[MD] [MD} The relativity of the MoQ

[skutvik at online.no]

Andre (the ignored prophet ;-) 

Spoke from the mountain on Aug 28.:

> I should say something, I suppose, since I suggested the tread 'cos I was
> interested. Acces to my computer stopped me fromearlier responses and I do
> thank those who did, Ron, Steve etc. Many things have been said since and
> dmb has departed as well.
 
You see how soon threads decays and/or hijacked by other "causes"

> Re Dave: too much hay on the fork every time he responded,... too many
> quotes as well. I was more interested in dmb's interpretation than
> Pirsig's statements. A few lines would have sufficed but all we got were
> (repeated) static patterns...and loads of them. Still I am a bit sad he's
> gone. One of those 'pullers to stay in the path' people. But I thought
> about that today...how can you stray within the context of the MoQ? Either
> something has quality or (low) quality.

DMB entered back in the mid nineties shortly after the forming of the  
Lila Squad with an intense interest in Mythology as conveyed by 
Campbell and a conviction of this fitting with MOQ's social level 
(which it does) but he was  "seduced" by Paul Turner whose mission 
was to debunk the SOL interpretation and after that ..... well without 
the right interpretation the MOQ becomes a drag, nothing fits and it 
can't explain or predict anything.   

> The influence of Eastern mysticism on the development of the MoQ cannot be
> overestimated.

But does the Orientals really regard their world view as "mystic"?  As 
an Occidental having lived in China you should know (OK perhaps 
China is not the place) 

> Some of us do not realise this. The MoQ, as Pirsig has intended it, can
> be said to be an attempt at bridging the void between the East and the
> West. ( I gather this from Pirsig who has suggested that Northrop's The
> Meeting of East and West has greatly influenced him...and he is some
> sort of a pupil... still...).

A bridge from the West to the East - Yes -  but if - as Pirsig says - the 
Orientals had had an encounter with the intellectual level *) before 
going on to some Quality-like insight they need no bridge, its us who 
need it, they know what's it like to be trapped in intellect-as-SOM 
...and also that their Quality-like stance must look like mysticism.   

*) Pirsig says "creating an intellectual level of their own" (allegedly a 
non-S/O one) but that would be like creating a biological level that's 
not life. Life on other planets may be not be based on carbon, yet is 
"biology", this goes for the inorganic and social levels too, thus the 
intellectual level - be it in Greece, India or Proxima Centaurus has to 
be the Subject/Object distinction, lest it is seen as a mind with 
different ideas, but if so it's back in SOM.   

> The notion of Quality, the Tao, the Void suggests a fundamental unity...an
> All from which it originates and to which we shall, inevitably return. Ham
> asked, at one stage what is the cause. Scientists would simply say: 'A
> quantum fluctuation!'. Are you happy with this Ham?? It was a quantum
> fluctuation arising from Quality, the Tao, the Void, the Vessel that
> contains Everything. Empty yet fertile. Are you happy with this Ham?? Of
> course not, because it does not fit your mind-set... which is some sort of
> value sensibility, proprietary agent who has to sense it first. Nothing
> will satisfy you outside of this mind- set. Again: what are you doing here
> on this MoQ discuss??

Agree about Ham

> Of course the MoQ is Pirsig's philosophy...however one's ideas always
> stand upon the shoulders of someone else's. You cannot hold that against
> him or Jesus, or Einstein or the Buddha, Newton, Whitman, Bohm, Sidis,
> Muhammed, me, you or anyone else

As said before, Pirsig's obsession was Quality, but as you say it may 
just as well be called Tao, the Void, ... anything. Where Pirsig went a 
bit astray is the notion that SOM has a reality ahead of the S/O. It has 
NOT, if so SOM would have been a static stage of that X - exactly as 
what it is as MOQ's 4th. level!!!

This about SOM=intellect was Phaedrus' (in ZAMM) original insight, 
but Pirsig turned this possible bridge material into a mysticism of his 
own with the Quality/MOQ statement. Much like a taoist were to say 
"Tao is just a theory, the real Tao is outside of Tao". One can be too 
subtle.        

> Kill all intellectual patterns (including the MoQ!!) completely, follow DQ
> and morality will be served.

See the intellectual level for what it REALLY is, namely the highest 
static good, a view possible only from the MOQ. "Killing the MOQ" 
only brings you back into SOM 

> Thing is, when you die, you are the only one that dies... no one else is
> there for you or with you.. 'And in the end, the love you take , is equal
> to the love you make'.

My own original insight - long before before the MOQ, yet somehow 
affirmed by it  - was that it is impossible to BE dead. The verb 
indicates being and "to be dead" conveys some Poe-ish horror. Once 
free from this language-induced misconception one understands that 
death is just a return to the same "status" you had before the 
biological stage. No one speaks about the individuals that (we know) 
will be born in the future as "dead" at the present time. Is this the 
cause behind the Semitic religions (social level) with their emphasis 
on an eternal corporeal life, and then Christianity taking leave from 
this with its (intellectual) soul/body distinction, the former to be 
preserved. Hopefully the final epitome of wisdom - the MOQ - will be 
reached.

Bodvar