[MD] The Quality/MOQ meta-metaphysics

[Mary]

Hi Platt & Bo,

> [dmb said]
> > I mean, the analytic knife has to cut somewhere so that even the
> DQ/sq
> > distinction counts as a pair of opposites.
> 
[Bo said] 
> The great metaphysical revolution took place when everything became
> Quality. Thus the DQ/SQ division is not anything like the S/O split
> (mind you: the analytical knife always cuts S/O) but an internal
> arrangement - the static levels are value levels - not like the S and O
> that are worlds apart.
> 
[Platt said]
> 
> If I understand correctly, you're saying that dualistic thinking based
> on
> divisions and "cuts" is SOM. The MOQ revolution is the transcendence of
> dualistic thinking by value understanding, not another SOM
> (intellectual)
> theory.
> 
> In other words, the MOQ perspective reveals a world not of observers
> and
> observed as seen from the dualistic viewpoint, but a world of values..
> 
> In the value world, distinctions are made on a vertical/horizontal axis
> whereby
> the vertical axis is the evolutionary value hierarchy and the
> horizontal axis
> is a high-low value spectrum. In addition, there's a creative force of
> dynamic
> value.
> 
> In this way, the MOQ releases us from an illusory dualistic reality to
> a value-
> experience reality where one does not automatically see and say,
> "That's a
> small dog, or a brown and white dog, or a mixed breed dog," but "That's
> a good
> dog," or better yet, simply "Ah, so."
> 
> Am I on target?
> 
[Mary Replies] 
I think you are, Platt.  The so-called Dq/Sq split is not really a split for
us at all since we cannot perceive DQ.  In the instant we do it has already
become SQ, so there is no perceived split and no choice has been made.  It
just is.  The analytical knife comes into play after the SQ has been
perceived, at which point Pirsig is saying that the S/O split we choose to
make is just that - a division we have chosen.  He tries to persuade us that
there is another choice - perception as patterns of value.  

The S/O split devalues Quality, placing recognition of Quality as a lower
form of perception than the recognition of the Subjects and Objects as
entities in and of themselves.  Pirsig points out that this is wrong, and
has lead to our fundamental confusion on the whole subject.  When what is
Quality is demoted to a subjective attribute then morals are relative,
debatable, and no consistent 'opinion' can be hoped for.  When morals and
value are demoted to the status of attribute, then the invention of the
thermonuclear bomb had only 'relative' moral implications.  There was never
a good reason not to do it.  If all the world is subjects and objects, then
the discovery of any new 'object' is always "the good" since we live in a
world where nothing has higher status than subjects contemplating objects.
That's all there is.  It is only after the fact that we could debate the
moral value of doing science in that direction, and this debate was weak
from the start since it could only deal with a subjective, relative
morality, not a universal one.  

Best,
Mary