[MD] Food for Thought

[david buchanan]

Case, Dan and all MOQers:

Dan said to Case:
I find I do not share your vision of the MOQ so it's difficult to follow the 
above passage. You seem fixated on systems, situations, events, and things 
which is all very SOMish.

Case replied:
If what you mean is I think the MoQ should have tangible results in the 
world then guilty as charged. I thought the MoQ was a pragmatic philosophy. 
James and Dewey certainly held that philosophy should be judged by its 
consequences.

dmb says:
Henry Gurr's website has a long list of links to all sorts of projects in 
which the MOQ was practically applied to everything from physics to dance. 
>From what I've gathered here, the recently published book applies the MOQ to 
education, for example. Also, the distinction between social and 
intellectual static quality is used extensively to perform a kind of 
sociological diagnosis of the West's recent history. I mean, its not very 
hard to make a case that this distinction is supposed to serve as an 
explanatory tool that was invented with real world problems in mind. But I 
don't think that any of that has much to do with Dan's complaint...

Dan said to Case:
I guess I am more than a bit disappointed to see (what I perceive to be) so 
little understanding of the MOQ reflected in your posts. I am stopped from 
replying as I would have to go all the way back to the beginning to form 
some sort of rapport and I just don't have the time or patience. It's all 
rather frustrating as I am sure it's my intellectual shortcoming and not 
yours.

dmb says:
Before I get to your reply, let me say I agree with Dan here. Like I said, 
your view is sane and reasonable but it all seems to be standard SOM stuff. 
I can understand why a guy might cling to Kant's TiTs, but its contrary to 
the MOQ and so it is with this debate about the levels. Its kinda like 
you've paid no attention to the MOQ's criticism of these sorts of views. 
Thus my analogy. Selling SOM here is like trying to sell a V-8 to the most 
famous advocate of the electric car.

Case replied to Dan:
I am not sure specifically what it is we disagree about. I have been trying 
for some time now to show that whether the MoQ is about philosophical 
mysticism or not, it also applies directly to the everyday world. It 
transcends application to four or five or any number of levels. It is the 
Tao where opposites unite. It is Chaos from which order emerges. It's 
potency lies not in a warm fuzzy feeling of goodness but in the growth and 
dispersal of complex relationships.

dmb says:
As I see it, the disagreement is at the very start. If we're talking about 
the MOQ and you are rebutting that with SOM positions, then the disagreement 
stems for differing metaphysical assumptions. In any case, I don't think 
mysticism, Taoism or "warm fuzzy feelings" are particularly relevant to the 
distinction between social and intellectual static quality. We might rightly 
get into a little philosophy of science and some political science, 
sociological analysis, a reading of history and stuff like that. See, I 
think the big idea here, if one can call it that, is that the type of 
rationality that we've inherited has a flaw in it such that there is a great 
deal of confusion in these areas. When the scientific method is transfered 
from physics, from the examination of inorganic nature and we attempt to 
apply it to the humanities something weird happens. Pirsig talks about how 
screwy this view is when its applied to anthropology via Dunesberry, etc.. 
In areas of science where we study people instead of rocks the notion of 
value-free objectivity shows its shortcomings and things get really warped. 
The MOQ's attack on SOM is aimed at this problem and a whole cluster of 
similar problems. Your quasi-Behaviorism, for example, strikes me as one of 
those warped things.

Case said:
I could give more examples but I am told they are irrelevant. Appeals to 
sanity, reason and contact with any supposed "reality" are, according to 
some, not part of the MoQ. Whether I understand the MoQ or not is certainly 
an open question but I sure don't understand that.

dmb says:
It seems I am the unnamed defendent in this case. Not that I'm advocating 
insanity, unreason or unreality. I'm just saying that the MOQ is a critique 
of the West's most basic metaphysical assumptions, the commonly held 
worldview of scientists and even guys with TiTs, like Kant. Pirsig's 
critique takes issue with lots of perfectly smart and sane people, from 
Plato to Descartes and beyond. He even calls Aristotle and asshole. I mean, 
even if you want to take this critcism as an insult you'd still  be in 
pretty good company there, fractal breath.

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