[MD] The relativity of the MoQ

Thu Aug 27 12:55:19 PDT 2009

inorganic
organic
social

intellect only in reference in the sustaining
of the afore mentioned

but not much else

----- Original Message ----
From: MarshaV <valkyr at att.net>
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2009 3:52:41 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] The relativity of the MoQ

Ron,

Consider this one last point.  A patterns existence?  How many of the
patterns that cycle through mind are really pertinent to physical survival?

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 3:47 PM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] The relativity of the MoQ

You do have a point which ties in with Steves post
better as opposed to what?

my only venture is survival

to exist

I think I need the evening to meditate on this
for no answers are readily at hand

perhaps this is all we have and it's worked fairly well so far

and thats the best we can do to understand it.

good discussion

----- Original Message ----
From: MarshaV <valkyr at att.net>
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2009 3:39:40 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] The relativity of the MoQ

Ron,

But this is exactly what I'm getting at.  In the direct experience there is
only experience, there is no comparison with past or future.  But the
patterns are relative.  The patterns may have a higher or lower value based
on their usefulness, but it is a relative patterned usefulness.  

Why would one pattern be chosen over another?  Why does one pattern have
more meaning than other?  These are not insignificant questions, but more
likely it is a pattern doing the choosing.  Even the notion that there is an
'I' doing the choosing is a pattern.  No truth there either...    

Even the fact that I feel a need to get to the bottom of this is a pattern.
I just can't lay it on Radical Empiricism and American Pragmatism.  If it is
not useful to actual experience, what use is it at all?  The only true
experience is Silence.  

Why is an intellectual pattern more true?  Is it because it is suppose to
have less subjective-values?  Please...    

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 2:36 PM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] The relativity of the MoQ

ok, well, what IS real? one needs a basis for comparison.

I would think value is what is most "real"

what gives choice from one pattern from another?

why choose one pattern over another?

why does one pattern have more meaning than another?

----- Original Message ----
From: MarshaV <valkyr at att.net>
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2009 2:07:39 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] The relativity of the MoQ

I am at a disadvantage because I do not know Rorty's philosophical position.
As far as I can think this through, there is the Ultimate Truth which cannot
be divided, undefined or known.  And then there is these patterns, some of
which are called truth, but are totally relative to past conceptually
interpreted experience and projected into the future.  I am not saying that
they should be rejected, I've never said I thought they should be reject,
but known as what they are: relative truth so that a better assessment can
be made.  Relative truth is better than calling them illusion, which they
are.  I can acknowledge watching the patterns flip through my mind, but not
accept them as real. They are patterns and totally relative.      

-----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 1:27 PM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] The relativity of the MoQ

See, I think this was Daves beef,
Rorty did'nt have betterness and value
to support his claims so his ideas were
colored as a kind of relativism.

----- Original Message ----
From: X Acto <xacto at rocketmail.com>
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2009 1:06:49 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] The relativity of the MoQ

well,
This is where I think the Pragmatists, especially
the topic of debate (Rorty) would say this is where
cultural agreement rests in regard to convential truths
for they are contextual to these agreements. It's what
gives them the illusion of being universal.

----- Original Message ----
From: MarshaV <valkyr at att.net>
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2009 12:42:58 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] The relativity of the MoQ

I've been thinking about (t)ruth, and of course if you define it as DQ than
it is indivisible, undefinable and unknowable, and you are talking about
Ultimate Truth. But what of conventional truth?  Been thinking that
conventional truth is related to time (past and future(patterns)), and since
past and future are illusions conventional truth is illusion too, but we
already know this.  I don't know how conventional truth can be thought
anything but relative to one's conception of past and future experience?

-----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 12:30 PM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] The relativity of the MoQ

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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