[MD] Distinguishing Levels (Individual level)

[Steve Peterson]

Hi Ham,

I said:
> > I'm sorry to hear that you are so confused by this
> discussion.
> > If you have any questions about the MOQ, I'd be
> glad to help.


Ham replied:
> Thank you for offering to explain the leveling
> concept to me, Steve.  I know
> that your invitation is genuine, but it won't help. 


Steve:
Actually, I wasn't being genuine. I was kind of being
a jerk. I get a little anoyed wuth you. My impression
is that you don't really want to understand Pirsig's
MOQ, which is fine, but then I wonder what you are
doing participating in this discussion group.


Ham:
> I've seen this subject
> being debated for over three years now, and it
> accomplishes no more than the
> polemic discussions.  The problem, as I see it, is
> "verbal sleight-of hand".
> Words and ideas taken from the common vocabulary are
> redefined in ways that
> misconstrue and deceive in order to sustain a
> doctrine that has validity for
> only the few who want to identify with this strange
> philosophy.


Steve:
Despite the arguments about defining the levels and
placing different values on particular levels you will
find that there is a lot of agreement about
interpreting Pirsig's work. It only makes sense that
discussion is about our disagreements.

You suggest that, since we can't agree, the levels
don't work, but the people arguing their points of
view on the levels feel that it does work for them or
they won't be pushing their perspectives.

The mark of good art or a good philosophy is not that
we all see the same thing, but that we all find value
in it.

> 
> I'll give you a recent example.  I said that the MoQ
> rationalizes Intellect
> as a "collective" that includes all the faculties
> that are proprietary to
> the individual.  

Can you explain what you mean by "rationalizes
intellect"?

The MOQ does not say that all the faculties of an
individual are intellect. The intellectual level
represents the set of all patterns of thought.

>That is, it would have us believe
> that the essence of the
> individual is a "collective other" without a
> subject. 

The subject is not missing from the MOQ. Pirsig's
philosophy begins with Ham and seeks to explain his
reality. It says his awareness is Quality and goes on
to divide experience into static and dynamic
components and defining "Ham" as a product of
awareness. The problem is you are unwilling to
postulate that reality is Quality so anything said
about the moq will make no sense to you.

> I maintain that any existent without awareness is an
> object of subjective
> experience.  Thus, the world is a true dichotomy:
> cognizant subjects
> experience otherness divided into finite objects. 
> Even if we could "fuse"
> all the subjects and all the objects we would not
> produce a unified whole.

In the MOQ there is no such thing as an object without
awareness. To say that everything is Quality is to say
that everything is awareness.


> The Pirsigians like to talk about patterns and
> levels.  They think that by
> recognizing objects as interconnected levels,
> instead of "discrete
> particulars", and merging the individual into the
> mix, they have overcome
> duality.  That's a metaphysical fallacy. 
> Subject/object still exists: it is
> the mode of human awareness, and it defies such
> reductionism.

It sounds like you are more interested in maintaining
subjective/objective distinctions than seeing where
the reality = Quality postulate takes us. You say
subject/object is the mode of human awareness and
accept that axiomatically. If you are unwilling to see
where a Quality axiom takes you, I wonder why you are
even interested in Pirsig.
 
Regards,
Steve



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