[MD] What does Pirsig mean by metaphysics?

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi Dave T.

29 Jan. you wrote:

> After my initial response to this post I was staring at the two ZaMM
> diagrams and I think I had an Eureka moment. Stop don't read on go get
> your copy and then follow along with me step by step.

If you are going to have epiphanies this rate ....;.)  Can you draw 
these diagram in two colors - the old and new - and send it to me as 
an Adobe Reader document?   

Now to another post

I had written (to Andre)
> > Objections!. The Quality Universe is "bigger" than the S/O one
> > because it has swallowed it, but it is closed. In retrospect the
> > static evolution ended with the realization of it all being a
> > Quality evolution - i.e. the MOQ - no level beyond the
> > intellectual is possible and - most important - no "intellectual
> > pattern" (in the faulty sense of the MOQ being an intellectual
> > pattern) is possible without  the MOQ going pouf! Don't let your
> > "flying" tendencies get the best of you :-)

Dave:
> I'd like to hear a deeper explanation of your views on this. Two
> points to ponder. Historically at least it seems that evolution just
> continues to evolve. So isn't it possible at some point in the
> future another level could evolve?....snip

About this questions we are "at the end of our tethers" (as HG Wells 
said). However the MOQ being open-ended may stem from Pirsig's 
assertion that once the Quality=Reality axiom is affirmed every 
"metaphysics" hereafter will be "moqs". This may be correct looking 
back, the SOM is now a "moq" in the sense of having become a static 
Q level. However looking ahead at the possibility of an irrefutable 
argument that the MOQ is hogwash emerging it (the MOQ) goes pouf, 
the SOM will reclaim the "M" and quality goes back to being 
something subjective.  

However you speak about another static LEVEL and that's a bit odd 
from your premises that intellect is an "idea-level". How can anything 
escape this if the Q tenet of the upper level level "debunking"  the 
lower applies?  The X-level regarding "ideas" to be evil? But it's just 
as impossible from the S/O-intellect premises. The MOQ is "out of 
SOM", its raison d'etre is to repair the damage that SOM (as 
metaphysics) has inflicted on existence. No, the MOQ is a closed 
universe and what is wrong with that? It's a GOOD universe

> And shouldn't a metaphysical system be flexible enough to handle that?
> Second doesn't the mystical part of Buddhism already claim that there
> is a transcendent experience beyond intellect? 

Well, my contention is that the MOQ somehow corresponds to 
Buddhism in a much more succinct manner than the "woolly" Eastern 
article  that - due to their underdeveloped intellectual level - had a too 
easy walk-over to the stage beyond. But as little as a world view that 
debunks Buddhism can be Buddhism a metaphysics that debunks the 
MOQ can be a "moq", there must be a limit to subtlety.  

Bodvar