LS Stand and be Counted

From: John Beasley (beasley@qld.cc)
Date: Sun Sep 26 1999 - 18:20:10 BST


Roger and LS forum,

Having lurked all month I couldn't resist Roger's challenge to answer his two questions. I
have been following my own train of thought for most of the month, and only scanning the
posts, so don't expect my response will pick up on the substance of the recent debate.

1) Are all patterns of value also intellectual patterns?

No. Quality is not created or discovered, fundamentally, but encountered. To link creation to
quality as Roger does is unhelpful. Both creation and discovery are words carrying a lot of
SOM baggage, and they are very similar in focussing on the capacity of the agent to create
or discover, and in so doing to bring patterns of value into existence. Encounter assumes at
some level an agent in a world, each equally unknown and unknowable, until in dynamic
encounter both emerge and are mutually clarified.

I disagree with Bo when he tries to unify everything into Q-intellect (does this mean thought?)
as a way of avoiding a split between 'abstract' thought and 'concrete' reality. I really wonder
about the substance of these mind games. Are all MOQ addicts Enneagram type 5
intellectuals? (Like me.) I sense there is something going on here that is terribly isolated and
isolating, and Pirsig was infected by it too.

2) Were the four levels of the MOQ discovered or created?

Created. That's why they are inadequate. Insofar as they mesh with our experience of
dynamic quality they in a sense are discovered. Again the words discovered and created
focus on the agent's ability to act, which is only half of the story. I recommend, Roger, that
you read the discussion between J. Krishnamurti and David Bohm in Krishnamurti's book
'The Awakening of Intelligence' which addresses what I take to be your issue from a subtle
and to me convincing perspective.

(P.S. I have re-read Ch 29 of Lila, and Chs 20 & 29 of ZMM, as you suggested, without
drama. Our disagreements must go very deep, or we agree on more than you think.)

John B

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



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