From: skutvik@online.no
Date: Tue Jun 14 2005 - 07:34:33 BST
David and Group.
On 11 June you wrote:
> Pirsig said:
> It is important for an understanding of the MOQ to see
> that although "common sense" dictates that inorganic
> nature comes first, actually common sense which is a set
> of ideas has to come first. This common sense is arrived
> at through a huge web of socially approved evaluations of
> various alternatives. The key term here is evaluation,i.e.
> quality descisions. The fundamental reality is not the
> common sense or the objects and the laws approved of
> by common sense, but the approval itself and the quality
> that leads to it."
> Bo said this..
> ... was intensely discussed in the a thread called "What comes
> first" and the excellent thinker/writer David M. Buchanan who at that
> time had not discarded his "common sense" protested this, but for some
> strange reason he was convinced by Paul and has since shied these
> things like the proverbial plague.
> dmb says:
> You're way too kind. In fact, my relatively recent conversion, with
> Paul's help, only proves there was room for improvement. And I'm sure
> there's plenty of room left.
OK nothing wrong with being guided if it is towards an
understanding of the MOQ, but this was a retro-move.
> There are two main reasons why I've shied
> away. One is simply that I'm very busy these days. The second reason
> is because I don't know that I can help. It seems to me that the only
> effective way to move you away from your present position is to
> somehow dismantle it. Only then could I persuade you to accept what
> Paul is saying. But I don't think I understand your position.
If I had been smart I would have left it to Matt to explain because
from that direction came the ever first understanding of the SOL
(except for Mati Palm-Leis of old). But I am not smart ...:
> And
> frankly, I'm very skeptical of any interpretation that has Pirsig so
> drastically contradicting himself. Not that he's some flawless god.
> But notice how the quote (above) begins, the one you find so troubling
> and contradictory. It says that "it is important for an understanding
> of the MOQ to see" that common sense "has to come first". He's
> explicitly announcing the importance of seeing this. Think about that.
I have done nothing else but whatever twist one makes tries, it
always comes out as saying that mind comes first, i.e: the idealist
part of the S/O aggregate.
> But seriously, I think the trick to "avoid falling prey to this idea
> logic" is to refrain from treating the MOQ and Paul's comments as if
> it were SUBJECTIVE idealism. That would be a laspe back into SOM and
> I'm pretty sure the MOQ isn't saying that.
OK, you see that? And thanks for taking take the pains to
interpret Paul for me.
> The MOQ does not assert
> that reality is a product of the mind, but that the mind is a product
> of reality. It says the primary reality comes before common sense,
> before that static patterns. The primary reality comes before subjects
> and objects, which are both part of that common sense consensus.
> Notice, in the quote above, how the primary reality is not the common
> sense itself, but "the approval itself and the quality that leads to
> it." And I think the idea here is that any number of static realities
> can be built upon that approval and any number of common sense
> realities can be constructed from it. We can see the value in the idea
> of evolution taking place in a universe with time and space and
> gravity, one that grows from the inorganic to form life and then
> social structures and finally intellect. That's a damn good idea. But
> it is just an idea, one that doesn't work very well when we get into
> this high country. There are places that do not appear on that map,
> such as this very issue. This is where mysticism meets empiricism and
> its very tricky, as tricky as it is important.
My immediate objection is that ..
> ... the idea
> of evolution taking place in a universe with time and space and
> gravity, one that grows from the inorganic to form life and then
> social structures and finally intellect.
.. is a mixture of SOM and MOQ. SOM has no social level from
which an intellectual level grows, it has the words, but as with
"quality" they carry a totally different load. Thus to say that the
inorganic level's place is "an good idea" is to let SOM's idea/what
is idealized take precedence.
Had he said that intellect's "objective" part (a material universe
first then mind) had great value yet as a static pattern
subordinate to the MOQ itself ... it would have been perfect. And
I believe that this was his intention, but it came out as if he
identifies the MOQ with intellect's subjective part (mind as
primary). And the somists of this discussion grabbed it greedily.
> dmb says:
> Try to think of it a different way. (Matt will love this.)
;-)
> What if the
> assertion that "the inorganic level is Quality's first fall-out" is
> taken as a metaphor? Let's say we need to explain the relationship
> between the levels in terms a living Westerner can grasp. That's when
> we'll talk about the evolution of the universe in terms of the big
> bang and astrophysics. That's when we'll talk about it in terms of
> linear time. And that's when it makes sense to insist that inorganic
> quality comes first. But what would it mean to the ancient Greeks, who
> concieved of time moving in the oppostie direction and imagined a
> universe that began in a perfect form and was winding down, devolving
> through lower and lower ages.
I don't believe there ever was an era when time was seen as
going backwards, that yesterday was tomorrow. If they saw the
universe as going from order to chaos is something else.
> And what would such an explanation mean
> to that Indian tribe that had no word for "time"? Not much. These are
> different cultures with different ideas about what common sense
> reality is.
That there would have been a human culture with no word for
before and after I simply refuse to accept.
> If the primary reality is the approval itself and the
> quality that leads to common sense, then there is room for all these
> various interpretations. And if we had to explain the MOQ's hierarchy
> to the Indian or some ancient ghost, we ought not insist on our common
> sense. I think its important to introduce the idea of DQ as
> Nothingness at this point. I would remind you that the primary
> empirical reality is so described to suggest its no-thingness. Its not
> a vacuum like cold, dark space. It just that it is not finite. It is
> beyond concepts of time and space and all that. And so maybe we'd tell
> them that inorganic quality, which is Quality's fall-out, is lowest in
> the hierarchy. We'd tell the ancient one that it'll be the only thing
> left at the end of time. We'd tell the Indian that its the most simple
> level, the most stable level or some other way that will make sense to
> her. But the really interesting thing is that these different common
> sense realities all work. They all explain experience. And while there
> are any number of ever-changing sommon sense explanations, its not
> arbitrary either. We don't get to just go around making stuff up. And
> what was it Pirsig said about the mythos, if you think you can step
> outside of it, then you don't understand what it is?
He also said he that if you step out of mythos you were
(considered) insane and insane Phaedrus went for trespassing
intellect's border into the no-man's land beyond ...from where he
saw the greater Quality Reality. That was Phaedrus enormous
achievement and penalty, now we can stroll leisurely into that
territory. But the post-hospital Pirsig was obviously not prepared
to do it again by forwarding the initial "strong interpretation" ....at
least this is the straw that I cling to explain his "metamorphosis".
> Despite Ham's
> fear of a communist takeover by postmodern Freudians, or whatever,
> culture is a collective affair. The language is bigger than any
> speaker and having a personal worldview is the definition of insanity.
> This is why SOM has to have some relationship to the MOQ, why it has
> to be subsumed within it, so it ain't craziness. This is why Pirsig
> can accept common sense explanations as good idea and yet contradict
> them when it comes to issues concerning the primary empirical reality.
"Subsumed" definitely, but not by any mixture of the two by
making it sound as - for the instance - MOQ's inorganic level has
anything to do with SOM's matter. The MOQ takes leave of the
SOM already at the Quality=Reality stage. The only viable
subsumation is to see SOM as the intellectual level.
> dmb says:
> Full circle. If Paul tells you that Quality is the generator of
> everything we know and not intellect,
Paul is telling that the MOQ static hierarchy's - at least its
sequence - is an idea, but there is nothing about this in LILA, nor
anything about a reversal of time ;-).
> I think he'd be telling you that
> the MOQ is a form of philosophical mysticism and NOT subjective
> idealism. They may look alike and even overlap a bit, but Pirsig's
> long and sustained attack on that ridiculous fictional man behind the
> eyeballs prevents that.
The toughest opposition to the MOQ was the "mystics" (LILA p.
65) and your recent mystic embrace looks like a way out of the
inconsistencies your Paul "affair" led you into.
> I think Paul's explanations are cool and concise compared to this
> clumsy mess, but there you go.
The SOL makes ZMM and LILA into one seamless whole, and
also removes SOM's clumsy mess by making it into a static level.
That is a major simplification.
Bo
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