Bodvar Skutvik (skutvik@online.no)
Tue, 9 Dec 1997 06:41:09 +0100
5 December Dave wrote in response to
Mark, Magnus and myself
Bo:
> > But deep down
> > it is my conviction that the MOQ is a revival of something
> > arch-religious: namely that EVERYTHING IS GOD, and that existence -
> > ourselves included - are expressions of GOD. See how it matches the
> > everything-is-good-and-existence-is- levels-of good.
Mark:
> > > I've been exploring the idea that there exists a level above the
> > > intellectual, which seeks freedom from it. This strata concerns itself
> > > with faith, and I've been calling it Spiritual Values. Mystical
> > > experiences would be considered spiritual values. They certainly are
> > > not social value nor are they intellectual.
> > >
> > > What are your first impressions of this idea?
Magnus:
> > It's been up for discussion before here on TLS. Not exactly the term
> > "Spiritual Values" but some similar. First of all, I think that all
> > levels have no idea about any higher levels. Inorganic patterns are
> > not aware of organic manipulation and so on. So, we wouldn't
> > intellectually be able to see any higher levels.
> >
> > Second, since this higher level is not definable, Mystical experiences
> > would hardly be mystic if they were defined, it is not a static level,
> > hence Dynamic Quality mediating intellectual patterns.
> >
> > Third, my impressions are that people suggesting a higher level don't
> > want it to be static in the first place. It seems to be the same kind of
> > misguided reaction to intellectual patterns as the hippies' reaction to
> > social patterns.
Dave:
> Looking at the Subject Object Data Values paper on LS site I would say Pirsig
> would put GOD in the conceptually unknown catagory which would agree with what
> Mangus is saying. This could be seen to correspond with Kant's transcendent
> idea "We all live in the question of God" which so shocked the world and
> finally lead to Nietzsche's experience as "the death of God" But I think Pirig
> dodges the bullet nicely in three ways.
>
> 1. In the conceptually unknown section he goes on to say that just because an
> idea is in this state does not mean it is valueless. So the question of God is
> with us, will remain with us, is beyond our power of reason, but is not
> without value.
>
> 2. To all the worlds religions he says, in so much as you establish static
> social patterns that conform to MoQ and are evolving toward a greater good;
> you are morally right. In so much as you are so inflexible and rigid that you
> allow no moral progress you are pattern of low quality and most likely will die.
>
> 3. He moves morality and ethics from a subset way down the philosophical pike
> to a primary ingredient of the base.
>
> Then finally he restores the fragmented disections of SoM to a whole which
> reunites man, nature, and universe in such a way that the Gaia Hypothesis
> appears more believable as do most relegions that claim God created and is
> everything. But for man the question is still out and will be out until God
> decides to resolve the issue.
>
> Dave.
Hi Mark, Magnus and Dave and LS
Mark:
I am glad we share the basic credo regarding Quality, but once the
God term is brought up I feel that an avalanche of greek-
judea-christian notions of - god knows what - comes tumbling down
through the centuries, so let's suspend it for a while.
I have said it before: there is so much material -
interesting to the point of bursting - that go unnoticed by. For
instance your opening mail of Nov.17 (LS Hello) in which you compare
us LS to the sophists of old out to better things - not caring so
much for TRUTH (I'll return to that). You also mentioned level(s)
above the intellect which spurred Magnus to respond.
Magnus:
You point to the fact that those who suggest such a super-level
seemingly don't want it to be static, and you are right. The level
that Mark refers to is probably Dynamic Quality itself; dynamism
is at the root of every level.Quantum physics has revealed the
dynamics "behind" matter (Inorganic) and the void beneath the
rational (Intellectual) is known to all who have experimented with
magic, yoga and/or encountered extra-sensory experiences (I may add
that also Biology and Society will reveal similar dynamism if
scrutinized closely). You are right in saying that a new level must
be as static as the rest. I point to Platt's idea that MOQ itself may
be a budding level.
Then you go on to say that a static level doesn't know (the value
of) the level above. Right, but when you deduce from this that we
wouldn't know of any new level above intellect I can't follow you.
Human beings aren't solely intellect: "Mind" isn't unequivocally the
Intellectual level of MOQ (this I believe we also agreed on back in
the stone age of TLS). Sensation is biological mind; Emotion is
social mind and rationality is intellectual mind. We perceive all
levels and will incorporate the "mind" of a new level as well!
Dave:
Your interpretation of where Pirsig places God, and that it
corresponds to Kant's "We all live in the question of God" may well
be true, perhaps did Kant have a premonition of something
qualitylike. Anyway, the eighteenth century wasn't ripe for that
quantum leap, the SOM had to run its course into the "cul de sac".
Bo.
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