Re: LS Soul in the MOQ

From: Denis Poisson (Denis.Poisson@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Fri Jul 09 1999 - 01:12:01 BST


Hi everyone,

It's late, and I am tired, but Bodvar, being a relentless taskmaster,
has asked me to give some thoughts on this one (check MD if you don't
believe me). So, dragging myself from the bottom of despair, and with
superhuman will, I set myself on the task at hand...

Soul and self in the MoQ.

I'd like to start with a quote from 'Lila' John Beasley used in his
first post : "It isn't Lila that has quality; it's Quality that has
Lila... She's created by it. She's a cohesion of changing static
patterns of this Quality."

"*Changing static* patterns of this Quality". Am I the only one who sees
a fantastic oxymoron there ? You might just as well say : "cold flame"
or "unemotional love" there. Is Pirsig speaking mystic mumbo-jumbo ?

Not at all.

We have to remember that a Metaphysics, even the MoQ, is an intellectual
construct, a model, a map for reality, *not* the real thing. Pirsig
knows this, he even warns us against taking him too literally, but when
we are engaged in philosophical arguments, it's all too easy to forget
this. There are no static patterns in this universe, just as there are
no trees, no sky, no stars, sub-atomic particles or self. These are
words, ideas, models for our experience, which is forever dynamic. The
self is never experienced, it is infered from the seeming continuity of
experience and memory. But memory changes, experience even more, and our
ideas are constantly taking different forms as we go on. Just as you are
reading these words, your patterns are changing, evolving. They are more
like processus than things, in fact.

This world is not soulless, it is a living thing.

B. Skutvik wrote:
>
> But John's criticism goes on:
>
> > And just as Pirsig's whole metaphysics is driven by the urge to confront the idol of a value
> > free science, which he saw as destructive of humanity, so I would want to confront his
> > equally soulless world view. Pirsig bases his metaphysics upon the primacy of experienced
> > value over a rational division into subjects and objects. 'Value' is an abstraction, as real or

> > unreal as 'God', without experience. Pirsig is right to assert that our primary experience is
> > NOT neutral, hence value free science is a human construct, useful as far as it goes, but
> > always less than primary experience. Science is put in its place by attending to what is more
> > primary than ideas or concepts or world-views.
>
> Souless world view? OK but the introduction of a value filled
> universe more than compensates for the dropping of the soul
> term....something that is not so unequivocally accepted in the SOM
> either. But then he goes on to a more substantial objection and
> asks:
>

It is even more than that. Even the concept of 'value' is nothing but a
tool for better intellectual patterns, as John says above. But the MoQ
also states than the top-level moral code is "to let go of all static
patterns whatsoever". THERE is the ultimate MoQ statement about the REAL
nature of reality : not something you understand, but something you ARE.
"Thou art that", as it were.
The four moral levels are *not* reality, there are tools, intellectual
tools that try to encompass our current range of experience. This is
what is meant by P when he says :

"You have to have a ready-made Metaphysics of Quality that you can snap
at him like some catechism. Phaedrus didn't have a Catechism of Quality
and that's why he got hit."

This is a pretty flippant statement at what we value *so* much in this
group, isn't it ?

Pirsig knows this is a fluke, a "degenerate activity". But he goes at it
anyway, because it is fun, and because he NEEDS it. As Diana said to me
last month, you won't convince rational people unless you can *explain*
things to them, in a rational dialogue. For that you need concepts,
theories and hypotheses, or you're never going to bridge the gap. This
world is not soulless, but unless you drop ALL static patterns (MoQ
included), you'll never see that for yourself. The MoQ points at it, but
that's all.
Buddhists say : "looking for enlightenment is like looking for the
buffalo you're sitting on." Basically, the MoQ says the same : I am
providing intellect with better tools than before, but the best tool is
no tool at all.

So, the self.
> > What attends? Attending is a dialogue. Our experience is not just a flow of
> > sensory impressions. It is the interaction of a mind, an order
> > making entity, with its environment. "What attends"? What is the
> > order-making entity....etc
>
> You are quite right in raising these questions, we don't experience a
> jumble of sensory impressions but an ordered reality: our
> consciousness a seeming UNITY focused on only one subject at a time.
> Earlier I have claimed that it is Dynamic Quality that directs our
> focus - and I still maintain this - but realize that it may sound
> as if we are leaves in a MOQ storm instead of leaves in a SOM storm.
> How do we escape this quandary?

By understanding the profound paradoxical nature of the MoQ. It is
useful, just like being able to discern trees from bushes is useful, but
it is also unecessary, because ultimately, there is no self that is
directed by anything : everything is Quality. It cannot be really
*understood*, but only felt as a hunch. For example, as I've been
writing this, I didn't really self-reflect about what I was writing.
Words came one after another, and I saw this was Good (the Genesis is
choke-full of good stuff like that... :) ). Same thing when you drive,
you're not telling yourselves : "Now I have to shift gears, now I have
to accelerate, now I have to turn the wheel left,..." ans so on. You do
it, that's all. You are then mostly selfless, and that's best.

> I will try to answer but first to
>
> DAVID BUCHANAN
> Who wrote (in response to John):
>
> > I'd like to respond to Mr. Beasley's call to all "experiental mystics",
> > but I'm really not sure what assertion he wishes such people to
> > "challange". Perhaps this will become more clear to me as this month's
> > debate unfolds. But I certainly don't think Pirsig makes the case that
> > we are merely "the playthings of static quality", as John puts it. And I
> > definitely don't think the MOQ is soul-less. The amoral scientific idea
> > that we are mere functions in meme and gene machines is very far from
> > Pirsig's view and is hardly comparable to the MOQ.
>
> Pirsig skirts many ideas in LILA. At one point he seems to be a
> Dawkinian (genes the primary unit) but I sense that this is not his
> real business, rather something that he - in the passing - found
> supportive for the MOQ. Neither Dawkins nor Blackmore (memes) have
> the faintest resemblance to the MOQ.
>

Yes, Pirsig often likes to draw parallels between known theories and the
MoQ, but mostly, if you read it with a critical eye (my literature
studies came in handy there), it is to justify his work to the
intellectual community. He wants the MoQ to be accepted by them, because
he'll then have a 'Trojan Horse' inside their intellectual fortress. The
profound *mystic* nature of the MoQ is artfully concealed behind layers
of rational structure, but its foundation is still the Undefinable
Mystic Quality !

> > Dictionary definitions of "soul" were much better than I expected to
> > find.
>
> > 1. the immaterial essence, animating principle or actuating cause of a
> > life.
>
> > 2. the spiritual principle embodied in human beings, or the universe.
>
> > 3. a person's total self.
>
> > Again, these definitions aren't built for the MOQ, but they're not too
> > bad.
>
> > Couldn't the "immaterial essence" be Quality itself. Quality is
> > "embodied in human beings," (and) "the universe". Atman and Bhraman are
> > "essentially" the same, different kinds of the same Quality. And isn't
> > it the particular vortex of patterns that constitute each person's
> > individuality exactly what we mean when we say "a person's total self".
> > These SOM dictionary definitions are little clumsy, but not totally
> > alien to the MOQ.
>
> No, they are not alien and the "immaterial essence" may well be
> compared to Quality. Yet I feel that this is trying to harmonize the
> MOQ with the traditional terms, very well as a first tidbit for
> non-Moqite, but for us - the esoteric "inner circle" - a definition
> more on MOQ's own terms is required. I must wield the SOLAQI
> (subject-object-logic-as-Q-intellect) idea again.
>
> Soul and self are Intellect's creations. The lower Q-levels demand no
> ideas while Intellect (as language) is nothing BUT ideas - along
> with their negations - spawned from the original subject-object
> split. Amoebas aren't troubled with self-doubt or depressed by lack
> of free will, nor does a human totally absorbed by a social "cause"
> feel self-divided, but acts "naturally". This way the MOQ stands
> apart from anything previously thought (....even in the East ....is
> my bold assertion) and it is seen that all quandaries stems from
> Intellect (super)imposing itself upon the rest of existence.
>

Now, Bodvar, why the hell did you want me to comment on that ?!! Of
course I agree with you and David!
The self doesn't exist (or only as an intellectual or proto-intellectual
pattern, an illusion, "maya"), the animating principle is the danse of
creation itself, Lila, Quality, call it what you like. Our soul is the
universe itself, which isn't separate from us. Let me state my opinion
again : we are nothing but the points of view by which the Universe
experience itself ! Thus, we are sacred in the most profound sense,
along with everything else in this universe.

The only question left is "why?". Why did the universe choose to
coalesce into diversity ? Why not stay unique ? That will be the
ultimate question humanity will have to answer, I guess.

> The SOLAQI idea requires that Intellect is being tried transcended,
> something that fits MOQ's tenet of DQ constantly trying to circumvent
> the last static latch. It would result in a MOQ where nothing would
> change (except everything!) The Intellectual level IS the human
> reality, its moral and ethics would be like under a SOM "reign", its
> subject-object divisions are the highest value. Soul, self, identity
> ...the scientific research for objectivity...the judicial quest for
> justice..the general search for TRUTH would go on as before only with
> one gigantic difference: Everything is regarded through the quality
> glasses.
>
> I honestly believe that I have followed the Q-idea to it's ultimate
> conclusion and that this is the only way to "save the soul" ....or
> does it waste it?
>
No, it doesn't. It makes it even grander than before.

> Bo
>
> "Quality isn't IN the eye of the beholder.
> Quality IS the eye of the beholder".
> (Platt Holden)

Amen to that.

Denis

PS : Horse, I've been posting 3 posts consecutively to the MD, and since
I didn't RTFM, I'm not sure I should have. So please don't bust my ass.
Please... :(

PPS : Bo, since I sent bits of our discussion to the MD, I didn't pick
up the emotion/society thread again on this post. Everything that needs
saying is in those messages, I believe. And anyway, the SOLAQI is now OK
by me, so lets move on. :)

MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org



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