Dear MOQists.
This month's topic says:
> In LILA (chapter 12) Pirsig writes:
> "If you construct an encyclopedia of four topics- Inorganic,
> Biological, Social, and Intellectual- nothing is left out. No "thing,"
> that is. Only Dynamic Quality, which cannot be described in any
> encyclopedia, is absent." However, without the "encyclopedia" Pirsig
> speculates over in the above quote, assigning specific patterns to one
> of the various levels is often nothing more than a guessing game. In
> some cases, two levels may appear to lay claim to the same pattern.
> And often a given moral situation seems to allow for various
> interpretations of how the levels may be applied. This problem often
> creates a "post-hoc MoQ" in which the levels are applied only to
> justify some preordained conclusion.
I wish Rick would provide examples of these difficulties. I would say
that every level claims everything there is - Intellect's no exception
to the rule. Yes, isn't the Intellect-focus the very source of the said
difficulties? People not able to let go of the MIND-INTELLECT and
accept the static-value-intellect.
The world is "intellectual" when focus is at Intellect, but when it
shifts the world may become Social-Emotional or Biological-
Sensational (or even Inorganic!!). My idea is that the MOQ is some
shift upwards towards a still higher perspective. Such a one must
necessarily be a probing 5th level, but as not to become
magnanimous let's just call it a "movement" to free itself from its
last latch.
> If one grants to the MoQ everything it claims for itself it should
> function as both a metaphysical description of reality and framework
> for deducing the "solutions" to problems of value and morality. LILA
> gives us plenty of information on how the levels (and DQ) should
> interact with each other but its descriptions of the contents of each
> respective level are at best vague.
The problem-solving follows automatically after the metaphysics in
my opinion. You know, anything can be endured if you know its
MEANING. A bad feeling is bad only until you know its source; a
good diagnosis is a cure in itself.
> Most importantly, the MoQ doesn't even claim to give a method of
> "deducing" what patterns fit where. But, without this ability the MoQ
> can never fulfill either of its two primary functions.. After all, the
> MoQ can have no value in moral or metaphysical thought if the thinker
> must always check with Robert M. Pirsig to know if he's correctly
> applying the levels..
I don't think even Pirsig would know the exact level for things and
phenomena because there are no such. It's turning the MOQ back
into SOM: These (objective) things and phenomena, where do they
fit this (subjective) theory of Pirsig's? No, better look to Magnus'
space-dimensional analogue where everything has a position
vector. Everything has one or more value vectors.
> I propose that this month we scan LILA for clues and share our ideas
> on whether assigning patterns to levels is an 'art' or a 'science'.
> and if there's no such 'science', does this leave the MoQ open to
> charges of being nothing but an elaborately veiled emotivism?
We have Pirsig's words for humans being of all values, yet the
static patterns are are static for the very reason of caring only for
their own values, exploiting values below and blind to values above.
And Intellect is no exception, it wants to see everything through its
own Subject/Object glasses .....which includes the
EMOTIVISM/SCIENCE dualism .
When the MOQ has gone through this distorting machine it comes
out no better than any other SOM-inspired theory. Aren't we soon
ready to start examining the Quality perspective of various
phenomena and stop harping on the "difficulties" - which are
induced for the said reason?
Not so gruff as I sound.
Bo
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