[MD] The relativity of the MoQ

Thu Aug 27 09:56:44 PDT 2009

I can define truth.  Truth is the highest quality of intellect.  And I can
define intellect too, or get Bo to do it for me.
But if you ask to me to define quality, I will have to stop.

b-a-n-a-n-a-n-n-an-n-a

On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 9:29 AM, X Acto <xacto at rocketmail.com> wrote:

> I think this where DQ comes into the discussion
>
> it's indefinable but you know what it is
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: MarshaV <valkyr at att.net>
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2009 12:24:00 PM
> Subject: Re: [MD] The relativity of the MoQ
>
> Hmmmm.
>
> I'm really not in the mood to argue, but what exactly is your definition of
> truth?  If pure experience, I think there is not the time/space to make a
> comparison.
>
>
> Marsha
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org
> [mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of X Acto
> Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2009 11:55 AM
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Subject: Re: [MD] The relativity of the MoQ
>
> Now, Calling Rorty a relativist is kinda lumping him in
> with a company I'm not sure is deserved, a truth relativist
> is more a contextualist, they admit truths do exist but
> are contextual.
>
> that fits
>
> sitting on a hot stove and jumping off is foundational as a true pure
> expereince
> with pragmatic consequence
> but how that expereince is interpreted is of contextual nature,ex.  while
> we
> would say it burned,
> another culture might describe as biting, the metal beast bit me. ect..
>
> it these sorts of cultural distinctions ( I think) Rorty meant but as I say
> I have to do some reading on Rorty.
>
> thanks Steve
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: X Acto <xacto at rocketmail.com>
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2009 11:33:01 AM
> Subject: Re: [MD] The relativity of the MoQ
>
> Hello Steve,
>
> I don't think thats too pessimistic rather a healthy bit of skepticism
> regarding the matter, which, in my opinion gives it more power.
>
> It also flushes out the term "relativism" as mostly a pejoritive term
> toward this sort of thinking in the context we are discussing.
>
> I don't feel that the idea is to escape or free ourselves but to extend
> and expand.
>
> -Ron
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Steve Peterson <peterson.steve at gmail.com>
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2009 11:15:39 AM
> Subject: Re: [MD] The relativity of the MoQ
>
> Hi Ron,
>
> I don't want to sound too pessimistic about our inability to free ourselves
> from our culture. We are also in a position to recreate our culture.
>
> Consider this from a Princeton colleague of Rorty named Jeffrey Stout in
> Ethics After Babel:
>
> "...tradition-bound thought is [not] necessarily uncritical. We may have no
> power to transcend our traditional inheritance completely--for we are
> finite, historically situated beings--but we do not have to rise above
> history to call assumptions in question. The attempt to stand outside one's
> age, Hagel said in a famous phrase, is like trying to jump over the Rhodes.
> You cannot do it. The danger comes when you think you have, for then you
> will be more likely than ever to set limits on criticism. You will view
> some
> of your assumptions as eternal deliverances of reason. It would be better
> to
> think of them as predjudices--as prejudgments [Pirsig would call such
> habits
> of thought, intellectual patterns of value] any one of which can in
> principle be placed in question provided most are kept in place at any
> given
> moment."
>
> Now it seems Pirsig said that he needed to "leave the mythos" to bring back
> the Quality postulate which explains his insanity. He put too many of
> tradition-bound assumptions into question at once. It was necessary for him
> to do so because he was pursuing the "Ghost of Reason" itself. But when he
> returned to create a thing called "The Metaphyics of Quality" he was back
> in
> the mythos, fighting to call a particular set of tradition-bound
> assumptions
> into question while maintaining others. If he didn't maintain others, he
> would be completely incomprehensible.
>
> Pirsig never expected the MOQ to be the final word on reality. His work is
> a
> contribution to an ongoing cultural process of self-creation that cycles
> from such innovation as his MOQ to criticism to revision to the next
> innovation. That the MOQ is not immune to this historical process does not
> diminish Pirsig's genius, it is just to say that Pirsig is a "finite,
> historically situated being."
>
> Best,
> Steve
>
>
>
>
>
> On Aug 25, 2009, at 9:53 PM, X Acto wrote:
>
> > Hello Steve,
> >
> > I think we mix in meaning, while I agree that what is percieved is shaped
> > by culture, and that Moq is not a free ticket to a gods eye view, it
> however
> > does provide a standard in which all human cultures may be understood
> > and measured in relation to their values.
> > Keeping in mind, that the intellectual level of a culture is defined by
> that culture.
> > its highest patterns being those that sustain social and biological
> quality.
> >
> > I do not think this effects our culturally derived perception as our
> culturally
> > derived understanding.
> > It informs us that our cultural values of intellect are not THE value of
> intellect.
> >
> >
> > Moq in this manner may be applied to any cultural context
> >
> > I really feel that it's most profound impact is on human values as a
> whole
> >
> > which break down universally in terms of four static levels of quality.
> >
> >
> >
> > -Ron
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----
> > From: Steve Peterson <peterson.steve at gmail.com>
> > To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> > Sent: Tuesday, August 25, 2009 6:52:16 PM
> > Subject: Re: [MD] The relativity of the MoQ
> >
> > Hi Ron,
> >
> >
> >> Steve,
> >>   I thought the premise behind the 4 levels was not only better
> understanding
> >> but
> >> the breaking of the paralysis of cultural relativism, and relativism in
> general,
> >> I got the feeling throughout Lila that that was the problem western
> society faced.
> >>
> >> and the arguement Pragmatism lacked
> >>
> >> you know
> >>
> >> virtue, excellence..betterness...Quality
> >>
> >> virtually both books are about the feelings of emptiness and detachment
> >> objectivism unleashes in the form of moral relativism.
> >>
> >> I agree it is not about what is true, but it IS about what is better.
> >>
> >> beliefs are justified through use in expereince otherwise they have no
> value.
> >>
> >> what else would be discussed than what values are better than others?
> >>
> >> and what framework would yield those answers but MoQ?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> I'm not sure how "I think therefore I am" figures into the conversation
> >> in this regard.
> >
> >
> > Steve:
> > I was referring to this bit from Lila:
> > "Our scientific description of nature is always culturally derived.
> Nature tells us only what our culture predisposes us to hear.  The
> selection
> of which inorganic patterns to observe and which to ignore is made on the
> basis of social patterns of value, or when it is not, on the basis of
> biological patterns of value. Descartes' "I think therefore I am" was a
> historically shattering declaration of independence of the intellectual
> level of evolution from the social level of evolution, but would he have
> said it if he had been a seventeenth century Chinese philosopher?  If he
> had
> been, would anyone in seventeenth century China have listened to him and
> called him a brilliant thinker and recorded his name in history?  If
> Descartes had said, "The seventeenth century French culture exists,
> therefore I think, therefore I am," he would have been correct."
> >
> > The MOQ is not immune to this sort of historical contingency either and
> so
> then is also culturally derived. This is not a dig on the MOQ. Everything
> is
> culturally derived. At least the MOQ includes an understanding of that
> fact.
> >
> > Twentieth century liberalism exists, therefore Pirsig thinks, therfore
> the
> MOQ exists.
> >
> > Best,
> > Steve
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