Hello Everyone:
>Pirsig says that the four levels of the MOQ are "all there is". But if
>each level evolved out of the one beneath it, then is it possible for
>a fifth level to emerge? If so what are the possible candidates for
>this level and how would we recognize it?
Out the first week of this month while in jury duty and the
second week at a photography workshop so playing catchup
here once again.
I've not seen the following consideration raised yet this month.
It questions one of our underlying assumptions.
Way back on Oct 2nd, Bo wrote:
>What is important here is another MOQ axiom: A level grows from
>its parent and is indistinguishable from it in its embryonic stage.
We believe this axiom for the MOQ, as we know it today. Others
this month have written about the role of evolution. It is the
character of the MoQ's evolutionary process I want to question.
As our own Jonathan Marder wrote in his "The End of Causality"
paper:
"Darwin's great insight was in realizing that evolution isn't a process
directed towards some specific goal, but change away from a pre-existing
situation."
What I'm wondering is if the program slip for reaching a 5th level
(leaving aside for the moment whether it is even possible) will
necessarily involve the same algorithm used to evolve the first four
levels? It seems equally plausible that the same process as well as
an entirely new process can be involved. If a new process is to be
involved then it seems likely to occur evolving from the Intellect
level and moving beyond it.
Now to the much thornier question of the possibility of a 5th level.
Many offerings have been proposed, some intriguing, others
sounding (to me) too mystical or sci-fi for reconciling with RPM's
writings.
In ZAMM Part III, RPM wrote:
"What is Quality? ...it spread out for him like waves in all directions
simultaneously, not in a hierarchic structure, but in a concentric one.
At the center, generating the waves, was Quality."
So Quality is "all there is" at the center, the core, with SPoV
emanating out through the inorganic, biological, social, and
intellect circular levels in that order. Envisioning this image
as bounded concentric circles provides new meaning for RPM's
periods of "lateral drift."
Drifting laterally within a level implies circumnavigating the level.
"He [Phaedrus] just passed through this territory and opened it
up. I intend to stay and cultivate it and see if I can get something
to grow."
As Phaedrus went about subtracting Quality from the marketplace
to test the impact, he noted that while "Applied science and technology
would be dramatically changed, ...pure science, mathematics, philosophy,
and particularly logic would be unchanged. Phaedrus found this last
to be particularly interesting. The purely intellectual pursuits were
the least affected by the subtraction of Quality. If Quality were dropped,
only rationality would remain unchanged."
This rationality is what RPM refers to as "Absolute Mind" and what
Bo seems to be calling "mind" in the Chicago school as distinct
from SOL in the Bodo school. As stated last month, I find the
hard to grasp subtleties of SOLAQI more valuable at the moment.
Especially the SOL part, the AQI part is where my discomfort
comes into play. I'm resisting SOL as residing at the Q-Intellect
level. The SOL "squareness" seems much more at home at the
Q-Social level. But as other's have often said, "I could be wrong."
RPM: "Squareness. When you subtract quality you get squareness.
Absence of Quality is the essence of squareness....Squareness may be
succinctly and yet thoroughly defined as an inability to see quality before
it gets chopped up into words....The subject for analysis, the patient
on the table, was no longer Quality, but analysis itself. Quality was
healthy and in good shape. Analysis, however, seemed to have
something wrong with it that prevented it from seeing the obvious."
All the aware, unaware, non-aware; cluefull, clueless; deliberate, non-
deliberate binary distinctions seem to fit SOL at the Q-Social level
rather than Q-Intellect level. In saying this I want to give more credit to
the Intellect (intelligence) level despite last month's many posts on
the role of language. I'm not convinced language per se Must involve
Intellect. Most everyday conversations seem inherently social in
nature and intent.
RPM: "Data, classifications, hierarchies, cause-and-effect and analysis
were discussed, and somewhere along there was some talk about a
handful of sand, the world of which we're conscious, taken from the
endless landscape of awareness around us. I said a process of discrimination
goes to work on this handful of sand and divides it into parts. Classical,
square understanding is concerned with the piles of sand and the nature
of the grains and the basis of sorting and interrelating them."
Subject-object Logic at its best and worst! :-)
RPM: "A real understanding of Quality doesn't just serve the System, or
even beat it or even escape it. A real understanding of Quality captures
the System, tames it, and puts it to work for one's own personal use,
while leaving one completely free to fulfill his inner destiny."
This type of understanding strikes me as being the Q-Intellect. It
goes between the SOL horns taming the dilemmas providing the
ability to step back, recursively, to see the map of the map of the
map as the experience unfolds and proceed knowingly.
RPM: "...the metaphysical wave, had finally grounded out where I'll be
grounding it out, that is, in the everyday world. I think metaphysics is
good if it improves everyday life; otherwise forget it."
Pirsig's repeated return to the practical in ZAMM and Lila turn
the mystical suggestions for a 5th level into something too
non-worldly, non-universely for me. (recall the virtue of the
Greek warrior in Part IV as he leaves his family for battle).
So too the several enamoured comments about the Internet.
As someone who has worked for over 15 years helping to build,
secure, and evolve the US Internet, I know its value and its warts.
Its a tool not an end state. Yes it facilitates rapid reach,
communication, and the development of communities of interest
like this. However, it's users also parallel the biological, social,
and intellect diversity of the global population - some with
higher values than others using the tool for good and for ill. The
envisioning of chip implants, AI, and Borgian like Unified Mind
proposals scare me a lot. At best AI will provide Idiot Savants
for the next 50+ years or so. Borgian notions with their central
control and one world view are too much like the lemming masses
we already have today who believe M$ makes good operating
system, email, database, and server software. There is a huge
loss of freedom and individuality with such notions.
RPM: "He felt that intellectuals usually have the greatest trouble
seeing this Quality, precisely because they are so swift and absolute
about snapping everything into intellectual form. The ones who have
the easiest time seeing this Quality are small children, uneducated
people, and culturally 'deprived' people. These have the least
predisposition toward intellectuality from cultural sources and have
the least formal training to instill it further into them. That, he felt,
is why squareness is such a uniquely intellectual disease."
This is comment is a humbling and cautionary one for those
of us raised in Western Civilization.
As a new comer to this community, I'm concerned about alienating
some when making judgements about the value of various posts
and struggle to both address the question before us and further
boot strap myself along the experience curve of this group. Some
posts, to my eyes, seem, despite their wit, clever use of language
and metaphor, and idealist/romantic appeal, to be interesting
abstractions that are more distractions of the mind (shadows) than
following what Carlos Castenedas called "the path with a heart."
Quality at the core radiating outward in concentric circles through
the levels. Language can hide and deceive as much as it can
uncover and reveal. Unfortunately, I'm as yet unable to be
constructive.
Perhaps my remarks are more telling of my own limitations
than of anyone else's. Yet I'm assuming that if we conducted
a poll, the vast majority (all?) of MOQ-focus members would rank
themselves as having climbed the mountain to the Q-Intellect
level and reached the MoQ summit. I guess I'm not convinced
that thinking we have reached somewhere is actually getting there.
(Pirsig's Ego discussion as he climbs the mountain with Chris.)
Speculating about a 5th level seems like too much speculation
at the moment. I'm skeptical that many of us have the raw
courage and patience to climb the mountains the way Pirsig has.
I know I don't know if I do. I'm not sure how I would even know.
Does anyone else? Standing on his shoulders helps to see the
reality, Quality, our world better.
RPM: "So we preselect on the basis of Quality, or, to put it
Phaedrus' way, the track of Quality preselects what data we're
going to be conscious of, and it makes this selection in such a
way as to best harmonize what we are with what we are becoming."
RPM: "The real cycle you're working on is a cycle called yourself.
The machine that appears to be "out there" and the person that
appears to be "in here" are not two separate things. They grow
toward Quality or fall away from Quality together."
So after "drifting" through these quotes, I find that the four
levels are "all there is". Hoping or waiting for a 5th level
silver bullet won't change our cycle work so we best attend
to Quality and get used to it.
This feels like a rather sobering post. Like Pirsig, I worry
about sufficiently "grounding out" placing one foot firmly on the
path before shifting balance to the next step. But I'm still [just]
a climber and continue to have to stretch my neck to see the
blue sky between the tree tops.
Seems to me that the Q-Intellect level, the circumference with
the widest and deepest core of Quality with perspective of the
other levels, allows one to appreciate, apprehend, DQ. Without
the pre-intellectual apprehension ability, we're stuck in SOL (the
socially "educated" (rotely brainwashed) mind). Distance is
needed from all the static levels, including Q-Intellect, to fully
apprehend DQ.
If your still reading, thanks for getting this far in the post. :-)
Still crawling on all fours after all these years,
Peter
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:03:36 BST