[MD] The Quality/MOQ meta-metaphysics

[X Acto]

[dmb had said]
> > > > > I mean, the analytic knife has to cut somewhere so that even
> > > > > the DQ/sq distinction counts as a pair of opposites.

To this I commented that the analytic knife is S/O 

ZAMM page 231:
    The knife of subjectivity-and-objectivity had cut Quality in two 
    and killed it as a working concept. If he was going to save it, he 
    couldn't let that knife get it.......

and further that it is "intellectual"  

ZAMM page 79:
    The fourth is that there is a knife moving here. A very deadly 
    one; an intellectual scalpel so swift and so sharp you 
    sometimes don't see it moving. You get the illusion that all 
    those parts are just there and are being named as they exist. 
    But they can be named quite differently and organized quite 
    differently depending on how the knife moves.  

Ipso facto: Intellectual thinking is S/O  and the SOL is once again 
proved! 

Ron:
This is a very interesting discussion, one that has been discussed in Plato's Parmenides.
We must make distinctions, we do make distinctions, some would venture that we are distinction.
Aristotle used the term "limit" Parmenides used "form" Pirsig uses "Quality".

Now to say that this act of making distinctions is S/O, is equating value, Quality, with
S/O. Since the SOL is thus proved, please explain how this grants us greater explainitory power.



Over to Mary: 
> I suppose, but I have the uneasy feeling we aren't talking about quite
> the same thing.  Pirsig makes a distinction between Static and Dynamic
> Quality yet maintaining that both are still Quality.  Sort of like the
> difference you might make between a book on the shelf and one yet to
> be written.  If you are discussing the two, you would still call both
> of them books even though one can be experienced and one cannot.  One
> is defined and knowable and one is not.  How else would you refer to a
> book that's yet to be written but as a book, since if it ever is
> realized it will be as, well, a book?  

Ron:
. You seem to make the distinction between
conceptual and immediate experience. Bo would call you an SOMist
for that interpretation, the subjective thoughts about an objective "out there".

Mary:
> When he's discussing the analytical knife, this DQ/SQ split isn't what
> he's talking about.  We never see that split.  All we see is the
> static fallout, the SQ.  He's trying to get us to take a grip on how
> we handle the experience, the SQ.  This is the cut he is talking about
> through most of ZMM because it's this cut that has the most immediate
> effect on our lives. 

Ron:
The cut you insist is S/O.

Bodvar
 
Yes, and all this knife talk has repercussions for the very subject of 
this thread and the related issue that the MOQ is an intellectual 
pattern. We see the origin her, Pirsig thinks that the DQ/SQ divide is 
done by intellect's S/O-knife, hence the MOQ becomes something 
secondary to a greater DQ. But if so the Quality/MOQ cut must also be 
an intellectual one and hence require a still grander context  ... ad 
infinitum. No the DQ/SQ is a Quality partition done by a new - no knife- 
but a new way of thinking.      

I agree with everything further said Mary.

Ron:
A new way of thinking that can not be defined or described. Any definition
or description is S/O. so.. I ask how can it be understood? how does
this provide greater explainitory power when any explaination is an
S/O explaination? how does this improve our lives?.

You have yet to answer this question.




















> If there is a difference between DQ and SQ what do you think it is? 
> The only clue Pirsig gives about the question is to say that one is
> experienced and the other is not.  One can be defined and the other
> cannot.  Well, what does that mean, especially when he says that all
> is Quality, all is Value, all is Morals?  It simply means there is no
> difference.  Quality is the same whether you put an "S" in front of it
> or a "D".  Whether you can define it or not.  Whether you experience
> it or not.  There is no split.  The only split would be an artificial
> one you might make in your head.
> 
> But the analytic knife looms large in his thoughts.  It is a concept
> with a purpose.  It has legs.  You don't have any choice about the
> split between Dynamic and Static.  That one is made for you.  How
> could it be otherwise? The only split possible there is between the
> known and the unknown.  No choice really.  You can't make a lot of
> decisions about the unknown, can you?  So what's the split all about? 
> Why does he harp on it so?  
> 
> If you don't get a chance at the first cut, where is your first
> opportunity after that?  Well, once you've experienced Quality, then
> you get to make some choices for the first time.  You could follow
> Pirsig and say, "that was an experience of Quality", but we know most
> people don't automatically do that.  We do know that they say things
> like, "I just experienced an event, or an object, or a thought."  They
> assume they are an independent entity unto themselves and they had an
> objective experience that happened to _them_.  What Pirsig takes great
> pains to point out is that the _them_ that had the experience is a
> fiction.  He says there is no _them_ different in kind from the
> experience itself.  That is the fallacy.  The first cut we make is
> based on bad assumptions, invalid assumptions about "who" we are,
> "where" we are, and "what's" going on.  From that point onward, every
> question we ask is a bad question and every derivative assumption we
> make is based on false premises.  So it is that the choice you make
> about that first cut of experience can lead you closer to Quality or
> farther from it.
> 
> But if we can't know anything about DQ, if it's always "unknowable",
> what's the use of it?  Why is it important to Pirsig that there be
> Dynamic and Static Quality?  Why did he go to such lengths to
> incorporate DQ into his metaphysics if he couldn't even define it? 
> Makes him sound like a crackpot or a mystic, right?  
> 
> He did it because he had no choice.  You can't have Static Quality
> without Dynamic Quality to bring it into existence.  To formulate his
> metaphysics he had to work backward, rejecting one assumption at a
> time.  He had to peel the onion back until finally he reached the
> point where there was nothing left. Well, maybe that's a bad analogy? 
> I couldn't tell you what's at the center of an onion.  I've peeled and
> cut up a million of them, but never paid attention.  Maybe there is a
> "seed" or something at the center of an onion?  I don't know, but for
> purposes of our discussion, let's say there isn't.  Let's say you can
> stand in your kitchen, if you are so inclined, and spend a whole day
> carefully peeling one layer at a time off an onion until it isn't an
> onion anymore.  It isn't anything.  Your hand is empty.  Without
> Dynamic Quality, that's what the MoQ would be like.  Without Dynamic
> Quality, where would Static Quality come from?
> 
> Without Dynamic Quality, how would Static Quality be any different
> from objective reality?  Wouldn't Static Quality itself represent the
> fundamental objective reality of the world then?  You bet.  Nothing
> else it could be. Without Dynamic Quality, the "world as we know it" -
> where I want you to pay special attention to the idea of "we" and
> "know" and "it", would be absolutely all there is.  Static "things",
> "ideas", and "individuals" would be indeed the primary empirical
> reality.  I would not argue with you, either.  And if you told me that
> this thing has Quality but that thing doesn't, who am I to disagree? 
> What would give me any moral authority to say otherwise?  Who would
> care what I say anyway, since we're all equal?  My opinion is no
> better than yours, and both are just opinions, so I guess we could
> argue until eternity.  
> 
> But that's not all.  What gets lost in all this is that Pirsig very
> carefully chose three different words to represent the same concept. 
> Three words that in normal usage are not even interchangeable. 
> Quality, Values, and Morals are all the same exact thing for Pirsig. 
> There is a reason.  He did not choose these words carelessly.  But I'm
> getting tired and that discussion will have to be for another day. 
> Maybe you'd like to weigh in?
> 
> Best,
> Mary
> 
> > [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.
> > 
> > At least "the knife" that P. speaks of in ZAMM was cutting
> > S/O-ishly, i.e. intellectually, while intelligence in MOQ's service
> > will cut DQ/SQ- ishly. It may be dualistic, but without SOM's bleak
> > and paradox- inducing  consequences.
> > 
> > > > 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..
> > 
> > Exactly.
> > 
> > > > 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.
> > 
> > Sounds good. Regarding the vertical (diagram) I have maintained it
> > regarding the MOQ. No "Reality=Quality" box that splits into DQ and
> > SQ, merely "DQ " on top and "SQ" (connected with a line) under it,
> > the latter may be internally and horizontally partitioned.
> > 
> > > > 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."
> > 
> > Well, when on "the high metaphysical ground" this is may be so, but
> > when back in the static realm - with intellect our base camp - we
> > may speak/think like we used to, but the Q-knowledge remains.
> > 
> > > > 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.
> > 
> > Even if DQ is ephemeral the DQ/SQ is the matrix when "on the high
> > ground",  when back on the plains however our analysis may well be
> > intellectual (S/O-ish) but no longer oppressed by SOM's metaphysical
> > implications.
> > 
> > Hope we - "the marvelous few" - agree here  ;-)
> > 
> > > 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.
> > 
> > Right SOM places qualities within the subjective realm and as such
> > of secondary, dubious existence. Objectivity is its one sure
> > criterion.
> > 
> > > 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.
> > 
> > Wow! Quite "chautauqua" ;-)
> > 
> > 
> > Bodvar
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
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