[MD] confused

[Case]

[Case]
Thanks for the quick response. Very nice answers too. I disagree point by
point but I will try cut it short. So to summarize:

Point one:
[Case]
By naming his divisions of Quality static and dynamic he seems to be
following a Taoist metaphysics which divides the Tao into its active and
passive principle. But saying that the Tao is about the relationship between
SQ and SQ is like saying the Tao is only Yin.
 
[Mark 26-10-06:] 
The MoQ does not replicate Tao metaphysics - Quality, RQ and CQ may do, but
the MoQ does not.
One advantage of moving beyond Tao metaphysics is the MoQ's ability to
accommodate evolution. There is no room for evolution in Tao metaphysics.
 
Now that has been cleared up, i can progress to sq-sq relationships without
fear of clashing with Tao metaphysics.
And even now, because DQ is undefined, we still have the "mystic." Quality
has not been abandoned, (or assimilated) only RQ and CQ.

[Case]
Pirsig inserts classic and romantic, subject and object into his
paraphrasing of the first verses of the Tao te Ching but I really missed the
part where he ever claims to have moved beyond Taoist metaphysics. I also
think you have misstated the fundamental idea. Taoism is about the union of
opposites. It maintains that light is darkness are opposites but they
compliment each other. They are known by virtue of their relationship to
each other. It is in this relationship that the Tao is known. Taoist
metaphysics is not about any single set of distinctions it is about all such
distinctions. Again I say the MoQ does not move past that. It borrows from
and restates it.

There is no mention of Taoism by name in Lila and Pirsig’s final words on
the subject in ZMM are:

“First of all I should say that I don't know whether Phædrus' claim that
Quality is the Tao is true. I don't know of any way of testing it for truth,
since all he did was simply compare his understanding of one mystic entity
with another. He certainly thought they were the same, but he may not have
completely understood what Quality was. Or, more likely, he may not have
understood the Tao. He certainly was no sage. And there's plenty of advice
for sages in that book he would have done well to heed. 
I think, furthermore, that all his metaphysical mountain climbing did
absolutely nothing to further either our understanding of what Quality is or
of what the Tao is. Not a thing.” 

But you have not addressed the main point which is that DQ is an aspect of
Quality and should not be confused with Quality itself.

Point Two:
[Case]
Second, by saying that DQ is an undefined warm fuzzy, you render it useless.
 
[Mark 26-10-06] 
On the contrary Case. RQ and CQ are a bit useless with regard to evolution.
DQ is central to evolution in two important respects:
1. As that which draws sq forward to better structures.
2. The goal of evolution itself.

[Case]
Pirsig does talk like this. I will not even speculate whether he does so
just to make his point or whether he truly does not understand a thing about
evolution. But this idea that evolution has a goal and that it is moving in
any particular direction is just not a part of evolutionary theory. The very
fact that an estimated 3000 species become extinct each year should lay this
idea to rest. 

Point Three:
[Case]
The idea that the levels are a war with each other is simply nonsensical. If
an idea kills a society who is going to be around to think it? An idea can
change a society. But kill it? I think not.
 
[Mark 26-10-06] 
This statement is not made in Lila. The MoQ agrees with you:  
Ideas change society.
You may be confusing what is stated about germs? It is stated that it is  
moral for a Doctor to kill germs.

[Case]
In that passage he says:

“A human being is a collection of ideas, and these ideas take moral
precedence over a society. Ideas are patterns of value. They are at a higher
level of evolution than social patterns of value. Just as it is more moral
for a doctor to kill a germ than a patient, so it is more moral for an idea
to kill a society than it is for a society to kill an idea.”

Later on in another context he says:

“Now, it should be stated at this point that the Metaphysics of Quality
supports this dominance of intellect over society. It says intellect is a
higher level of evolution than society; therefore, it is a more moral level
than society. It is better for an idea to destroy a society than it is for a
society to destroy an idea.”

I hear a lot of loose talk in this forum about the moral superiority of one
level of another.
 

[Case]
Pirsig's example of the Zuni brujo is particularly inappropriate
in this  regard. The brujo was a drunken quisling not a folk hero.
 
[Mark 26-10-06] 
One central aspect of the Zuni brujo example is the brujo's  
ability to bridge his own culture with a more powerful threatening  culture.
Had the brujo not done this his culture may have been decimated?

[Case]
While Pirsig’s version of this story may have mythic appeal his
interpretation has no basis in the facts of the incident. He says that the
fellow in question became governor of Zuni. I can not find this in either
Benedict’s account or Bunzel’s version. Even a casual review of the various
tribal interactions with white reveals that nothing the Indians did had much
impact on the fate of the tribes. My guess is that, what saved the Zuni is
that they lived in the middle of the stinking desert and nothing they had
was considered worth stealing or wasting ammunition on.
 
Fourth Point: 

[Case]
Fourth, this is bit of a tangent but the claim is being made that the MoQ is
essentially mystical. I am not saying that it isn't but I am saying that it
is not necessarily or even primarily so.
 
[Mark 26-10-06]
A metaphysics which claims ultimate reality is beyond intellectual
patterning is mystical isn't it?

[Case]
No, dividing by zero is beyond intellectual patterning but not mystical. An
electron shifting from one shell to another without passing through the
intervening space is beyond intellectual patterning but not mystical. It is
1 a.m. or I would think of more.

--------------------------------------- 
[Case]
Even the idea of the preintellectual is not a mystical notion. Most of our
awareness is nonverbal non-rational. The intellectual portions of the human
brain are the newest parts. They are very important to us but they are not
the whole show.
Getting the ratchet jaw in our head to stop yammering is no doubt healthy
but I see no need to give it supernatural significance.
 
Mark 26-10-06: I think you are conflating pre-intellectual with
non-intellectual here Case.

[Case]
I am using intellectual in the sense of verbal and rational. We have several
other ways of knowing things that are neither. These other ways of knowing
can be verbalized or rationalize with varying degree of success and in that
sense I would call them pre-intellectual. I think the mistake the MoQ
mystics make is in thinking that reverting to more primitive forms of
awareness produces a higher form of consciousness.

Fifth Point;
[Case]
Fifth, you frequently get close to the point with your talk of chaos. I have
said many times that I think the MoQ is a metaphysics of chaos or of
uncertainty. The only thing that keeps you from seeing that chaos is both
static and dynamic is, I would suggest, terminological.
 
[Mark 26-10-06] 
This is interesting.
The thing is, when i use the term 'Chaos' i am not talking about chaos
theory.
When i use the term Chaos i mean no structure at all, not even hidden
attractors and all that stuff.

[Case]
The sense you are using makes no sense. It simply doesn’t exist. But I
frankly don’t understand why you bother with it. To the extent that you do,
I agree it has little to relevance to the MoQ or anything else. This is why
I am talking about nonlinear dynamical systems or deterministic Chaos which
ARE highly relevant to the MoQ.

[Mark 26-10-06]
I think you have some interesting ideas which attempt to incorporate Chaos
theory into Tao metaphysics.
But, i am not sure you succeed in incorporating them into the MoQ?

[Case]
Crap, I thought we could just unscramble a few terms an stroll hand in hand
along the twisty pat that is The Way. I guess not but thanks for the
workout. I knew I could count on you for that. I apologize for all the
messed up wording, misspelling and typing errors that I suspect are even
more obvious in the this stuff than usual but I really do have to shuffle
off to bed right away. Duty calls early in these parts.

SNOOCHIES BOOCHIES
Case