From: Paul Turner (paulj.turner@ntlworld.com)
Date: Fri Oct 03 2003 - 11:08:44 BST
Hi all
[Bo in a discussion with Dan said:]
>Pirsig/MOQ is right in saying that Quality comes first (excepted from
>the "idea" realm. No wonder ideas/not ideas is SOM!!) and in that
>QUALITY context inorganic value is the first static fallout and
>intellect (for the time being) the last. After this inside-out-turn,
>re-introducing the ideas, saying that ideas is the first offshoot and
>that intellect is the idea realm where the rest is created - mentally -
>makes it a Moebus Ring of ideas. I can't for the life of me understand
>Pirsig doing this.
[Dan replied:]
I'm not sure how the integrity of the MOQ as RMP envisions it can be
maintained without coming to an understanding with annotation #67. It
ties
in with so much of his thinking that rejecting it amounts to rejecting
the
MOQ. We are of course free to develop our own metaphysics but like Mr.
Pirsig says, it should be named something else to prevent any confusion.
[Paul:]
I agree with Dan, this is a key point in Pirsig's thought - explained in
detail in ZMM but not so much in Lila which concentrates on the
application of the MOQ's evolutionary model to an interpretation of
history. Personally, it was when I considered the relationship between
idealism and the MOQ that Pirsig's ideas really hit home. I'm not sure
how clearly I can explain my understanding but I'll give it a go.
I think the relationship between the MOQ and idealism is summed up in
the statement Dan quoted from Lila's Child
"The MOQ says that Quality comes first, which produces ideas, which
produce what we know as matter. The scientific community that has
produced Complementarity almost invariably presumes that matter comes
first and produces ideas. However, as if to further the confusion, the
MOQ says that the idea that matter comes first is a high quality idea!"
[Lila's Child p.202]
The meaning of "Quality comes first" is described in simple terms in
SODV
"The Metaphysics of Quality follows the empirical tradition here in
saying that the senses are the starting point of reality, but -- all
importantly -- it includes a sense of value. Values are phenomena. To
ignore them is to misread the world. It says this sense of value, of
liking or disliking, is a primary sense that is a kind of gatekeeper for
everything else an infant learns. At birth this sense of value is
extremely Dynamic but as the infant grows up this sense of value becomes
more and more influenced by accumulated static patterns." [SODV]
The starting point of reality is primarily an assertion of values.
However, these values are patterns of experience which are not enough to
constitute an enduring reality of objects ordered in space and time. In
Lila, Pirsig explains how Quality produces objects
"If [a] baby ignores this force of Dynamic Quality it can be speculated
that he will become mentally retarded, but if he is normally attentive
to Dynamic Quality he will soon begin to notice differences and then
correlations between the differences and then repetitive patterns of the
correlations. But it is not until the baby is several months old that he
will begin to really understand enough about that enormously complex
correlation of sensations and boundaries and desires called an object to
be able to reach for one. This object will not be a primary experience.
It will be a complex pattern of static values derived from primary
experience.
Once the baby has made a complex pattern of values called an object and
found this pattern to work well he quickly develops a skill and speed at
jumping through the chain of deductions that produced it, as though it
were a single jump." [Lila p.137]
I think the phrase "once the baby has made a complex pattern of values
called an object and found this pattern to work well" is important here.
The baby "finds the pattern to work well"; this is a further assertion
of value which selects a particular correlation of patterns over others.
The pattern is not corresponding to anything fixed.
These assertions of value constitute the "chains of deduction" which
create "objects". They are intellectual assertions of value. Therefore,
in the MOQ, like idealism, objects are mental constructs. However, this
leaves the metaphysical problem of explaining why the mental constructs
made by individuals are similar enough to constitute a shared
"objective" reality. Instead of postulating a mind of god, an absolute
mind, or similar non-empirical claim, the MOQ says that
"What guarantees the objectivity of the world in which we live is that
this world is common to us with other thinking beings. Through the
communications that we have with other men we receive from them
ready-made harmonious reasonings. We know that these reasonings do not
come from us and at the same time we recognize in them, because of their
harmony, the work of reasonable beings like ourselves. And as these
reasonings appear to fit the world of our sensations, we think we may
infer that these reasonable beings have seen the same thing as we; thus
it is that we know we haven't been dreaming. It is this harmony, this
quality if you will, that is the sole basis for the only reality we can
ever know." [ZMM p.268]
and that this quality is
"... the sense of harmony of the cosmos, which makes us choose the facts
most fitting to contribute to this harmony. It is not the facts but the
relation of things that results in the universal harmony that is the
sole objective reality." [ZMM p.268]
In the MOQ, ideas are primarily assertions of value, assertions of a
sense of intellectual harmony. They have to be, everything is primarily
an assertion of value. The assertions are made "individually" but also
learned and supported through participation in cultural relationships.
These relationships maintain and pass on the socially approved
constructions which are a society's "common sense".
So the question remains - if ideas come first, how can the MOQ say that
inorganic nature comes first? I think the answer is found in the
statement that the MOQ itself is primarily an intellectual pattern of
values, and within that intellectual pattern one of the major value
assertions states that
"The MOQ does not deny the traditional scientific view of reality as
composed of material substance and independent of us. It says it is an
extremely high quality idea. We should follow it whenever it is
practical to do so. But the MOQ, like philosophic idealism, says this
scientific view of reality is still an idea. If it were not an idea,
then that "independent scientific material reality" would not be able to
change as new scientific discoveries come in." [Lila's Child p.532]
So in the MOQ, the ordering of the evolutionary framework of levels is
postulated as the best description of reality selected with a sense of
value from a variety of alternatives. As such, the idea of intellect
being the latest static level to evolve is also part of the "best
description" even though, to be consistent, the description itself then
must be located within the intellectual level! It is important to
remember that, in the MOQ, the fundamental reality is not associated
with the levels or the description but with "best", which can be
translated as the "most harmonious", the "highest quality", and that the
value that produces descriptions is prior to the talk of all levels. On
this subject, Pirsig writes to Ant McWatt:
"When we speak of an external world guided by evolution it's normal to
assume that it is really there, is independent of us and is the cause of
us. The MOQ goes along with this assumption because experience has shown
it to be an extremely high quality belief for our time. But unlike
materialist metaphysics, the MOQ does not forget that it is still just a
belief - quite different from beliefs in the past, from beliefs of other
present cultures, and possibly from beliefs we will all have in the
future. What will decide which belief prevails is, of course, its
quality."
Although [perhaps?] difficult to grasp, once this is understood I find
ZMM, Lila, SODV and Lila's Child and other available correspondence to
be consistent and capable of embedding aspects of idealism and
materialism into a single "valuist" metaphysics, of which the MOQ is one
version.
Bo also wrote:
"You seem to create a Metaphysics of Language (MOL) and why not? The
genius of Pirsig is the "something" Dynamic/Static ...organic,
biological ...etc. BUT QUALITY IS THE BEST "something"."
This says a lot to me about how Bo sees the MOQ and why he can't see how
Pirsig can say that although ideas come before matter, the idea [of
evolution] that matter comes first is of higher quality to believe and
is therefore how the MOQ levels are ordered.
Whilst many different metaphysics may be built around an "ineffable
source", as I understand it, without "Quality" or "value" as a central
term, Pirsig's particular metaphysics makes no sense. I don't think you
can replace the term "Quality" with "language" or "intelligence" or
"consciousness" without destroying the whole thesis. To repeat a quote
from above, Pirsig starts from the assumption that..
"It is this harmony, this quality if you will, that is the sole basis
for the only reality we can ever know."
Paul
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