[MD] Why isn't the hot stove obvious?

[skutvik at online.no]

Mary and all who have responded to the "Hot Stove" issue.


IMO that "parable" is from a very early stage akin to ZAMM's "Leading 
Edge" example and very useful there, but in LILA where the final MOQ 
is presented becomes an enigma. It was intended as a demonstration 
of how immediate Value is and in ZAMM where SOM (called 
"intellect") was DQ'a sole static fall-out (..and what blocks out DQ) in 
the MOQ, however, jumping from hot places becomes the workings of 
the (biological) autonomous neural system. Admittedly, biology is more 
basic than society and intellect, but nevertheless a static level, so 
Pirsig's obsession with the Reality=Quality issue obscures the MOQ. .

An aside: The autonomous neural system is interesting enough. Some 
of you may know the Benjamin Libet experiments that created such a 
furor in the eighties. The signal propagation through nerves isn't very 
fast, it takes (I believe) half a second  from toe to brain, but stepping 
on a "hot stove" makes you jump immediately - while the signal only is 
at knee level. So it's not any brain involved, but now comes the really 
weird part. WHEN the signal finally reaches the brain it "forwards" the 
feeling of pain in time so as to match the moment you step on the 
tack. This is really "occult". 

Why don't we see "Quality coming"?:  

> If all is Quality, why can't we see it coming?  What do we lack in order
> to predict the ultimate outcome or goal of Quality?  At the various
> levels, why do we not universally agree on what the highest Quality
> outcome would be? Why, for example, has there been recent disagreement
> here surrounding the best behavior of government?  Should we not be able
> to all equally discern this?  Shouldn't recognition of Quality at all
> levels be as intuitive as the hot stove?

NB. Quality is MOQ's DQ)

Mary speaks much like Phaedrus in ZAMM: "Why don't we 
intellectually recognize Quality"? And the answer is that INTELLECT IS 
SOM where quality is a less-than-real subjective phenomenon. Young 
Phaedrus realized this and presented an alternative MOQ where 
SOM=intellect, but for some reason Pirsig of LILA de-fused this by the 
bland mind-like intellectual level which leaves the MOQ as 
revolutionary as a cup of old tea.

I don't know if Mary is the address here, but just for the gallery:

For the MOQ to be revolutionary SOM must be made its highest static 
level - all of it, every last bit!! If SOM is made one intellectual pattern 
and the MOQ another, the 4th. level becomes SOM's mind - a mental 
container where ideas reside -  and SOM goes on unperturbed. 

For Pirsig the Reality=Quality issue and proofs thereof  was his 
obsession. If that was established he regarded the mission as 
accomplished, the MOQ just one possible ordering of Quality. But the 
Reality=Quality is part and parcel of the MOQ, namely its first axiom 
and axioms can't be proved. The proof is in the  result of such a 
quality-ordered universe, and in that respect the MOQ (in its true SOL 
interpretation) is matchless. I haven't found one single weak point. 

Bodvar