From: Dan Glover (daneglover@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat Aug 14 2004 - 07:34:13 BST
Hello everyone
>From: <ant.mcwatt@ntlworld.com>
>Reply-To: moq_discuss@moq.org
>To: moq_discuss@moq.org
>CC: qtx@earthlink.net
>Subject: MD PhD Viva Questions
>Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2004 17:33:12 +0000
>
>Dear all,
>
>Just to let anyone interested that the viva went pretty well on Tuesday
>though I have yet to hear from the University concerning a final decision
>in regards of being awarded a PhD.
Hi Anthony
Congratulations! And good luck!
>
>In the meantime, I’d just like to thank everyone on this Board for their
>usually insightful debates in regard to the MOQ. I think these discussions
>since 1997 have certainly helped in sharpening my own ideas in regards to
>Pirsig's work.
I agree. Thank you everyone.
>
>Anyway, I thought you might be interested in the type of questions asked in
>the context of an MOQ PhD viva so (before I forget them!) I paste some of
>the questions posed by my examiners below. I’ll forward my answers later
>on (probably at the end of next week) to give other people an opportunity
>to discuss them.
Thank you for sharing some of the questions, tough questions too I might
add. I've spent a rather pleasant evening over them and I've tried to answer
in brief below using several sources including my own brain. I look forward
to seeing your answers too.
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Anthony.
>
>P.S. I was speaking to Doug Renselle (one of the original founders of MOQ
>Discuss) recently. He is busy as ever with his Quantonics site and sends
>his best regards to everyone.
Doug! I'm happy to hear he's well. Please say hey from Dan Glover if you
speak with him again.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>1. Is Quality more similar to:
>
>a. Whitehead's Process Philosophy,
>
>b. the Tao, or;
>
>c. Plotinus' One?
C.
From Anthony McWatt's MOQ PhD Textbook:
"Pirsig asserts that the philosopher closest to him is Plotinus.
"I think Pirsig has stated this as both philosophers characterise experience
as being a continuum from the divine through the intellect to biology then
to physical matter (the least divine or lowest Quality level); everything is
one, for both philosophers, in the sense of being an aspect of God (or to
use Pirsig’s terminology ‘Dynamic Quality’)."
>
>
>2.a. There are at least seven terms for Quality in your thesis (e.g. Value,
>harmony, excellence) how can they all be the same thing?
Quality isn't a "thing." Quality is an idea and as such adheres in many
forms.
>How does, for example, a table relate to these?
In the MOQ a table exists simultaneously on four levels. It exists as a
collection of inorganic level molecules. It exists as biological level wood.
These values can be seen and examined. The table exists on the social level
as a function, for example a conference table or a dining room table, and it
exists on the intellectual level as an idea. These values cannot be seen or
examined. These four sets of value patterns are discrete and yet are related
by a shared evolutionary history.
>
>b. What is the observer and its relation to the table in terms of Quality?
From Anthony McWatt's PhD Thesis, page 169: "Pirsig reduces subjects and
objects down to propensities (as types of values). As such, the MOQ
recognises that material ‘substances’ and mental ‘substances’ inhere in a
larger context of value patterns that, in addition, incorporates social and
biological aspects in an evolutionary relationship."
In the MOQ the observer is a collection of patterns of value. The observer
has an evolutionary relationship to the table based on intellectual, social,
biological and inorganic patterns of value.
>
>
>3. If you kill the self then isn’t this a quick return to the Dynamic and
>therefore a moral action in Pirsig’s MOQ?
The MOQ would say a self, a human being, consists of four levels of value
plus undefined Dynamic Quality. Buddhists practice to kill the intellectual
self through meditation and mindfulness while sustaining the social self and
biological self. This may allow enlightenment to arise. It would depend upon
the type of Buddhist practice whether the return to Dynamic Quality (one has
always been enlightened, one simply must remember) is quick or slow. This is
not the same as biological suicide, which the question seems to imply. Since
the MOQ doesn't recognize an afterlife or a soul apart from the body that
goes on after death, the death of the biological self is not a return to
Dynamic Quality. "In the MOQ, Dynamic Quality is synonomous with
experience." (Robert Pirsig, LILA'S CHILD)
>
>
>4.a. How does an increase of complexity lead to harmony?
Evolution.
>
>b. How can a Schonenberg Concert which is purposively disharmonic fit into
>this paradigm?
Musical harmony (or disharmony as the case may be) and the harmony Quality
produces are not necessarily the same. The former is a biological level
experience while the latter is an idea.
>
>
>5.a. How does the MOQ improve on James’ pragmatism?
The MOQ orders the static levels according to an evolutionary morality based
on freedom. James' pragmatism doesn't.
>How does this relate to the Nazi Holocaust?
From LILA: "The Holocaust produced a satisfaction among Nazis. That was
quality for them. They considered it to be practical. But it was a quality
dictated by low level static social and biological patterns whose overall
purpose was to retard the evolution of truth and Dynamic Quality. James
would probably have been horrified to find that Nazis could use his
pragmatism just as freely as anyone else, but Phædrus didn’t see anything
that would prevent it." (Robert Pirsig)
According to the MOQ intellectual patterns of value are on a higher level of
evolution than are biological and social patterns so the destruction the
Holocaust wrought is seen as immoral.
>
>5.b. How does this issue relate to the treatment of animals like pigs by
>human beings?
The MOQ would seem to suggest the better the biological treatment of animals
the better the meat so it would behoove the farmer to treat animals
humanely. When a creature realizes death is imminent the body releases
hormones that may have an effect on the taste of the meat so a quick and
painless death is preferable to a slow agonizing one.
>
>
>6. Your thesis suggests that the MOQ states that we should be moral
>essentially for future generations’ sake rather than being awarded an
>afterlife or reincarnation. In this regard, what you would you say to
>someone who said that they didn't care about future generations?
Don't you care what your mother thinks? Well then, you better be moral,
young man!
Seriously, the way I understand it, the MOQ doesn't recognise an afterlife
or reincarnation in order to avoid a belief in the supernatural. The MOQ
says it's better to be moral than to be immoral because it's more valuable.
From Robert Pirsig's third letter at the end of Anthony McWatt's PhD Thesis:
-----------------------
If Prof. Clark's question is, "Why should we be moral?" the answer is that
being moral is more valuable. Value is quite thoroughly explained in the
MOQ, and no one can say without absurdity that they don¹t know what value
is. Remember that the MOQ states that there are different levels of morality
so this question is not as simple as it looks.
What makes a factual "is" seem so different from a moral "ought" is the
presumption that factual "is"es are objective truths that exist outside of
any opinion we have about them, and moral 'oughts" are subjective. In the
MOQ a factual "is" is a high quality intellectual pattern of values. In the
MOQ a moral "ought" is also a high quality intellectual pattern of values,
so there is not much difference between them. The "is"es most commonly refer
to the inorganic and
biological patterns because these change so slowly. The "oughts" refer to
the social and intellectual patterns because these seem more variable.
"Cause" is a term that is absolutely fundamental to SOM science. A science
without causes is no science at all. When you show that "cause" is inferior
to "value" in explaining the quantum behavior of small particles, you have
shown that the MOQ explains scientific phenomena better than SOM science. So
a lot is resting on that claim.
-------------------------
It seems to me one reason morality is more valuable is that it's a
sustainable option while immorality is not. For example, a person who goes
to work every day to earn a living can build a career spanning many years. A
person who decides instead to rob banks for a living will more than likely
have a very short career.
Thank you for your comments,
Dan
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