[MD] Overcoming the System

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi Matt

27 Aug.:

Steve said in a different thread:
> > 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."

Matt:
> This is one of the interesting dynamics in Pirsig's written work--his
> movement between wanting to say, "Continue the MoQ, the _MoQ_ will
> help us, the _MoQ_ is the best metaphysics around" and wanting to say,
> "Every person needs their own philosophy, because the arc of America
> is our individuality."
 
> When you put the two together, that's when you get a weird monster
> like, "The MoQ was created to be transcended.  Let's work _on the MoQ_
> so that we can transcend it."  That's when you get the weird dynamic
> from people telling you at one point that you're rejecting the MoQ
> (and that's bad) and the same people telling you at a different point
> that you're mired in other people's philosophy.

You point to something important and it stems from the intellectual 
level (SOM) that the MOQ is supposed to transcend, but is prevented 
from). Intellect has an alleged reality "out there" that we are supposed 
to deliver theories about, the Aristotelian "metaphysics" no different, 
it's an all-encompassing  theory, but nevertheless about the alleged 
"reality". From this Aristotelian (intellectual) point of view the MOQ is 
just a good approach, and it can theoretically be used as a stepping 
stone to even better approaches, yet not IT. This way the MOQ is (as 
Steve says) not the final word 

But this is the "MOQ an intellectual pattern" assertion that prevents it 
from transcending SOM or Intellect which is supposed to be a MOQ 
pattern.and thereby a reality of its own with no umbilical chord to the 
Aristotelian kind. This Q-reality one either can refuse to enter or one is 
caught in it like a black hole. This above - MOQ an intellectual pattern 
- makes the MOQ incomplete, I compare it with Socrates whose 
obsession was TRUTH but oblivious to the SOM that was to grow from 
it. Pirsig DID however make the MOQ but his obsession with Quality 
and seeing as independent of the MOQ .... OK everybody knows my 
frustration here.            

> Steve, I think, has given us the exact circumlocution for this problem
> in Pirsig.  _The MoQ_ has no entity outside of Pirsig: it is _his_
> philosophy, _his_ writing.  For Pirsig, or anyone, to say that the MoQ
> recognizes it's own contingency, or that it will itself be
> transcended, is just to say that _Pirsig_ is a finite, historically
> situated being.  It is just to remind us of the fact that the system
> was created by a person responding to his own personal, unique
> problems, which as general as they sometimes may appear to be, may not
> always be our own problems, particularly in the new, yet unforeseeable
> future.

Most subtle observation Matt, but this quandary is just what the MOQ 
is supposed to be a relief from. But as said Pirsig isn't all clear here. It 
sounds as if he sees a future when/if the MOQ is rejected still  being a 
Quality Reality. Almost as silly as his assertion that SOM is/was a 
"moq". Admittedly MOQ's intellectual level is the VALUE of the S/O 
distinction but in that case it's stripped of the metaphysical "rank".

> We _have_ to come back to the individual a lot more often than we do
> when reading Pirsig.  Pirsig himself would seem to suggest it, and the
> conceptual machinery is important, but it is _not_ the end, it is only
> the _means_, in the bigger picture of life.

The individual (it's mind) and the "conceptual machinery" (thoughts 
conveyed by language) have no place in the MOQ, If we try to include 
these we end in the absurd - all is mind, all is language. You seem not 
to understand the MOQ. It's about spotting existence's ground and 
then the dynamic/static split of this ground. If the individual is "the 
measure of all things" a metaphysics of the individual - a MOI - is 
overdue and I buy it as I buy a metaphysics of language, its the 
Dynamic/Static instead of the Subject (individual)/Object that counts.

Bodvar

























> 
> Matt
> 
> _________________________________________________________________ Get
> back to school stuff for them and cashback for you.
> http://www.bing.com/cashback?form=MSHYCB&publ=WLHMTAG&crea=TEXT_MSHYCB
> _BackToSchool_Cashback_BTSCashback_1x1 Moq_Discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
> 
>