On 13 Jun 2000, at 17:34, David Buchanan wrote:
> Hi Focusers: I wish we could get Pirsig himselff to comment on this
> issue, and especially the quote from McWatt. I think he and his MOQ
> are injured every time someone posts it. You can read and read and
> re-read the quote until the end of time if you wish, but it will
> always be illogical and self-contradictory. There has to be a mistake.
> The last line contradicts everything else that comes before it AND
> please notice how that last line doesn't have the same right-hand
> margin as the rest of it. Surely this margin shift indicates some kind
> of add-on or tampering precisely where it goes bad and contradicts
> itself. I'm not suggestion any intentional deception, but it just
> can't be right because it Contradicts itself and it contradicts what
> he says in Lila. Please look at the quote to see what I mean and then
> I say more below that...
> > "The section in chapter 3 (in ZMM) about gravity points out that
> > the body of knowledge we call science is in fact subjective.
> > The law of gravity exists only in the minds of modern-day
> > people, who can change this law any time new information shows
> > that a higher quality law of gravity can be constructed.....both
> > the "law of gravity" and "gravity" are intellectual static
> > patterns, but gravity (when you take the quotation marks off) is
> > said, in a very high quality interpretation of experience, to be
> > an external reality."
> > Among these patterns is the intellectual pattern that says
> > "there is an external world of things out there which are
> > independent of intellectual patterns".
> > That is one of the highest quality intellectual patterns
> > there is. And in this highest quality intellectual
> > pattern, external objects appear historically before
> > intellectual patterns...
> > But this highest quality intellectual patternitself comes before
> > the external world, not after, as is commonly presumed by
> > the Materialists
> (Correspondence from Pirsig to McWatt)
Calling David B. and Group.
If my memory serves me you and Roger Palmer had a long debate
about this particular quotation some time ago. Now, having
sharpened our MOQ knives further, it's time to open the wound
again....no?
I don't know if you are serious about the margins and all that (??),
but you certainly are right about something being wrong here. I will
ask Anthony if he got it - in that form from - from RMP and if
affirmative, perhaps ask the master to comment. I delivered my
own interpretation in yesterday's post to Wavedave, but my reply
may look like another push to sell my own pet theory.
However, I cant resist saying that the SOLAQI idea makes away
with the difficulties created by the notion that the MQQ is (fully)
intellectual which is the Achilles' Heel of the MOQ. Even if we are
able to gloss over it this time, we will meet it at the next crossroad.
Yet, for now I'll try hard to join you in a non-solaqi despair over it.
Your difficulty starts with the last paragraph, but the opening -
about science being subjective - is not quite compatible with the
MOQ as I see it. "Subjective" is part of ZaMM's outlook, but in the
full-fledged MOQ the subject/object division (as a first cut) is gone -
it's merely a question of where to place the subject/object division
inside itself. Pirsig puts it between Biology and Society (My
suggestion is that it is the intellectual level itself).
But for justice's sake let's assume that Pirsig (in the reply to
Anthony) merely refers to the ideas as ZaMM presents them.
> The law of gravity exists only in the minds of
> modern-day people, who can change this law any time new
> information shows that a higher quality law of gravity can
> be constructed.....
Up to this point it's OK, but then he starts to speak of levels and
those weren't conceived at that time.
> both the "law of gravity" and "gravity" are
> intellectual static patterns, but gravity (when you take the
> quotation marks off) is said, in a very high quality
> interpretation of experience, to be an external reality."
I have read this so many times that I have lost my ability to
concentrate, however, to say that "gravity" is an intellectual
pattern, while the same without quotation marks is: ".....in a very
high quality interpretation of experience, said to be an external
reality." Hmmmmm. The highest quality interpretation IS intellect
so both "gravity" and gravity are intellectual patterns...according to
Pirsig!
Perhaps does he mean that the "very high quality interpretation of
experience" - which is Intellect - can be seen as SOM (Hark hark!)
In SOM there's objective (external) reality and subjective (internal)
experience.
You said further:
> [David Buchanan] See how everything after "..But this highest
> quality" sticks out much further to the right? See how the margins
> don't match? If we simply excluded that line Pirsig would be perfectly
> consistent with the MOQ and with the context of the letter would NOT
> contradict itself. Check out these quotes from Lila...
I have re-read the "but..." sentence just as much and if "this
highest...etc" is seen as SOM he merely says that ideas comes
first - which is a good and noble idealist notion counter to the
materialists (as he points out), but somish to the bone. And why -
to a MOQ disciple - take an idealist stand against materialists,
none of THEM are any closer to the MOQ than the other.
> Elsewhere he talks about these higher patterns being "as real as
> rocks and trees" and of course so much of what he says is described in
> historical terms. Its a metaphysical system that seeks to explain
> reality, not explain it away. The McWatt just can't be correct for
> reason of pure logic. It just doesn't add up. If it were true, Pirsig
> would be saying that, based on the best intellecual patterns we have,
> stuff like gravitation is an independent external reality...But those
> highest quality intellectual patterns are wrong.
Would you consider the SOL solution? The notion of an external
world independent of us (society) is not just "the best intellectual
pattern", it IS Intellect itself - lock stock and barrel.
> Highest quality intellectual patterns are wrong?! Its equally
> irrational to say that up is down and right is wrong. We shouldn't
> believe that either, no matter who it's attributred to.
This highest Quality level is not "wrong", it's merely that - from the
now even higher vantage point of the MOQ - Intellect is seen for
what it really is: one evolutionary level, not reality itself. To me this
cuts the Gordic Knot as I am fully prepared to go about talking
about mind and matter, subject and objects with the knowledge of
their limits in mind (!!!!).
Look. We aknowledge biological value - thirst and hunger and sex -
without believing that existence consists of eating and drinking and
.... (some do with the result we know). We do the same regarding
social value: None are complete without seen in relation to other
(note however that it's an increasing "compulsion" the higher we
get into the MOQ hierachy to force-feed its value: Social success
is the only end for so many), yet we seek for what is "true" and
independent of public opinion. When it comes to Intellect the force-
feeding reaches a formidable level, but with a great effort we should
be able to resist it and see it in the same perspective as we have
regarding the lower levels. We can have the benefits of rationality -
and be free of it.
Last word: As long as you go on considering the MOQ just another
intellectual pattern it's (the "mind" of) SOM resurrected and you will
continue to have this impossible situations.
Do you read me? Over.
Bo
PS for Wavedave: Sure I know I was "editing" the said Pirsig
quotation. That was the very intention.
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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