Re: LS 45 minute MOQ

From: Hettinger (hettingr@iglou.com)
Date: Fri Mar 05 1999 - 11:48:38 GMT


Hi, everyone.
I've been noticing, like some of you, how different my approach to MoQ is,
depending on the audience. For my opening gambit in this discussion, I'm
sending the beginning of a paper I'm writing. Everything I write has some
version of MoQ explanation in it. (I'll also post the short version, a
"boxed" insert that I have used before. Several LSers had input on it. )

So, here's my latest attempt, the beginning of a paper for an ethics and
values class.

(Mary, for my quotations, I must confess that I went to your excellent list
and picked the ones I wanted. Thanks.)

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The word ìbelieveî has two important senses. One sense is the Belief that
comes from a creed or statement that is conscious and shared. The other
sense of belief is the result of testing internal suppositions and Beliefs
with experience.

Since I have spent the last ten or fifteen years evaluating a particular
formal value system with my own observation and experience, I am going to
try to present a portion of the creed of that Belief--quotations from the
book that proposes and outlines the system.

The value system is called Metaphysics of Quality, and the book is Lila: An
Inquiry into Morals by Robert M. Pirsig. (Bantam, New York, 1991) Since
the author takes an entire book, a combination novel/essay, to outline his
proposal, it is probably too much to hope that the essence can be gleaned
from a few statements. For real understanding, the narrative contained in
the novel Lila (Pirsig, 1991) and its predecessor, Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance (Pirsig, 1976) offer insight that descriptive
statements cannot give. Still, it is an attempt worth making.

(Begin quotes from Lila)
The Metaphysics of Quality subscribes to what is called empiricism. It
claims that all legitimate human knowledge arises from the senses or by
thinking about what the senses provide. Lila pg. 113

The Metaphysics of Quality varies from this by saying that the values of art
and morality and even religious mysticism are verifiable....î Lila, pg. 113

The value is the reality that brings the thoughts to mind. Lila, pg. 114

...ía thing that has no value does not exist.í The thing has not created
the value. The value has created the thing. Lila, pg. 114

If Quality or excellence is seen as the ultimate reality then it becomes
possible for more than one set of truths to exist. Then one doesnít seek
the absolute ëTruthí. One seeks instead the highest quality intellectual
explanation of things with the knowledge that if the past is any guide to
the future this explanation must be taken provisionally; as useful until
something better comes along.î Lila, pg. 114

Value is not a subspecies of substance. Substance is a subspecies of value.
Lila, pg 116

ìIn the Metaphysics of Quality ëcausationí is a metaphysical term that can
be replaced by ëvalueí. Lila, pg. 119

ì...ísubstanceí is a derived concept, not anything that is directly
experienced. No one has ever seen substance and no one ever will. All
people ever see is data.î Lila, pg. 120

ìNot subject and object but static and Dynamic is the basic division of
reality. When A.N. Whitehead wrote that ëmankind is driven forward by dim
apprehensions of things too obscure for its existing language,í he was
writing about Dynamic Quality. Dynamic Quality is the pre-intellectual
cutting edge of reality, the source of all things, completely simple and
always new. Lila, pg. 133

ìStatic Quality, the moral force of the priests, emerges in the wake of
Dynamic Quality. It is old and complex. It always contains a component of
memory.î Lila, pg. 133

Life canít exist on Dynamic Quality alone. It has no staying power. To
cling to Dynamic Quality alone apart from any static patterns is to cling to
chaos. Lila, pg. 139

All life is a migration of static patterns of quality toward Dynamic
Quality. Lila, pg. ??

There is not just one moral system. There are many. Lila, pg. 183

First, there were moral codes that established the supremacy of biological
life over inanimate nature. Second, there were moral codes that established
the supremacy of the social order over biological life ñ conventional morals
ñ proscriptions against drugs, murder, adultery, theft and the like.
Third, there were moral codes that established the supremacy of the
intellectual order over the social order ñ democracy, trial by jury, freedom
of speech, freedom of the press. Finally thereí s a fourth Dynamic morality
which isnít a code. Lila, pg. 187

ì...not just life, but everything is an ethical activity. It is nothing
else.î Lila, pg. 181

(end quotes)

There are many fascinating and fruitful aspects of this description of the
concept of value. One is that there are five types of struggle between
different levels of values (static Quality). The definition of the area of
struggle in which an entity functions may have more to say about its reality
than any of its objective qualities. The five areas are chaotic-inorganic,
inorganic-biological, biological-social, social-intellectual, and
static-dynamic. As Pirsig says,

"This last, the Dynamic-static code, says what's good in life isn't defined
by society orintellect or biology. What's good is freedom from domination
by any static pattern, but that freedom doesn't have to be obtained by the
destruction of the patterns themselves." (Pirsig, 1991)

For instance, it wouldnít be far wrong to say that Old Testament values are
those patterns of actions that exist in the social-biological area of
struggle, while New Testament values exist in the intellectual-social area.

For another example, the traditional leader is probably a person who
functions within the intellectual-social area, and his followers more in the
social-biological. ëNewí leadership, as it has developed within the last
fifty years, might well be a situation in which the leader (or leaders) get
their power from interacting within the Dynamic-static area, and those who
follow are interacting within the intellectual-social area. One of the
observations within MoQ is that each level opposes its lower parent level.
So there is no smooth transfer or gradation. Therefore, if some situation
kicks the leaders and/or followers into a lower mode of interaction (perhaps
stress, danger, or over-extension) the Dynamic leadership patterns are no
longer perceived as expected and contrariness or unpredictability result.

People are complex bundles of patterns themselves contained in larger
patterns of valueóin intellectual patterns of value, in social patterns of
value, in biological patterns of value and in inorganic patterns of value.

When someone knocks on a door, the valued interaction is an inorganic one,
in which the fingersí interaction with the table produces an expected
vibration, a sound.

Those fingers themselves are usually defined by biological patterns of
living flesh and blood. The door is part of a modern personís biological
patterns as well, inasmuch as it provides protection from danger and the
elements.

When the person inside a room hears the knocking sound, and turns to the
door without any thought, a perception and interaction has occurred on the
social level. The act of opening a door at a knock is a social pattern of
value.

If the person realizes that she has no shoes on and stops to make a decision
whether or not to put them on before opening the door, her social patterns
have called on an intellectual pattern of value (some kind of comparison or
projection algorithm) to do this.

When this person opens the door to greet whoever is on the other side,
social patterns are available to deal with the situation. People have
access to huge sets of them, complex hierarchies of behaviors including
conscious decision points (access to static intellectual patterns).
Decisions are always made according to values, usually social values (by
default) for members of human society. However, the particular social
pattern used would be quite different if the door opened to reveal a friend,
an adversary, a police officer, a missionary, a Girl Scout selling cookies.

Social patterns might suddenly appear to be of low value if the door reveals
a snarling tiger or a fire. In that case, biological patterns are more
valuable. The reaction results in a reversal, the instant shutting of the
door. (This reversal phenomenon is an important clue to the fact that a
boundary has been crossed.)

If the doorís opening reveals something totally outside the patterns of
human society (such as the void of space) none of the existing patterns will
suffice. In that case--a meeting with Dynamic Quality--a new action or
pattern may be generated. If it survives the encounter, this new pattern
will have a valued place somewhere in the patterns of the universe. There
are, of course, less drastic confrontations with Dynamic Quality, but the
result is the same. A new static pattern of value becomes part of reality.

So, now weíve seen how different value systems come into play, and how a
personís interaction shifts between different value sets. This same type
of interaction holds true for other organizations as well.

Pirsigís division into four great sets of evolutionary patterns of value has
a firm basis in history and in function, but there are other methods of
value classification as well. Hunter Lewis classifies six sets of values.
(Lewis, 1990) They are classified by the mode in which a person arrives at
knowledge. This is consistent with Pirsigís system, in which intellectual
patterns are the most highly-developed of all the patterns, and all the
lower-level patterns have since been affected by them, so that they can
never be totally independent again.
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At this point the essay meanders into the class business. I'll let you
know if the professor responds to this in any way.

Maggie

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



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