From: Paul Turner (paulj.turner@ntlworld.com)
Date: Thu Aug 28 2003 - 14:00:58 BST
Hi Bo
> "The Metaphysics of Quality would show how things become enormously
> more coherent - fabulously more coherent - when you start with an
> assumption that Quality is the primary empirical reality of the
> world...." [Lila p.76]
> I think the key phrase for this post is "..start with an
> assumption..".
Bo:
Assumption? Do you mean: "All we have are assumptions"? If so IT is
the groundstuff and a Metaphysics of Assumptions" is due.
Paul:
No, this is the kind of conclusion you arrive at when you do not
distinguish between [static] metaphysics and [dynamic] reality.
Intellectually, all we have in the end are assumptions; but having
accepted that, if you assume that the intellect is static and not
static-Dynamic reality itself, there is no metaphysical problem.
However, you inadvertently raise the question of "how does Pirsig
justify equating reality with Quality?"
I found this answer on the MOQ website contained in a letter from Pirsig
to yourself.
"The correct answer from a MOQ perspective is, "by the harmony it
produces", but this answer is only for people who already understand the
MOQ. Those who don't can't see the harmony and for them this answer is
meaningless."
Bo:
I am a
little annoyed if you think I don't understand this opening move ..all
we
have is this or that: Assumptions. analogues, symbols, language,
mind ... I understand it perfectly well, but once a ROCK BOTTOM is
found a metaphysics like the MOQ can be constructed. One may
even say nothing is fundamental yet a "Metaphysics of Nothing is
Fundamental" (MONIF) is possible which starts with Dynamic/Static
Nothing is Fundamental ...etc. No sarcasm!
Paul:
This is the kind of conclusion you arrive at when you do not distinguish
between [static] metaphysics and [dynamic] reality.
Bo:
> Paul quoted:
> > "He'd been speculating about the relationship of Quality to mind and
> > matter and had identified Quality as the parent of mind and matter,
> > that event which gives birth to mind and matter. This Copernican
> > inversion of the relationship of Quality to the objective world
> > could sound mysterious if not carefully explained, but he didn't
> > mean it to be mysterious." [ZMM p.247]
Bo:
> YES! This I go for 100%, and it's this original position the idealist
> approach screws up thoroughly. Why does Pirsig define intellect as
> MIND and the MOQ as an intellectual pattern' .....this makes Quality a
> "child" of the mind/matter it is supposed to be the parent of. Tell me
> Paul!
> Paul:
> OK, because "when you start with an assumption that Quality is the
> primary empirical reality of the world", Robert Pirsig believes you
> can explain experience better than you can with any other philosophy,
> and I agree. You can experience the reality beyond words to "prove it"
> to yourself, but any description of an ineffable reality is
> necessarily wrong in a strict sense, so analogies are the best we can
> do when it comes to words. When we substitute the word "Reality" with
> "Quality" and begin to see that "most of our lives are spent
> empirically verifying that something has higher value than something
> else" [LC Note 121 p.365] then we can begin to interpret old "facts"
> look for new ones and hopefully make better sense out of our
> experience.
This is what I point to above. Ineffable? Then a "Metaphysics of
Ineffability" It is just as valid as the MOQ. "Static intellectual
Ineffability" ... I am still not sarcastic!
Paul:
This is the kind of conclusion you arrive at when you do not distinguish
between [static] metaphysics and [dynamic] reality.
Paul previously:
> I follow Squonk in recommending that we apply the analogies of static
> and Dynamic Quality and the analogy that "a tension between these two
> forces is needed to continue the evolution of life." [Lila p.139] to
> our experience and empirically verify whether the MOQ has higher value
> than other philosophies. How else will we know?
Bo:
I have never contest a dynamic/static "tension" in the development of
the species - nor any other level - but the tension is now at intellect
and here you represent the static part, while my view is so dynamic
that it is not understood ;-)
Paul:
Of course, that must be it.
> Paul:
> That's a bit unfair, I took a lot of time to try to get to the bottom
> of your interpretation, I think it's those key questions of mine that
> you keep avoiding that stop me. For example...
> "And what else can the MOQ be? I've asked you this several times now,
> it's important, Bo, for you to explain how something which we can read
> and talk in about in depth is somehow not a static pattern, or what
> your new intellect is."
Bo:
Paul, this is what I have said many times and what you keep
neglecting. Once the rock bottom of existence is found - and Pirsig
found it in Value - a metaphysics is raised on that foundation, but one
can't return afterwards saying that the metaphysics is "merely"
...something. As in your case that the DQ is beyond QUALITY.
Paul:
Where did I say "DQ is beyond Quality" and what could that possibly
mean? I'm saying that Pirsig uses both "Dynamic Quality" and "Quality"
to point to experience that is beyond the definition of both words.
Bo:
The
dice is cast. Inside the MOQ it is without form, but it is part of the
Quality Universe!
Paul:
You refer to "inside the MOQ" and a "Quality Universe" as if it were
somewhere other than where we already are, right here, right now, all
around and inside. I think your "Metaphysics is Reality" belief is a
major problem.
I think your logic goes:
"If the MOQ includes "Dynamic Quality"
and Dynamic Quality is outside of static intellectual patterns
and the MOQ is reality itself
then the MOQ is also outside of static intellectual patterns"
This also explains why you have come up with the SOLAQI argument. You
extend the logic above in this way..
"and because I can think about the MOQ (which is outside of static
intellectual patterns)
then static intellectual patterns cannot be synonymous with thoughts"
So to keep it all intact, you reduce mind to an era of "subject-object
thinking" and create a fifth level, or a "Quality Universe" in which the
MOQ is not "merely a metaphysics" but has replaced SOM as "reality
itself", just as you think the intellectual level once replaced the
social level as "reality itself".
What I think you fail to see is that the metaphysical term "Dynamic
Quality" is a STATIC INTELLECTUAL REFERENCE to reality which is
understood by direct everyday experience WITHOUT THOUGHTS OR WORDS. When
you understand what it refers to you don't actually need the word
anymore.
"The Dynamic reality that goes beyond words is the constant focus of Zen
teaching. Because of their habituation to a world of words, philosophers
do not often understand Zen. When philosophers have trouble
understanding the distinction between static and Dynamic Quality it can
be because they are trying to include and subordinate all Quality to
thought patterns. The distinction between static and Dynamic quality is
intended to block this." [Pirsig quoted in Ant McWatt's "Pirsig's MOQ"]
But, living in an everyday world of differentiated experience,
"assertions of value" describes the ongoing process of differentiation
in a way that fits empirical experience with meaning and purpose. So
when we see that everyday differentiated experience can be fundamentally
reduced to values, we can infer that the ineffable source of this
experience is undifferentiated value, and refer to it as "Dynamic
Quality". It becomes a workable term for something we know exists but
can't define.
I may be wrong but you seem a little confused on the
metaphysical/mystical nature of Pirsig's monism. This paragraph comes to
mind:
"The Vedanta of the Hindus, the Way of the Taoists, even the Buddha had
been described as an absolute monism similar to Hegel's philosophy.
Phædrus doubted at the time, however, whether mystical Ones and
metaphysical monisms were introconvertable since mystical Ones follow no
rules and metaphysical monisms do. His Quality was a metaphysical
entity, not a mystic one. Or was it? What was the difference?
He answered himself that the difference was one of definition.
Metaphysical entities are defined. Mystical Ones are not. That made
Quality mystical. No. It was really both. Although he'd thought of it
purely in philosophical terms up to now as metaphysical, he had all
along refused to define it. That made it mystic too. Its indefinability
freed it from the rules of metaphysics." [ZMM Ch.20]
Like Buddhist philosophy, the MOQ gives intellectual (or metaphysical)
meaning to the place of non-intellectual (or mystical) experience in our
lives without devouring it with concepts. It doesn't reject one for the
other and it never claims to actually be the reality it describes.
This comment from Pirsig taken from "The Role of Evolution, Time and
Order in Pirsig's "Metaphysics of Quality" by Ant McWatt is maybe worth
bearing in mind:
"The purpose of the description of 'Dynamic Quality' as 'the continually
changing flux of immediate reality' is to block the notion that Dynamic
Quality is some kind of object. To try to take that definition as some
kind of philosophic object itself is to pervert the purpose for which
the statement was intended."
Bo:
Finally. In a message (9 Aug.) in this thread you said:
> As mentioned to Scott, I think you need to be more clear on what > >
"the S/O divide itself" refers to.
I wielded my well-known "cultural" argument, but afterwards I thought:
"Doesn't Paul understand the presentation that Pirsig gives of the
SOM ...because this is what the S/O divide refers to.
Paul:
The accuracy of my understanding is of no consequence to you, that
"presentation" was from "1974 Pirsig", so according to you it is of no
value.
Paul
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