Hi Squad,
As promised, here's my post-mortem on the MOQ presentation to the
Humanists.
I took a sort of mixed approach, reading an introduction I'd written
this morning that managed to plagiarize both David B. and Diana
(thanks!), and moved from there into a freeform talk session about the
definition and significance of the 4 static levels and DQ. There were
10 people in this group all professing to be highly interested in the
MOQ, but - and get this - not one single person had actually read
either one of the books! I was pretty surprised to say the least.
Here's the intro I started off with:
***
What is Metaphysics?
The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality and the
relationship between mind and matter. There are 3 branches of
metaphysics - cosmology, concerned with the nature and origin of the
universe, epistemology, which is concerned with the nature of human
perception and cognition, and ontology, which is concerned with the
nature of being or existence itself.
What is the MOQ?
It is a metaphysics that attempts to address all 3 of these branches at
once. It's sort of like the Unified Field Theory of philosophy. It
attempts to explain the natural world and its origins, cognition and
perception, and the nature of being in one fell swoop.
Why do we need it? What's wrong with what we have now?
What we have now is a system of thought that Pirsig calls the
Subject/Object Metaphysics - or SOM for short. This philosophical world
view began with the dialectics of Aristotle and has continued, with only
one challenger, unchanged into the present day. The challenger, of
course, was the Church of the Middle Ages which completely subverted
rational or empirical investigation for several hundred years. It was
not until Copernicus proposed his theory removing the Earth from the
center of the universe that strict doctrinal theology was challenged by
the scientific method.
The scientific method can be viewed as a backlash against the tyranny of
church doctrine. In an attempt to free the intellect from superstition
and prejudice, the scientific method devalued "subjective"
observations. It's main tenant being that the only true knowledge is
objective knowledge gleaned from direct observation and
experimentation. In the scientific world view there is no place for
values, morals, or quality. These are undefined terms that cannot be
verified by experiment and therefore DO NOT EXIST.
Pirsig does not attempt to refute the scientific method. It is very
powerful and practically useful. It has improved our understanding of
the universe, improved our quality of life, and put us one step farther
away from chaos and disorder. It has also produced the hydrogen bomb,
pollution, given us the tools for genocide on a mass scale and - perhaps
most importantly left us adrift in a pointless universe that exists
without any guiding principles, values, or hope. The universe as
defined by the scientific method is existential - a place where each
individual is isolated and alone in a hostile or indifferent universe.
The Subject/Object Metaphysics, the SOM, takes a big sharp knife and
divides the universe into 2 basic parts. It says that everything can be
classified as either objective reality or subjectivity. It then
proceeds to completely throw away anything that cannot be empirically
proven - anything subjective. There is no place in the SOM for values,
morals, quality, and emotions. These are all completely unexplainable
by empirical methods, and are thus of no importance - and this is the
only way it can be under that kind of system. If the only things of
value are what you can observe objectively (that is free of emotion,
prejudice, or superstition) then you have absolutely no tools for
inquiring into ethics, art, religion, or even psychology.
So how does the MOQ differ from the SOM?
To understand the MOQ I'm going to back up a bit and quote Pirsig on
Positivism. "Positivism is a philosophy that emphasizes science as the
only source of knowledge. It sharply distinguishes between fact and
value, and is hostile to religion. It is an outgrowth of empiricism -
the idea that all knowledge must come from experience. The MOQ restates
the empirical basis of logical positivism with more precision, more
inclusiveness, more explanatory power than it has previously had.
Values are more empirical, in fact, than subjects or objects."
The MOQ steps backwards one level of abstraction. Instead of using the
analytical knife to divide the world into subjects and objects, the MOQ
divides the world into Static Quality and Dynamic Quality. "What the
MOQ would do is take this separate category, Quality, and show how it
contains within itself both subjects and objectsÖ Quality is the primary
empirical reality of the world."
At first, this might sound like some kind of new-age metaphysical
mumbo-jumbo. Everything is Quality? What does that mean? You go to
the store and see all these different brands of coffee makers. Some are
cheap and some are expensive. Some have a long warranty and some a
short one. Some have a lot of features and some only a few. Depending
on your circumstances, you will probably buy the one that has the
features you want, and costs the least, thinking all along that you
should probably go ahead and spend more money to get the highest quality
coffee maker. Is this what Pirsig means by Quality? The most well
made, reliable and dependable? The answer to that question took him 468
pages in the paperback version of "Lila". The short answer is YES and
more.
***
Next, we talked about the definition of each level, the hierarchy they
fit into, and how everything in the Universe fits into this system.
Some of you argued a while back about whether the social or intellectual
level came first - and believe it or not, that's exactly what some in
the group caught onto right away. There was plenty of discussion about
this. But the Major (with a capital M) question almost everyone had was
- WHAT IS DYNAMIC QUALITY? This was asked (and answered) in a number of
different ways a number of different times throughout the session.
Defining it as the pre-intellectual cutting edge of experience floated
like a lead balloon. People wanted a more solid answer than that. The
answer that seemed to work best was equating it with the force for Good
in the Universe. People seemed able to grasp that right away - plus
this definition supported the evolution of the static levels (the
latches) very clearly. I also described DQ as being akin to Zen Mind
(Bodvar forgive me!) and/or God - though I couldn't put much conviction
in my voice when I said it - what a sellout. I deserve deserve
electronic wet noodle lashings, but this did put a lot of heads to
nodding in the affirmative.
Since no one had read either of the books, I stressed that "Lila" was
the most important of the 2 to read. Pirsig should start to see a
slight rise in sales in the Dallas area next week ;) Several people
made the point that the words Value, Quality, and Morality were a poor
choice because of the heavy load of cultural baggage those words carry
in our society. Personally, I've always thought the same thing and
still wonder at Pirsig's choice - which I'm sure was deliberate.
This is getting way too long, but I want to THANK EVERYONE who's
contributed so far. Without the Squad I doubt I'd ever develop enough
clarity of thought on the subject to attempt to explain it to anyone
else. Whether I quoted you or not, ALL the ideas that have been
contributed helped in some way - and often it is those left unstated
that have the most influence. This was a rough cut, but also a very
HIGH QUALITY experience for me. Let's all keep going on this. I think
we are very close to coming up with the crystal-clear explanation the
MOQ deserves.
Best wishes,
Mary
MOQ Online - http://www.moq.org
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