Roger and group
I regret it if you regard me as one of the ...various members re-
inventing and re-creating the MOQ. If possible I would have started
and ended each message with a tribute to Robert Pirsig's
achievement, that our efforts to see it from various angles only is
possible because we sit on his shoulders.
In the Phaedrus Parker vs David Buchanan dispute I side with
David: His "painting MOQ with a SOM brush" is a very apt phrase.
In this PP statement ....:
To take which has caused us to create the world, and include it
within the world we have created, is clearly impossible. That's
why quality can't be defined.....
only the above is Pirsig. The rest
The MOQ's fundamental division of reality, the first cut of the
intellectual knife is not between your static reality and
intellect.It is, as Roger and Denis state, between dynamic,
flowing, undefined quality and ....etc.
is Parker. The DQ/SQ division is not done by ZMM's mind-intellec's
knife, but by something that desperately wants to free itself from
the SOM-intellect. See below.
ZMM represents the "trinity" stage of the Q idea (Quality-
Subject/Object). The book attracted many adherers because it
seemed so like the many theories/books of the seventies on how
the world is all mind's creation. But look. Nowhere in ZMM is the
MOQ or SOM mentioned. The QUALITY idea wasn't fully developed
until LILA .
When Pirsig came to Norway in 1994 he tried to speak about LILA,
but the journalists only wanted to hear about ZMM and at times I
wonder if not the success of that book is the most formidable
obstacle to the understanding of his MOQ.
Don't think for one moment that I don't understand your position.
The ..everything has no existence outside the human imagination,
it's all ghosts... is WATERPROOF. To prove that everything is in
the mind is child's play - from a SOM point of view. It is as David
says the famous Kantian cul de sac. This insight brought P of
ZMM to the asylum because he had not left the SOM world view
(where you are supposed NOT to think its tenets to their full
consequences. If you do you are mad!). How, could he, the MOQ
wasn't conceived yet.
The new P of LILA, however, said: OK, everything is mind (or
language) let's see how a totally new metaphysics with that AS
THE STARTING POINT looks like. Hence the MOQ where general
"everything" is DQ while appearances are SQ. The monster
platypus of SOM is thus made into a new world order, but -
afterwards - to introduce one of the static appearances (Intellect)
as containing "everything" once again, is to restore the SOM.
Pirsig isn't very clear here, but how could he foresee all the
implications of his new metaphysics? It is like demanding of Christ
that he should have understood every "sect" his simple utterance
came to spawn.
ZAMM is a wonderful book. It reveals the tortous route of Phaedrus
and the various stages the Quality went through, but only LILA
should be cited when discussing the fullfledged Quality
Metaphysics.
Bo
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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