LS Re: MoQ & Mu.


Doug Renselle (renselle@on-net.net)
Mon, 26 Jan 1998 10:47:51 +0100


Hi Bo and Squad,

See comments below -

Bodvar Skutvik wrote:
>
> Doug Renselle wrote:
>
> > => SOM says there is one truth and chooses a single context for
> > everything (i.e., SOM is 'reality circumscribed by the SOM single
> > context'), therefore SOM must be inconsistent. SOM-think leads to
> GUTs
> > and ToEs :) which are therefore doomed to inconsistency. (Forgive
> the
> > body parts. :)
>
> > => MoQ says there are many truths, therefore there are many contexts
> > each with potential for local consistency (note: NOT completeness,
> but
> > consistency).
>
> Doug.
> I agree with you in a general way, but your "many truths" sounds a
> bit indigestible the way you present it - even with the
> concistency qualification.
Bo,

I think you broached a crucial issue for TLS.

Magnus, look what your reference to 'Mu' has wrought!

Bo, I need to use material from ZMM to address your topics. Of course,
Pirsig discusses 'Mu' in ZMM, and he does not in 'Lila,' so I guess we
were already back in ZMM. I am saying this because we are The Lila
Squad, and our focus is 'Lila.'

Doug.
> At a given time no two - CONTRADICTORY - interpretations
> or statements can be true. (Bo, I added your correction.)
Bo,

The above statement is true in the SOM context, what I call SOMland.

In a way, this is fundamentally what is wrong with the Church of Reason
(CoR). This is what Pirsig rails against! If reality is one big SOM
context then all dialectics (reasoned analogies by dialogue) are true or
false in that one big context. This is our Greek Western culture
heritage handed down from, etc., Parmenides, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle.

SOM folk believe and practice this heritage. It is the SOM mythos.
They believe that we can arrive via dialectic, tautology, syllogism,
etc. at THE truth. MoQ says, "No, you cannot do that because there are
many truths. Not only that, but 'truth' is the problem."

Doug.
> As I see it the - umm - true - MOQ
> posistion to this is as follows: The reigning (top) moral level's
> interpretation of reality is TRUTH - as long as it lasts. Matter was
> the truth for billions of years, then Life received the baton and
> kept it for another aeon until it had to pass it on to Society which
> finally - reluctantly - is in the process of loosing it to Intellect.
Bo,

SOM seeks TRUTH.

MoQ seeks GOOD!

In SOM GOOD is subordinate to TRUTH.

In MoQ TRUTH is subordinate to GOOD.

Remember, prior to the Greeks -- approximately 2.5 millennia ago, the
Sophists practiced arete. They practiced EXCELLENCE! Along came the
Greeks mentioned above.

The Greeks waged an enormous battle with the Sophists over GOOD versus
TRUTH. The Sophists placed GOOD at the top of their hierarchy for more
than 10 millennia before the Greeks came on the scene.

The Greeks took GOOD and put it down at the level of the dialectic.
This is one of the things the infuriated Phaedrus so much. His precious
rhetoric was down in the bowels of Aristotle's babelian hierarchy, not
on top where he thought it belonged. The Greeks put truth at the top.
We live with that legacy.

That legacy gave us technology. We think that is great. Technology is
great. But the Greek legacy also gave us the ills of the CoR.

Pirsig figured this out for us. He showed us this in his three
published works. We are learning that he is right! It is time to put
GOOD above TRUTH again, in its proper role. He does not say dump
TRUTH. He says demote TRUTH so that the ills of CoR may be cured.
Admit there is no such thing as one truth, but indeed there are many.
Just that one move cures many of CoR's ills.

In the larger frame, I see this as DQ at work on a grander scale. The
Sophists lost a battle, but not this war. TRUTH needed to be on top for
a time so that we could reap its benefits and simultaneously discover
its ills. Now it is time to put GOOD - Quality - back on top. That is
our role - to do just that. It will take decades if not centuries.

Longer term, when Neo sapiens reigns, the pendulum may swing the other
way. If so, we may recognize DQ at its fecund best.

Doug.
> Society hasn't let go and Intellect hasn't taken completely over so
> the present era's conflicts are centered on the socio-intellect
> tug-of-war. The Social reality (truth) is presented as religion
> mainly (Islam, Jewdom, old Christianity f.ex.), but occurs in many
> guises (Fascism, Nazism f.ex).
Bo,

Honestly, I am not as good as you (yet) at assessing the applied aspects
of SQ. I am trying to get the theoretical pieces in order and find
affirmation with co-linear efforts in other disciplines.

If you are saying that the SQ levels all have their roles to play within
the Pirsig system and its five moral codes, then I agree.

If you are saying that tribes and cultures have a Quality right to
coexist peacefully, then I agree.

Doug.
> In the Western culture Intellect
> reigns, science/reason has become the truth, religion is a university
> study (religion-psychology), and Democracy has replaced the -isms.
> One thing I must add. Latter day (New Testament) Cristianity
> has a huge Intellect component. The emphasis on the innate worth of
> each individual is pure Intellectual value)
>
Bo,

For me science/reason are appropriately intellectual SPoVs or SINPoVs.
They have moral precedence over all lower levels under one very
important condition: that science/reason practices MoQ truth and not
SOM truth. SOM truth practiced inside of the Pirsig system at the
SINPoV level is just a continuation of SOMland. It is imperative that
we practice MoQ truth within the SINPoV level.

Doug.
> Can you accept this "many truth" modification? I buy your SOM
> interpretation.
>
Bo,

If you believe in ONE TRUTH -- SOM TRUTH -- my answer has to be, "No!"

MANY TRUTHS TO YOU, Bo,

Doug Renselle.
> Bo

-- 
"Don't throw away those Mu answers. . .They're the ones you GROW on!"

By Robert M. Pirsig, in 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,' p. 290, Bantam (paperback), 28th edition, 1982.

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