awareness (Quality) and call that handful of sand the world (the MoQ). In other words awareness is Quality and what we call consciousness are the static patterns of value derived from that Quality. That 'deriving from'...that 'abstracting from'...is the Quality event. It is the /cause /of consciousness...the subjects and objects we deduce...the static patterns of value. The static patterns of value are 'in' this awareness as much as that the MoQ is the ink on the page called Quality. Quality has the MoQ. Awareness has consciousness. And, we can understand Quality, call it non-duality to also 'have' SOM (duality). It can simply 'contain' it without any contradiction, to be used whenever it is pragmatically useful to do so. It seems that this is quite consistent with the MoQ as well as all the perennial philosophy books I have read. Anyway, this is my take on it. If there are any serious issues with this I'd like to hear them. 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
Re: [MD] Art and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Joe to Andre and All: I have to pay the consequences of the choice. Free will makes manifest metaphysical restraints for manifestation in the DQ/SQ structure. Pardon me I am mistaken! Andre: I'm sure you are pardoned Joe. Perhaps you could start by reading the book named after the subject of this thread and then read LILA. LILA should shed more light on ZMM and Art and metaphysics and Zen and DQ/sq and a host of other patterns which in turn shed interesting lights on LILA and ZMM. From emptiness to fullness, from conditioned to unconditioned, from differentiated to undifferentiated, from manifest to unmanifest from Big Self to small self and back again. All in a nice moral package: The perpetual dance of LILA. All the best. Andre 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
Re: [MD] Art and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Joe to Andre: DQ experience itself is indefinable metaphysics. Andre: Huh? Joe: Consciousness of individuality coupled with life anchors a possibility for describing an experience of indefinable reality. Metaphysics MOQ accepts a reality of DQ/SQ experience in individuality. Sentient consciousness, freewill, upholds the awareness needed for DQ/SQ. Animals follow mechanical instinct. Andre: Sorry Joe but I have no idea what you are saying...what point(s)you are trying to make. 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
Re: [MD] A New Broom......
dmb: Looking at the archives, I can see that Marsha posted about 60 times in November and 45 times in December. That's about twice as much as anyone else, which means the discussion group was being dominated by incoherent drivel and passive aggressive snark. Andre: Agreed dmb and good to have you back here. Despite her denials through, in her terms, the 'vipassana' experiences she not only misrepresents vipassana but she reinforced the self centered, egotistical experience rendering everything else 'mere opinion' (except her own of course). Her own centeredness in a subject/object metaphysics cannot be more obvious and her continued unease with the MoQ's intellectual level bears this out. I think Pirsig's MoQ points to a more inclusive and thereby more expanded notion of the 'individual' and his or her 'experience'. These must be seen, understood and argued for in a much broader perspective...call it ( as Wilber does) the transpersonal perspective meaning nothing less than the universal or global view. It is vital to pursue this course of discuss, otherwise we'll be racing around in circles chasing our own tales...(stories) . Pirsig's MoQ does not deserve this nor do we as human beings. In this sense we may be able to help each other returning to our own Buddha's Eightfold Path which has Right Understanding as first, and Right Thought as second on the 'The Way' leading to cessation of dukkha (suffering) also known as 'the Middle Path'. ( Rahula, What the Buddha Taught, p45) Any other pursuit is 'naive' and must be exposed and recognized for what it is. Potentially we're here to set a high standard of exchange with each other and I'm not much of a philosopher but I am a manifestation in human form welcoming the learning and sharing the learned. That ought to be a reasonably good start. In that sense your call to write 'a blog post about scientific revolutions (Kuhn) and how that relates to Pirsig's view of science. You know, Copernican revolutions, non-euclidean geometry, post-Newtonian physics, the proliferation of scientific hypotheses, Poincare's intuitive leaps, or anything along those lines', is a welcome and stimulating suggestion. 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
Re: [MD] Art and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Joe to Andre: I do not doubt that there is a physical differentiation between men and women. Both are sentient beings. What about angels?. Andre: Forget about angels Joe. Joe: What is the criteria for the differentiated aesthetic continuum? Language? Andre: The MoQ is the criteria Joe. The more I think about it the more I am convinced that the MoQ as developed by Pirsig is the most advanced metaphysical representation of what is...as we are living it. In the MoQ Pirsig argues that organic differences are quantifiable and measurable...like objectively argued to be 'present'...i.e. scientifically established. However, when one moves to social and intellectual patterns of value one gets an interpretation of those differences i.e. what constitutes them, what is their make up, what is their meaning. These appear to be culturally agreed or argued upon. The beauty of the MoQ is that it appears to transcend these differences TAKEN AS A WHOLE...i.e. from the perspective of Quality (as ONE ...or rather not two). Joe: Does undifferentiated aesthetic continuum contain the experience of reality like sentient? Andre: Yes. Quality has/contains LILA. Quality contains and thereby manifests any and all experiences...even those of the non sentient (if one accepts the IDEA of the non sentient existence (and therefore experience) before sentience.And the MoQ does. Quality is the ground from which all experiences manifest. But read the passage from ZMM page 75: 'From all this awareness (i.e. the ground/Quality) we must select, and what we select and call consciousness (sq) is never the same as the awareness (Quality) because the process of selection( i.e. going from DQ to sq) mutates it. We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world. 'Once we have the handful of sand, the world of which we are conscious,a process of discrimination goes to work on it'. And therefore the sentient can never claim his/her experience as representing 'reality'. And so, as my understanding of the MoQ goes it indeed does contain the experience of reality like sentient because it is a sq pragmatic contribution. But the MoQ puts its qualifications right there...i.e. the experience is provisional, fractional and therefore subsumed within the whole not able to make any claim about the whole(Quality)or for that matter any of its parts (sq). Hope this helps Joe. André 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
Re: [MD] Art and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Joe: IMHO Man/Woman experience indefinable reality in differing perspectives. Andre: Not sure about this Joesince Northrop 'defines' reality as the 'undifferentiated aesthetic continuum' I doubt if there is a differentiation in experience/perspective. Not even sure if one can speak of 'man' and 'woman' either... but I could be wrong. 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
Re: [MD] Art and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Dan said to Marsha: Sorry but this makes no sense at all. Obviously having a discussion here is a waste of time. Goodbye. Marsha replied: Goodbye Dan. Andre: Congratulations Marsha. You've done it again. Pissing posters off with your derisory and contemptible attitude towards what is written...often thoughtful and intelligent responses by posters who take the MoQ seriously...and who take your responses seriously...but then (pressed in a corner due to your confusion about many fundamental matters concerning the MoQ) the eel comes out again. The only thing I would have an argument with regarding Dan's response is that a discussion with MARSHA is a waste of time. It's really one big soliloquize she's putting on here. There is nothing intelligent there and, as said, she treats any and every sq pattern with derision and contempt (all is 'hypothetical' and 'static ever changing') making a mockery of Pirsig's MoQ. The sooner she leaves this Discuss the better. 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
Re: [MD] What is the meaning of spontaneous?
Marsha asked Ron: I posted the youtube presentation of the entire (read aloud) essay. You may check my original post and I will post it again so you might be a good listener. So what is your complaint? Andre: The part you did NOT bother to quote Marsha. And you know full well what Ron is hinting at. It's another variation on your all too familiar Lucy tricks. The role the intellectual level plays as being seen as the 'unfolding of intuition'...the generator of truth: 'It is the advent of truth into the?world, a form of thought now, for the first time, bursting into the?universe, a child of the old eternal soul, a piece of genuine and?immeasurable greatness.'' It confirms your anti-intellectual attitude which YOU still consider full of trappings like reification and objectification (hence your 'static' being 'ever-changing'...as a way out of your conviction that the intellectual level IS SOM). That part which ought to be 'killed'...taken from Pirsig's MoQ which, in HIS hands is as solid as a rock and in YOUR hands as brittle as the cast-iron seats of the Victorians. This is entirely YOUR weakness in the arguments (I won't call it a discussion because you never discuss things here on this discuss!) That is why you still see the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as illusory. Why you see the holocaust as illusory. SHAME on you. To you static patterns of value have no meaning or relevance. They do not have importance nor a role to play in the evolutionary unfolding. No role in the ascension nor descension ( in Wilber's terms) It is a gross betrayal of DQ/sq which you prove, time and again, to completely misunderstand and misconstrue because of this confusion. You talk about 'dependent arising' whilst you fail to realize the significance of this concept...the intimate play with each other yet.sq is (like) an illusion. Therefore DQ is (like)an illusion as well (what the fuck is the difference between 'like an illusion' and 'illusion'). The question is very simple but do not bother to answer it. It will be so much more bullshit of which you are new-aged-ly full. Your retort and so called question to Ron betray this attitude and confusion...always leaving open your Lucy slithering tactics. You will not mend your ways. Your attitude on this discuss is deplorable. Keep your own soul-searching to yourself Marsha and wander around in your own Versaille-room full of mirrors...the favourite of you know who. You do not belong on this discuss. Perhaps you should devote your ego-centered energies on the Patanjali-site twittering section. 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
Re: [MD] True rhetoric and false rhetoric
Marsha said: If your speech is not useful and beneficial, teachers say, it is better to keep silent. Andre replied: Given your record here on this Discuss one can only hope you apply this wisdom to yourself. You reap what you sow. To which Marsha responded: Record of what, and interpreted by whom? Who is at the core of such opinion? I thought you had decided to delete my posts rather than read them. Andre: Typical Lucy response once again. Here I was complementing you (probably for the first time) on your choice of quotes with some wisdom and I get this... . Shows that you really do not read what you shove on this discuss, let alone learn from it. Well, I've learned: back to the 'trash' with you. 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
Re: [MD] True rhetoric and false rhetoric
Ron asked: How can one ever hope for right way Thought-speech-listening what is right way? Who deems it so? All those quotes juSt farts in the wind If there is no standard for right way Thoughts , projections ? Andre: Hi Ron, perhaps it can be held up against Rta and dharma and see the harmony it produces...or not? Dharma, like rta, means 'what holds together.' It is the basis of all order. It equals righteousness. It is the ethical code. It is the stable condition which gives man perfect satisfaction'... Dharma is beyond all questions of what is internal and what is external. Dharma is Quality itself, the principle of 'rightness' which gives structure and purpose to the evolution of all life and to the evolving understanding of the universe which life has created' (LILA, p 392) 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
Re: [MD] True rhetoric and false rhetoric
On Nov 9, dmb posted an article from the New York Times opinion page: When Socrates Met Phaedrus: Eros in Philosophy, by Simon Critchley. Andre: Subsequently dmb states that: Critchley's article should be of interest to anyone in a Pirsig discussion group - for obvious reasons. Not being much of a philosopher, let alone a scholar there is one thing (apart from others) that sprang to my attention when reading the article, especially when Critchley says the following: 'We might want to say that a philosophical dialogue is more like a case study in psychotherapy, which also sometimes fail. Such case studies might be exemplary and thereby exert a general claim, as the Phaedrus//unquestionably does, but each dialogue is a singular and highly specific case.' Phaedrus as a 'case study'. Interesting, especially when one considers that Pirsig intended LILA to be conceived as a 'case-book in philosophy' (Anthony's PhD, p44). 'Does Lila have Quality' is the koan, its central question, and Critchley (as well as Pirsig of course) argues that she does have Quality (or rather Quality has her) because the (proper) philosophical approach, i.e the conditions which rhetoric must meet in order to have any metaphysical relevance/foundation at all are met in the Phaedrus. Critchley quotes Socrates: 'On meeting someone he will be able to discern what he is like and make clear to himself that the person actually standing in front of him is of just this particular sort of character...that he must now apply speeches of such-and-such a kind in this particular way in order to secure conviction about such-and-such an issue. When he has learned all this...then, and only then, will he have finally mastered the art well and completely.' Isn't this a wonderful reminder of Dusenberry's anthropological approach learning about the Chippewa- Cree of Montana, i.e. the participant observer approach? Anthony, in his PhD correctly, I think, sees this approach as epitomizing the MoQ ethos because it is more 'value friendly'. This opposes the current, all too general practice, of the so called 'objective' approach considered more 'scientific' because the answers to its preconceived, scientifically worked out questions are quantifiable and fit very well in multicolored tables and easily constructed recommendations for 'action'. No wonder Pirsig calls this approach 'just rubbish' because one only needs to look around one's street, listen to the radio or watch the evening news to see that it simply does not work. In fact, is sinful (original meaning: missing the point)our dominant Western ignorance thereby adding to the karmic dump which is piling ever so high, above the heads of not only our children but our children's children's children. Many, though fortunately not all, approaches fail to take value into account. That is 'empirical experience'. Why? Because, and I still hear this nonsense on radio, TV and relatives, because this 'type' of experience is considered 'subjective' and has little to do with 'objective reality'! The MoQ, as a 'contrarian' metaphysics rises above all of similar past efforts. Though I say 'contrarian' it isn't really. It is literally a continuation of main-stream American philosophy set in motion by the likes of Peirce, Dewey and James. I could go on but won't. I happen to be born in a country where our exalted prime minister, as a way of getting out of the financial crisis, calls on people to 'buy a car' or 'buy a house'...and where president Poetin is welcomed in The Hague (this means trade and money) and the Dalai Lama shunned (this means wisdom). All cultures have their blind spots. The Critchley article opened a few doors for me not the least of which is the many-layered meaning of 'Phaedrus'. Thanks dmb for bringing the article to my attention. 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
Re: [MD] True rhetoric and false rhetoric
Marsha to Ron: Notice the questions to Andre began with who and whom? The questions are pertaining to anatta, or small self? Andre: Who the heck do you think you are, on this discuss other than anatta? And, by the way, you have it wrong. Anatta refers to 'no-self' which is different to small self. To whom is Ron directing his question other than anatta which you term 'small self'??? This is the world we live in and what we are!! Sq...we ARE these patterns. And, oh...Big Self (no-self) has nothing to say. It is silent...I experience this several times a day. But that is not the one writing these lines. Marsha: The questions in no way were meant to indicate that the right way means whatever one wants it to mean. Andre: Marsha, there is something fundamentally wrong with the way you go about this discuss. I'll refer to your 'apology' earlier today: 'There is so much not available in an email communication. I only see words on a screen without any emotional cues. I tend not to want to make things personal for that reason. I don't really know you at all. If I misread you tone, I apologize. I too easily fall into the pattern of using past experiences.' Andre continues: Do you not register that a human being types these words? Do you ONLY see words and nothing else? This really confirms my (and some others') idea that you are so suspicious of the intellectual level (in your mind= SOM)that you do not see or feel or hear any living patterns behind the written language. Anti-intellectualism to a sickly extreme. Do you think that you, on this forum discussing Pirsig's MoQ, are addressed as anything other than your 'small self? (Yes, the world and all it's inhabitants are an illusion...it's analogies all the way down and up and left and right and centered and below and wherever you want them to be) AND SO ARE YOU. So why not behave as part of that illusion if you want to seriously engage in discussions on this Discuss. Avoiding discussions and appealing to 'anatta' (i.e. not-self) won't win you any flavours or favours. It is a sickly way to escape...because that is what it is. An ESCAPE and NOT a constructive way to creatively move a discussion along or throw a completely different light on an old topic or simply answer a question. NO! You use it as a way to wriggle through, to slither your way out of any and every situation. You asked me the other day on your comment that 'If your speech is not useful and beneficial,...it is better to keep silent.': I gave you my view and you answered:Record of what, and interpreted by whom? Who is at the core of such opinion? It is very obvious that the 'record' you are referring to is your own (just check the archives). Interpreted by many readers and participants of this discuss. Who or what is at the core of such an opinion? I'll tell you Marsha: the one who wrote this is the one who reads this. And if that is not clear enough: the one who reads this is the one who wrote this. Stop hiding and own up! 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
Re: [MD] True rhetoric and false rhetoric
Marsha: If your speech is not useful and beneficial, teachers say, it is better to keep silent. Andre: Given your record here on this Discuss one can only hope you apply this wisdom to yourself. You reap what you sow. 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
[MD] definition of DQ
Craig suggests: DQ =def. the dreams stuff is made of. Andre: Or, perhaps a bit closer in line with the 'wisdom traditions': the stuff (DQ) dreams (sq) are made of? 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
Re: [MD] Fwd: Re: Static Patterns Rock!
David M to Andre: Not only is the pre-conceptual 'very little' it also does not exist, bit odd, bit silly,... Andre: Okay David. Nitpicking an expression of speech. By 'very little' in the context I used it I mean 'none'. DM: '...also there is something 'aforementioned' that 'generates' all 'conceptualisations' you say, yet nothing pre-conceptual exists. Andre: That's exactly right David.From experience we can abstract concepts BECAUSE it is concept free, in the same way that we abstract tastes, smells, feelings, sensations, sounds and perceptions. We can do this BECAUSE DQ is without taste, without smell, without feelings, without sensations, without sound, without perceptions. Because of our human form (eg the five senses) we bring these to DQ and abstract whatever seems best befitting our human form, history and cultural background. Again, we can do this BECAUSE DQ 'means nothing, and is but what it immediately is.' It can contain anything you want BECAUSE DQ is contain-less. Using the Buddhist 'form' and 'formlessness' it can be any form you like BECAUSE it is formless. It can contain anything BECAUSE it is nothing. Hence all these varieties of colours, shapes, forms, tastes, smells, perspectives, feelings, sensations, conceptualizations... you name it BECAUSE it is none of these and therefore all of these. That's why a synonym for Quality is freedom. DM: Well you do seem to have proved your other point: you know very little. Andre: I do think that knowing very little is not necessarily something negative. Remember the tea-pouring story of the Zen master receiving his guest who expressed interest in learning more about Zen? He kept on filling his guest's cup way past overflowing because he knew his guest was so full of his own sq patterns that nothing new could enter. Time to empty my cup again. Perhaps you should try it as well. 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
Re: [MD] Fwd: Re: Static Patterns Rock!
David M to Andre: So until there is culture and language there is no experience? Andre: No, that's not what I'm saying. There is experience first after which we try and find ways of describing this value. It is after the experience we generate notions of 'banana taste', green or red colours, happy or sad emotions and the like. There are, I'm sure, many things going on in my own body (organic stuff) that I have no knowledge of. I do not need to think of breathing for it to take place. The organic patterns themselves have learned that to the extent that it's considered 'automatic'. It has an 'intelligence' of its own. There are many things going on at all levels about which I have no knowledge but my point is that this is NOT due to any inherent 'property' of Dynamic Quality, that's all I'm trying to say David. 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
Re: [MD] Fwd: Re: Static Patterns Rock!
David M to Andre: Glad to hear it. There is much more agreement here than my interpreters seem to want to admit,... Andre: I am not sure what you are glad about David. Perhaps the part where I said that 'There are many things going on at all levels about which I have no knowledge...'. Perhaps you see this as a statement of agreement with your pre-conceptual sq. Sorry mate but nothing could be farther from the truth. What I could have added were some examples: I know very little of the inorganic level...I'll leave that to the quantum physicists, chemistry professors and geologists. I know very little of the organic level...I'll leave that to the (micro) biologists and botanists. I know very little of the social level...I'll leave that to anthropologists, sociologists, trend-spotters, bankers, economists, law makers etc. And I know very little of the intellectual level but we are not discussing that here. We are using that here. After all, Pirig's MoQ is a static intellectual pattern of value. All these aforementioned will generate theories, ideas, conceptualizations of explaining, making sense of their respective fields. There is very little 'pre-conceptual' stuff there because that does not exist. DM: All I am saying is that before we conceptualise experience it is full of content, senses, tastes, etc. Andre: I told you before that this is impossible. It is a logical absurdity. 'Content', 'senses', 'tastes' ARE conceptualizations David...even 'etc' is! DM: Now what do we call all this pattern, DMB says all SQ is conceptual, so is all sensual pattern DQ? Is DQ pre-definition but nonetheless full of pattern? Or is there a load of pre-conceptual SQ before we get to conceptual SQ that DMB is refusing to appreciate and recognise? Andre: Here you go again David. These are all nonsense statements. They may sound very deep and impressive to you but it's just nonsense. 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
Re: [MD] 10 Myths About Meditation
Marsha to Ron: We disagree on a few points, but such is life. The differences, I presume, are due to our different static life histories and present circumstances and present experiences. Do you meditate on a regular basis? Ron: All the time. Andre: Yes, what else can Ron do when stretching Lucy's patterns a bit. He gets the following answer from this same pattern: 'Maybe you perceive what it isn't. Or maybe you perceive both what it is and what it isn't. Or neither what it is nor what it isn't. Pick your favorite analogy to explain.' I mean, that, together with the answer given to Ron above just absolutely kills any decent discussion. A half baked piece of drivel to blame our 'different static life histories' and an even worse attempted rendition of Nagarjuna's tetralemma. It's a waste of time talking to Lucy on this discuss. She appears to place herself above learning, above correction, above decency and, to top it all, above the MoQ. Hence her pursuit to move 'beyond' it as previously stated. Any question from someone is answered by a question from Lucy making it clear that she is not interested in an answer. It is fake interest. She's only interested in her mirror image. What on earth she's doing here I do not know. 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
Re: [MD] 10 Myths About Meditation
Marsha to Andre: It was the best I could do with Ron's rather abbreviated comment: Andre: Bull! Now you are blaming Ron and not looking at your own incompetence. I had said: 'I mean, that, together with the answer given to Ron above just absolutely kills any decent discussion. A half baked piece of drivel to blame our 'different static life histories' and an even worse attempted rendition of Nagarjuna's tetralemma. It's a waste of time talking to Lucy on this discuss. She appears to place herself above learning, above correction, above decency and, to top it all, above the MoQ. Hence her pursuit to move 'beyond' it as previously stated.' You are not confining this type of drivel to Ron either. You do it with every poster here. I am sure you are not aware of the implications of what you are saying. Or you possibly are but just do not care one iota. You suggest that NO DISCUSSION, NO MEANINGFUL EXCHANGE, NO REAL UNDERSTANDING IS POSSIBLE BETWEEN TWO HUMAN BEINGS. You are speaking from monologue. That is what meditation essentially entails. This is a discussion site talking ABOUT shared understandings and misunderstandings. Boy oh boy, no wonder you see the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the horrors of the holocaust as an illusion. And all Pirsig attempted to do was to improve the world a little bit through his MoQ. Wow, you are sure making a mess of things in the name of (your own version of) MoQ, Nagarjuna and one's 'different static life histories'. Shame really. Over and out. 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
Re: [MD] Fwd: Re: Static Patterns Rock!
dmb: In a certain sense, perception entails conception. DM to dmb: Yes in a certain sense I agree, but obviously in the full and normal sense,conception is formal, abstract and based in language, so has nothing to do with pre-conceptual percepts, Andre: Hugh? What strange twist of argument. Aren't 'percepts' an abstraction, a way of conceptualizing? There is no such thing as a pre-conceptual percept. DM: yet we experience sameness and identity and repetition and pattern, Andre: Instead of using the word 'yet' it makes more sense to use 'and because of this' we experience sameness and identity and repetition and pattern. It seems you are still 'filling' Dq with things that are not there and you seem to underestimate the influence/powerful conditioning which sq 'represents' or rather points to. Remember the 'amendment' Pirsig made to Descartes' statement in LILA? DM: ...you realise I am right but your dogma stops you from fully admitting it,this is the real reason this conversation cannot progress. Andre: There is very little 'right' about your argument DM and you are beginning to sound like Marsha when she finds herself in a corner she can only get out of through slithering tactics. 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
Re: [MD] Fwd: Re: Static Patterns Rock!
DM to Andre: I recognise tastes, colours, etc prior to concepts,... Andre: No you don't! You must have learned the recognition and the distinction. You have learned what is what. Re-read Pirsig's These are transmitted culturally. Any taste, colour, smell (not part of your own culture) you come across in another culture you will not recognize... you may search for associations with possible recognitions but they will remain unknown to you...until someone tells you, teaches you. And when you come across the same a next time you may recognize it. In other words DQ has no percepts. Percepts are what you bring to whatever you are experiencing. Hold on tight to your percepts and you will get repetitions of experiences. DM: if there are only concepts why ever mention qualities? Your position is just nonsense. Andre: Qualities are the 'base line'. And they are concepts too. Pirsig's MoQ is a static intellectual pattern of values. Remember, it's analogies all the way down. By naming it 'Quality' he had already crossed a line (as he admits). But you seem to be treating DQ as though it is some kind of unspecified string of DNA. That, in my book is nonsense. 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
Re: [MD] Un-Pure Experience
dmb to DT: Sorry, but I am sick to death of watching hacks blame Pirsig for their own confusion. The MOQ is definable and knowable and the whole thing is built of words and concepts. Obviously, discussing his work (or anyone else's) requires us to bring some linguistic tools and skills to task. It also demands intellectual honesty so that people respond to the actual claims of others without reversing, ignoring or distorting them. Andre: I share your frustration dmb and it seems to me that despite Pirsig's MoQ some posters/lurkers are so trapped in SOM that they really, absolutely cannot find their way through the words/concepts used. They are still seen as a prison... as 'Marsha' does. What I find amazing is that, because of this predicament i.e their stuck-ness in what they are used to (living their whole lives in a SOM understanding) is that it is impossible to understand, and use the liberating effects of Pirsig;'s MoQ. It is literally not understood nor grasped nor intuited. And the reason is perhaps that 'they' want to define DQ. It seems an inability to go past words, an inability to face the unknown, I do not know. It certainly is an inability to NOT see words as pointers to... . It is not to properly understand the meaning of 'it's all an analogy'. The exact definition of words/concepts and ideas only point to a more exact understanding/intuiting of the value referred to. There has been such a persevering, obsessive need (that's the only way I can describe it) to define DQ, that, it seems, a gap needs to be filled by those that demand it ( and find Pirsig's MoQ inadequate!!). They want the MoQ to fill that emptiness (which is not the Buddhist emptiness) felt within, that is open and begging in such a way that anything presented is rejected and discarded. There MUST be more. Quite un-fulfilling. And I am aware of the psychological angle put on this but cannot find another explanation. It cannot be philosophical/metaphysical. It cannot be Pirsig's MoQ. It seems that this is the core of Pirsig's argument: that there is a genetic defect in our thinking, our way of rationalizing all there is. The way we see, feel, hear, smell and taste. Nothing wrong with those of course, but the way we are intellectually processing them... THERE is the defect. Perhaps we would do well to listen to these first BEFORE we intellectualize about them. And, let there be no misunderstanding about this: I really am convinced that Pirsig DID do just that before he wrote things down. How else could he have come up with the IDEA that there was something drastically wrong in and with our rationalizing. It's like the story of filling in the concept of 'God' with biological/social patterns of value. He listens, he writes, he answers, he commands, he decrees etc, etc. And we prove again and again that we have lost touch with our selves, again and again and again. Even on this Discuss we demand answers and therefore repeat it. Very sad indeed. 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
Re: [MD] Un-Pure Experience
Andre previously: I share your frustration dmb and it seems to me that despite Pirsig's MoQ some posters/lurkers are so trapped in SOM that they really, absolutely cannot find their way through the words/concepts used. They are still seen as a prison... as 'Marsha' does. Marsha: Proof? Or, or like dmb, is one expected to accept what you say because it reflects a pattern flittering through your mind: incomplete, conditioned, thinking; biases, emotional, prejudices, preferences, habit; your own particular reactions to words and concepts. I don't think so... Andre: Loads of projections once again. Here is what Marsha wrote on May 11, 2011: 'I not only agree with Mark that language is a kind of prison, but I also think patterns are a kind of prison.' No-one should be surprised at the language used because it leaves room for the Lucy trick. Just like the atomic bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki_were like_ an illusion. Back then she said: 'a kind of prison'. That is: not really a prison but like a prison. Not really an illusion but like an illusion. What are we to make of this ducking and weaving? Asks the student of the Master: 'If it's all an illusion, why should I jump out of the way when a bus is heading straight for me?'. Says the Master: 'Because you are part of that illusion as well'. As far as I am aware you haven't changed your mind about this one so it still stands. 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
Re: [MD] Un-Pure Experience
Marsha to Andre: I not only agree with Mark that language is a kind of prison, but I also think patterns are a kind of prison. To the extent that one's behavior is controlled by static patterns of quality it is without choice. But to the extent that one follows Dynamic Quality, which is undefinable, one's behavior is free. [LILA} Marsha now: Yes, in this context it fits well. Andre: Do you have any other contexts in mind than 'this' one? The statement is a very general one and I wonder if you have something else in mind. To be suspicious, I wonder if you have something else 'up your sleeve'Lucy?. The reason I am asking is because I am convinced that you do not take spov's (in general) serious because, as you assert, they are 'like an illusion'. And since you claim that DQ and sq arise together DQ is 'like an illusion' as well. Which is fine by me. But my concern is that therefore, logically, the MoQ is 'a kind of prison' for you. Patterns are 'a kind of prison' and it is in this context that I see problems with your interpretation/perspective which is based, solely it seems, on your vipassana experience. This type of experience is monological, i.e. you are the only one experiencing it and interpreting this experience. And if this, let's call it non-dual reality that you are engaged in, is supposedly the union of emptiness and form (as you claim: DQ is none other than sq) your meditation gets the emptiness right but NOT the form. The emptiness is right, because there is nothing to get wrong but you miss the nature of form (of sq). And that is because you refuse to go into dialogue (your behavior on this discuss is exemplary in this regard) and you refuse to 'subject' your experience to scientific analysis (the way Buddhists do and have done) i.e those that have no interest in your 'personal' needs whatsoever. What you are promulgating therefore is a subjective solipsism, an attitude of: MY experience is right and fuck everyone who's against it or challenges it (even Pirsig's MoQ). But furthermore, and in consequence of this, all your expressions of 'concern' and the 'head and the heart and the hands' come over as totally fake. By proclaiming the championship of DQ over sq you are, inadvertently or not, selling yourself as a fake, as a non-caring, sq rejecting jungle of static patterns of yourself. In effect, you are denying your Being as manifestation in human form. Once again: we are discussing Pirsig's MoQ (which is an intellectual pattern of value) and NOT your vipassana experience. Although this 'experience' tells us a lot about your interpretation of this self same MoQ. 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
Re: [MD] Un-Pure Experience
Marsha to Andre: I take all static patterns of value as seriously as burnt umber, light red, yellow ochre, cadmium yellow, cadmium scarlet, permanent rose, alizarin red, winsor violet, french ultramarine, thalo blue, thalo green, olive green and titanium. Your suspicions, on the other hand, I do not take seriously at all. Your suspicions and misinterpretations are not my concern, they are thoughts flittering through your mind. Andre: Hahahahahaha, and, hahahahah you, hahaha,just,hahahaha, confirmed, hahaha everything, hahahaha I, hahahaha said, hahahaha in my post.Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. But more seriously. What are you doing here on this discuss? Painting? You are a bad pain-ter. And I am not 'suspecting' anything...merely asking questions. I've asked you this before and am asking you again: Why did Gautama Buddha get up from under the bodhi tree? Why did Jesus do what he did? If only you'd stick to what is asked for. If I have 'misinterpretations' about your interpretations; if you do NOT take seriously the atomic bombs dropping on Hiroshima or Nagasaki, if you do NOT take seriously the holocaust...if they are like 'burnt umber' to you, you do not deserve to be taken seriously on this discuss. I'd go so far as suggesting you do not belong on this discuss. Pirsig, with his MoQ, i.e an example of an expanded rationality, wanted to improve the world a little bit. For the life of me I cannot see that happening with your egocentric drivel. As matter of fact: it makes it worse! Goodbye Marsha. Your patterns are low quality indeed. I'll re-direct all incoming stuff from you as going to TRASH. 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
Re: [MD] Un-Pure Experience
D.Thomas to dmb: But you must admit that Pirsig, from a philosophical perspective, is not much on providing definitions. Andre: Huh? Only that which cannot be defined. Just look, as an example, to Annotation 46 of Lila's Child. Furthermore about these annotations...they can all be seen as clarifications/definitions of what Pirsig means. So what does David T want defined? He continues: 'Direct experience is not a commonly used phrase in everyday American speech. But this phase is very common, if not essential to Buddhism.' Andre: Ah, he wants 'Direct experience' defined. David attempts clarification by pulling in Buddhism: 'So to explore both fields he gave us kayanupassana (observation of the body) and cittanupassana (observation of the mind)' And, to be clear sees this as a definition of 'Direct experience'. Later he pulls Mao in and contrasts them. Baffled he asks: From the way that Pirsig uses direct experience in his axiom; How can you be sure which way he is using it? Is it internal observation of one's own mind and body or is it Mao's external observation of one's environment, or both ? How do you know? I surely can't make the distinction. Andre: You have set up a wonderful red herring. A straw man I suppose and it's really of your own making. Of course you cannot make the distinction you yourself set up because both are NOT what Pirsig means by Quality (pure experience/DQ). The 'exploration' you are talking about is sq all the way and has nothing to do with DQ. And, by the way, where do you see the line demarcating internal/external? There's no such thing! David T: And the Pirsig example that I go back to again and again is his claim that capitalism is a social pattern, while communism is an intellectual one. Andre: This is blatantly not true David. Pirsig argues that socialism is an intellectually GUIDED society. Capitalism just a system for justifying the exploitation of the poor by the rich to support their own self-interest. (LILA,p 225) You're jumbling things up that are simply not so. Enough for now. 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
Re: [MD] Un-Pure Experience
Marsha to Andre (off-list): What? You acknowledge dmb can't handle a simple discussion, relating even to William James, without someone like you to run interference? Andre: First of all: I do not like ongoing discussions pertaining to Pirsig's MoQ to be discussed off-list. Whatever your particular motivations are... I do not care for them...off-list. Your presumption is quite false. I know dmb can handle it...don't you worry about that. Marsha: It's too obvious. I thought I'd stay out of it. Why don't you do the same? Andre: I knew that dmb would counter from a different angle that I would. Since David T received a post from Horse ( after endless dmb posts) that, all of a sudden, clarified things for him (that does happen you know?). I thought I'd make things clear from my understanding of Pirsig's MoQ. Of course I was intrigued with David bringing up Mao's thought, since I have lived and worked in China for four years and thought I may clarify some things from this perspective. I am very glad that you are staying out of this as you, in general, do not have much worthwhile to contribute. You'd only muddle the waters . 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
Re: [MD] Un-Pure Experience
Dave to Andre: I think you are confusing me with David M. I haven't had post directed at me from Horse in years. Andre: This is strange. I am directing my post to David T.(David Thomas) and am getting a post back from 'Dave' who claims he hasn't received anything from Horse in years. Anyway, before this can be cleared up, 'Dave' further writes: 'If you are currently living and working in China and wanting to continue doing that, your comments about socialist governance must be viewed as either an illusion or enlightened self interest.' Andre: I have absolutely no idea about what you are trying to get at here. Horse:What is going on? Is this some kind of joke, mishap or what? 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
Re: [MD] Un-Pure Experience
Arlo to Andre: As for his China comment,I read it that by willfully living in China you relinquish all validity in talking about socialist governance. Andre: Thank you Arlo, for clarifying the David from the David. I must still have not recovered from the accident a have been suffering from for some months. I apologize. (Still I just 'returned' the post). However, I must comment on the snippet which suggests I would 'relinquish all validity in talking about socialist governance. Not at all. Fire away. Must say though that I fully agree with Pirsig's observation (about the intellectually guided 'socially governance') that 'their whole undertaking is an absence of a concept of indefinite Dynamic Quality'. Perhaps my 'aside' comment was misunderstood? 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
Re: [MD] Un-Pure Experience
Dave : So what both you are saying in flurry of sand is that neither direct experience nor intellectual abstractions have any plain English definitions. Because once you reject SOM, SOM (plain English) words and definitions are meaningless under the MoQ. Andre: Perhaps the MoQ is meaningless to you Dave. If SOM is all your experience, if words are all your experience, if definitions are all your experience...yes, everything is meaningless. THe MoQ has SOM as something you may enjoy (or not)just like you may enjoy a painting. Whenever it may be useful to you, use it but the MoQ is much more than that. And if you cannot find the words or come up with meaningful analogies/ definitions well... you are going to remain stuck. 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
Re: [MD] Zen at War
Marsha to Andre: I have never claimed to be greater than a student of Buddhism, a mere grasshopper, a bug. Andre: Grasshopper? Ah, a reference to David Carradine's 'Kung Fu' TV series? I've always enjoyed that. 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
Re: [MD] Zen at War
Marsha to Andre: You might prefer the term analogue or ghost, but this does not change that there is always a difference between the pattern and the dynamic, unpatterned experience. Andre: It's good to see that you are finally away from this ridiculous notion that DQ is none other than sq. And my observation that you still resort to tactics that I find 'slithering' stand as well. The mirror simply reflects (to use the analogy you use) and you are only kidding yourself and no-one else. 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
Re: [MD] Zen at War
Marsha to Andre: What self? There's no one to kid, you kidder, you. Andre: Nice, Marsha. You must have learned that by heart by now. If, as you say there is no self ( may I remind you we are discussing Pirsig's MoQ here), that there is really no 'self' then you would not write these words 'cos you wouldn't know to whom to send them. If there really is no self when you are eating you would, literally, not know what mouth to put the food in. It would make no difference whatsoever. But you mean, of course; dynamically or 'in the world of the Buddha's'. From a static point of view (which is where most of us live) it is quite useful to make that distinction. After all, 'while sustaining biological and social patterns...' Marsha: And I still hold that the fundamental nature of the world is Quality, while static (value) patterns are useful projections (conventional reality). Dynamic quality and static (patterned) quality rise and fall together. Andre: I have no problems with this except for your use of the word 'projections'. I prefer to call them 'manifestations'. I see sq as a 'manifestation' of DQ. Form as a 'manifestation' of the formless. That is why sq is grounded in DQ. For metaphysical reasons (and some others) there must be a discrepancy between static concepts and reality (DQ). This is not the Heart Sutra we are discussing. We are here discussing a metaphysics. Namely Pirsig's MoQ. What are you doing here? 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
Re: [MD] Zen at War
Andre to Marsha: I have no problems with this except for your use of the word 'projections'. I prefer to call them 'manifestations'. I see sq as a 'manifestation' of DQ. Form as a 'manifestation' of the formless. That is why sq is grounded in DQ. For metaphysical reasons there must be a discrepancy between static concepts and reality (DQ). This is not the Heart Sutra we are discussing. We are here discussing a metaphysics. What are you doing here? Marsha: Not baffled by the ditty, baffled by Andre's clueless questions. Poor Andre, like you, he seems unable to carry on an amiable intellectual discussion, and, like you, he seems to need to event a fierce rival to use as a foil. Andre: Still waiting for an answer Marsha. Marsha to dmb: You want to criticize my understanding of Buddhism. Hahahaha. Andre: Projection Marsha, all the way down. And you suggest there is no self? Now that is a laugh and a half coming from you. And you also suggest dmb and I are 'unable to carry on an amiable intellectual discussion'. I get the sense that you'll do any slipping and sliding (i.e. slithering) with a presentation of quotations and personal insults to indeed create a hostile discussion which, as you seem to think from your efforts is 'intellectual'. Oh boy, Lila will cringe at the thought. It seems the joke is on you as far as 'intellectual' is concerned and as far as your understanding of Buddhism is concerned IN RELATION TO Pirsig's MoQ...and of course on its own. Talking about 'clueless'. But let me help you...I'll say it again: the MoQ is a static intellectual pattern of value. It is different from the world it describes...which is ever changingever moving. The MoQ isn't. It is quite static. Your clueless new age-Buddhist ideas do nothing to further the MoQ that we are discussing here. In fact, they can be described as stale, useless and outmoded. Come on Marsha. Practice what you preach. BE the clueless, senseless non-apparition that you proclaim yourself to be. You don't know anything anyway eh? (you mentioned this a while back as 'defense'). Empty your cup and...for once...own up. 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
Re: [MD] Zen at War
On 22-10-2013 19:35, david buchanan wrote: And that's why Andre posed the question the way he did. Marsha's assertions about the static world being like an illusion should raise moral objections. It totally makes sense that Andre would frame his question with the use of atomic weapons and the holocaust. The question becomes, in what sense is the murder of millions of innocents like an illusion? Saying this is as conventionally real as rocks and trees is unhelpful as an explanation, of course, and the emotional coldness is more than a little disturbing. Pirsig is referring to moral codes when he says they are as real as rocks and trees. Why is morality so strangely absent from the scene, even when the question so obviously involves morality? Andre: That is exactly right dmb. Thank you. I know I unsubscribed but thought the better of it. I am NOT going to let some slithering biological/social pattern, just because it suits the interpretation of the vipassana injunction, drive me away from a discussion site dedicated to the works of Pirsig. I value these highly because they are the best thing that have happened, even wider than philosophical considerations, to the world of thought and claims to reality. Nobody is going to take that away and certainly not some ego injected curiosities. It is NOT a discussion site of Lucy's or DT's experiences. It seeks to clarify, understand and contribute to the works of Pirsig's MoQ, basta! And, as Arlo has asked: what can DT identify as 'lacking' in the MoQ? I would really like to know that: WHAT IS LACKING? WHAT/WHERE IS THE GAP? Anyone who finds fault with Pirsig's MoQ should ask that of themselves and be very clear in presenting it to this discuss. Which is always welcome. 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
Re: [MD] Zen at War
Marsha stated to Andre: I stated that the atomic bombs that dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and by proxy the 'static world',j are 'conventionally' or 'conditionally' real. That should have satisfied you. Andre: It obviously has not satisfied me one bit. The terms mean certain things to me (and not only me but dictionaries and philosophical and Buddhist interpretations as well) but I better ask: What do: 'conventionally' or' conditionally' mean to YOU upon which you base the observation that these events took place 'as/like an illusion'. And, for goodness sake...speak within the MoQ perspective please. 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
Re: [MD] Zen at War
Marsha to Andre (after he sought clarification of Lucy's use of the words 'conventionally' and 'conditionally'): Andre, What did 'illusion' mean to YOU when you posted: 'The world is an illusion Brahman alone is real Brahman is the world' In fact, I am not familiar with this MoQ ditty and I am unfamiliar with RMP's use of 'Brahman'. Please explain how this relates to the MoQ? Marsha Andre: Problem is Marsha that YOU use the expression'conditionally' and 'conventionally' and applying it in an attempt to understand the MoQ. Which is not Pirsigian at all. I had already explained to you my use of these words because I wanted to emulate YOUR use of them in attempting to understand where you're coming from and at the same time demonstrating to you that your use of these terms is beyond you. You simply do not understand one iota of 'm. Now, in a slithering-in-snot attempt you are trying to slither your way out of it by placing the problem of terms in my hands. Great EEL!!! You are still masturbating and slithering in a bucket full of big juicy SNOT of your own making satisfying your own narcissistic egotistical tendencies and needs. Slither your way out of this one. Your biological patterns of value (I assume) are fine, socially you are way down the scale and intellectually your patterns are nowhere in sight. When, oh when, are you going to leave the intellectual static patterns of value called the MoQ because you are proving, again and again that you have nothing to find nor anything to contribute here. All hypothetically speaking of course. 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
