[MD] The SOM/MOQ discrepancy.

[Platt Holden]

Hi Bo, 

You wrote:

> There was a time when I called the MOQ a 5th. level, but that's left 
> long ago. Still that of intellect a sub-set of the Quality system and thus
> incapable of containing the system itself stands tall, Pirsig is the one
> that uses it, and after all the MOQ is a metaphysics and supposed to 
> be above itself. Logic is not suspended.   

I think to be "above itself" the MOQ has to be at a higher level. But, let 
it rest for now. 

> This about a system's relationship to itself is important. In lesser 
> systems (if the problem ever comes up) for instance General Relativity 
> SOM relegates it to Einstein's mind and to the mind of those who learn 
> it. And I'm afraid this is what Pirsig in LILA's diluted intellectual
> level 
> also does. The MOQ is an idea located at the intellectual level 
> because this had become "mind" (not as Phaedrus envisaged it: as 
> SOM) However the MOQ is supposed to replace SOM and has no 
> more mind than it has substance.         

When Pirsig equated "mind" with the  intellectual level he fell smack dab 
into the SOM trap of the mind/matter division after spending an entire book 
explaining why such a division (SOM) was shortsighted. Why he felt a tired, 
old, static division was necessary to explain a bright new MOQ level is a 
mystery to me.  Seems he forgot his own cautionary analogy:

"If you want to drink new tea you have to get rid of the old tea that's in 
your cup, otherwise your cup just overflows and you get a wet mess." (Lila, 
2)

As Hardy said to Laurel (and we might say to Pirsig),"This is a fine mess 
you got us into."

Best, Platt