[MD] The Edge 2006 Annual Question

[skutvik at online.no]

All Moqtalk.

On 2 Jan. ian glendinning wrote:

> Just a recommendation that people take a browse through the 12 pages
> of responses from the great and the good amongst current thinkers, to
> the question ....

Very interesting, I even found Tor Nörretranders. I once 
exchanged a few letter with him about Pirsig, he was the one who 
feared "relativism" (that every time a new level of wealth is 
achieved we strive for a new one)   

> What is your dangerous idea - something barely conceivable that might
> turn out to be true and significant in a big way ?

I see that Platt has responded, but it did not sound like Platt saw 
Beauty as very dangerous, rather a welcome development. 

This brings me to my own mix of fear and hope, namely the 
Quality Idea. First of all what Platt writes about Beauty goes for 
Quality - actually Beauty can be added to the long list of different 
expressions for the very same thing. In LILA - after naming the 
different moral codes that exists between the levels - Pirsig 
speaks about a dynamic morality, a code of Art (Beauty or 
Aesthetics) which is beyond/above the intellectual level.  

    Finally there's a fourth Dynamic morality which isn't a 
    code.  He supposed you could call it a "code of Art" or 
    something like that, but art is usually thought of as a such 
    a frill that that title undercuts its importance.  
 
What is beyond the highest level is of course the MOQ itself 
because it contains the static hierarchy. It's also below, to the left 
and to the right, at all "sides". Is the "space" of the Quality 
Universe. So in short what Platt writes about Beauty goes for the 
MOQ.

Then why do I fear this idea that I have been speaking about 
since I first read ZMM in 1978 - and promoted in my small way? I 
have maintained that life can go on as usual - only in a better 
way -  in a theoretical future with the MOQ having replaced the 
SOM or the intellectual level (IMO), but deep down I'm not so 
sure. Something Platt wrote touches it (I replace his Beauty with 
Quality)   

> Third, Quality transcends thought. It is never true or false. It just is.
> Like the universe itself, it has no intellectual meaning beyond its own
> presence, and has no purpose other than to delight. 

Right, can intellect's immensely valuable FALSE/TRUE 
(subjective/ objective) distinction survive in a Quality reality? One 
may say that social reality has survived intellectual reality's 
hegemony, but it is not much appreciated (the Muslim world for 
example) and if intellect's fate will be similar in a Quality reality 
with science regarded an outdated activity, that will certainly 
mean an end to innovation and progress. 

At times I almost wish that the MOQ represented by Paul and his 
apostles would win, and that the SOL would disappear, because 
his MOQ is harmless, it is intellect having devoured Quality, but 
like the nuclear forces only could lead to the Bomb I can't but 
promote Phaedrus' MOQ.         

Platt's final words says a lot (Beauty=Quality):
 
> Finally, Quality transcends the specter of death and joins us with the
> eternal. As Rollo May put it: "We hear the songs of angels in a symphony,
> we bow a moment to communicate with infinity, and then return to digging
> potatoes" . . . or writing about metaphysics. 

Bo