clark (clark@netsites.net)
Mon, 26 Jan 1998 10:47:42 +0100
Martin,
Thanks for your attempt to clear up my muddled thinking. You gave the
clearest exposition of the MOQ that I have seen in one essay.
One of the problems I had for a while was that Pirsig had to deal with
each step of MOQ more or less in isolation because he was presenting a new
idea and had to separate it's components for clarity and this caused me to
view the process in this fashion.
The understanding you have given me is that we humans are living in a sea
of awareness the basic components of which are the same for all.
Individually we have different life and intellectual histories and thus
interpret this sea of awareness individually which results in our perceived
separateness.
The picture you have now completed for me is that individually we are
living in a constantly changing cloud of virtual awareness which results in
a constantly ongoing sense of reality as determined by the instantaneous
contents of our static patterns of value. There is no reality that we can
grab onto and say this is it. We can, of course, grab an instant and try
to describe reality but it will be a reality that is no longer valid. I can
also see why one could say that humanity is one state of being because we
are linked to the same underlying process, and thus dip into the same pool
of awareness.
I would have to take issue with the Field Being idea when it states that
there are no independent continuous beings. It is true that there are no
material beings that persist through time, but there are beings whose ideas
persist through time and those ideas contribute to the ongoing sense of
reality for some of us. In fact, I think that this is probably universally
true regardless of the quality of those ideas. We all influence and are
influenced by some people whether their ideas are good or bad. Back in the
forties or fifties a group of people were discovered in New Guinea who had
no contact with any other people of any kind within their memory. Their MOQ
must have operated the same as ours.
This brings me to another problem I have with the MOQ. We, and most
everybody in the LS discusses the MOQ solely in relation to the Human race.
In this context all of this makes sense. It makes sense until we begin to
talk about the operation of DQ before sentience. The SPOVs start with the
inorganic level. This implies that the MOQ existed before sentience. Pirsig
himself talks about time being a static intellectual concept that is one of
the very first to emerge from Dynamic Quality. Did he mean that the
universe was imbued with intellectuality from the start or did he mean that
the MOQ began with humanity? Does this mean that the Big Bang was Dynamic
Quality or was the Big Bang caused by Dynamic Quality. If so what does that
make Dynamic Quality-God?
It is said that the MOQ has been in existence always. How do we define
morality and good in terms of the universe and/or the Earth except as a
force for interrupting the flow of entropy toward randomness. I have to
assume that this is so because negentropy is the force that produced
evolution and us. How does inorganic MOQ fit in with sentient MOQ ? What
becomes morality and good then? Is it what is good for the human race or is
it what is good for the Earth? If the two MOQs exist in the sentient SPOVs
separately which takes precedence? If they are one then what is the
definition of goodness and morality in those levels? My understanding was
that morality and goodness was defined in terms of the universe but I
continually see the terms used as if they applied only to humans.
Martin, I hope that you can see the problems I am having and I hope that
you have answers that will clear up my confusion or can show me where my
thinking went wrong. Ken
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