Re: MD MoQ platypuses

From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Aug 29 2003 - 14:31:47 BST

  • Next message: SQUONKSTAIL@aol.com: "Re: MD Metaphysics, reality and values"

    Hi August,

    > How can you think of something without a
    > subject/object correlation? As soon as there is
    > something there is quality, and either subjects or
    > objects or both, as something implies a subject and
    > and object. I think this is my biggest "beef" with
    > Pirsig. SOM is intertwinded with quality.
     
    In the MOQ, all thoughts are static patterns of value. Before there is
    "something" to think about, there is Quality. Quality cannot be called
    "something" because it is beyond all names and labels. It is ineffable.

    Quality has two components--not subject and object--but Dynamic and
    static. The Dynamic component is pure experience, prior to any
    thoughts, labels and names whatsoever. The static component, at the
    intellectual level of our experience, consists of static thought
    patterns including the pattern of subject/object.

    The subject/object division is one of several possible static thought
    patterns. The Dynamic/static division that the MOQ uses is a better
    static thought pattern because it explains our experience better than
    the S/O pattern, as Pirsig explains:

    "The Metaphysics of Quality can explain subject-object relationships
    beautifully but, as Phaedrus had seen in anthropology, a subject-object
    metaphysics can't explain values worth a damn. It has always been a
    mess of unconvincing psychological gibberish when it tries to explain
    values." (Lila, Chap. 8)

    So instead of thinking "something implies a subject and a object,"
    think "something implies static patterns of value."

    We're taught from earliest childhood that the world is divided into
    subjects and objects, opinions and facts, mind and matter, etc. These
    divisions come from our Western intellectual heritage going all the way
    back to ancient Greece. So it's terribly hard to think of these
    divisions as being anything other than "natural" and "right." The
    problem is these divisions gives us no clue as to why they are "right."
    Indeed, they give no clue as to what is "right" in any aspect of life.

    The MOQ provides us with new intellectual patterns to help us answer
    the question of "Why is it right?"

    Platt
       

     
       

    MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
    Mail Archives:
    Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
    Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
    MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net

    To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
    http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Aug 29 2003 - 14:32:35 BST