Troy Becker (tbecker@gonzaga.edu)
Thu, 3 Sep 1998 16:19:25 +0100
Donny, thank you for your rebuttal. i'm humbled. language proves to
misserve me, too. let's see what i can do this time around.
On Tue, 1 Sep 1998, Donald S. Rosenow wrote the lines beginning with the
greater than sign.
> Maybe I misunderstand the MOQ, but doesn't DQ drive evolution?
i suddenly feel like i need to do some serious reading. it is right that
DQ drives evolution. and i said that "the universe evolves to Dynamic
Quality". i think we're on the same line. in both cases, DQ comes first.
shoot. as soon as i typed "first", i suddenly had strong urges to think
about time.
-----------
> The only perspective that matters is the human one. Humans care; make
> value judgments. The Quality that is perceived is peculiar to each
> individual. The generator of the Quality Event (that rock colliding
> with the Earth) is amoral. It has value (mass, velocity, etc.), but to
> assign it Morality based on it's physical attributes? That makes sense
> only if a moral force guided that rock to the impact. Is that an
> attribute of Quality also? If one is to make that statement, then one
> enters the realm of theology.
unless you consider perspective to be another one of those "attributes".
tell me that gravity does not matter and then i'll agree that the only
perspective that matters is the human one. i'm glad mass values mass, and
not because of any Good Will that made it so. because mass values mass,
the Earth has held together long enough for us humans to evolve and think
about it.
> I could call xlmfkvv a "thing". I could assign it attributes. In fact,
> its attributes are obvious now. MOQ would argue that xlmfkvv exists, has
> morality, etc. But it has those attributes because they were assigned to
> it by humans. If we, or some other sentient race, did not exist, would
> Quality?
yes. and so would xlmfkvv. if xlmfkvv exists, it has always existed.
that is all i can say about xlmfkvv.
> Generated by Quality, time, as a phenomenon, is utterly linear and
> unidirectional. Reality then is an infinite array of discreet moments
> connected by Quality.
for many minutes, i typed and backspaced my explanation of how i see it.
i have decided that i don't see it, yet. so i can buy that time is linear
and unidirectional; that's our perspective. but reality seems to be more
than an array of moments. i'd say that Reality and the Universe (all
things) are the same, but that might stretch it and is probably not
topical. (while i'm pairing offtopic terms, i'll propose the equanimity
of Time and Causation).
> That is essentially how I view the relationship of DQ to the four static
> levels. Between level 1 and level 2 are levels 1.a through 1.z; 1.aa
> through 1.zz lie between 1.a and 1.z and so on through as many sub
> levels as you wish. The same between each of the other levels. DQ is the
> mechanism that drives evolution. Each of us has the four levels within
> us because we - and I think we can allow for the possibility that other
> sentient beings, if they exist, may be included - are the culmination of
> evolution to this point. Level four is evolving incrementally toward
> level five and it is the continual consideration of Quality(?) that
> propels us to the next level. Either that, or this is a rather enjoyable
> waste of time.
Troy's (similar) views: we humans can categorize everything we know into
Pirsig's four levels, so they're practical for us. and if the past is any
indication of the future, "we" are evolving and may someday need to make
way for a new static latching to explain what is good, and what is not
good.
until Ant or somebody else offers a sensible alternative to this matrix
view of the four levels, i accept it. doesn't anybody see the problem?
we still must "rank" intellectual quality, for example, in deciding what
we ought to do. and the closer related are two options, the tougher it is
to "rank" them (i remember the english papers in Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance--the closer they were in Quality, the harder they
were to grade). what is the difference? Pirsig offered this method that
enables us to look past "context" but it's still just as tricky to make
those tough calls. is my existence more moral than Anthony McWatt's? if
it came down to that, how might we make a decision?
-- homepage - http://www.moq.org/lilasquad unsubscribe/queries - mailto:lilasquad@moq.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu May 13 1999 - 16:43:45 CEST