[MD] The Quality/MOQ dichotomy.

[Ham Priday]

Bo --



> Yes, yes, from intellect's mind/matter point of view this is obvious.
> It's a subject - a mind - that interprets reality, that imposes
> meaning on an otherwise meaningless world. The argument is
> watertight and shockproof from intellect's S/O premises, but
> MOQ's premises is not that.

Experience IS "interpreting reality".  MOQ's premise is (or is alleged to 
be) a metaphysical theory.  Unlike experience, it is not "watertight or 
shockproof."  In fact it cannot be confirmed by the intellect or empirical 
experience.  There's nothing wrong with hypothesis (my ontology is also 
theoretical), except when it rejects existential reality -- the self-evident 
objective world we live in as cognizant subjects.  In order to accept the 
premise of a unified Dynamic Quality, we have to hypothesize that our "real 
world" does not exist.  Not even the MoQ can do this without positing levels 
of quality, the divisions of which cannot logically be attributed to an 
undivided source.

> A metaphysics that has rejected the subject/object dichotomy (and
> relegated it the role of its 4th. level) can't well be accused of
> "objectify" anything. Now, the said "expression" list is my making,
> but it just matches the MOQ so fantastically well. For instance, the
> intellectual level (Reason) is rising above the social level where
> emotions rule.

Bo, don't you see that the "expressions" you list -- inorganic, biological, 
social, and intellectual -- are all functions or processes of objective 
phenomena relating to the individual and his experience?  Why do you insist 
that only inorganic phenomena are interactive?  Don't biological life forms 
interact?  Aren't emotions a product of the observer's interaction with 
experienced events?  Don't we associate numbers or facts intellectually when 
reasoning to a conclusion?  I won't even attempt to understand why you put 
"emotions" under "social", since society is non-sentient and only the 
individual can have emotions.

But beyond all the parsing, of what possible advantage is theorizing a value 
"tetrology" when experience (intellect) tells us that existence is a simple 
dichotomy?

> Ref, the dimension example.  A being at the social level will not
> "see" the (good of) the higher intellectual view. Regrettably this
> goes for the intellect-dweller like yourself who can't see the higher
> MOQ vista.

I see the good (Value) of a transcendent source in everything I experience. 
This revelation is psycho-emotional for me, not "intellectual".  In your 
haste to "reject" the self/other dichotomy, you Pirsigians refuse to 
acknowledge subjective cognizance or psychic awareness without which there 
is no existence.  Instead, you make the mistake of euphemizing a totally 
objective reality.

> "Everything as objective", would it sound better with "everything as
> subjective"?

Yes, it would, because Quality (Value) itself is subjective.  Its reality is 
dependent on its being experienced.  Only a cognizant subject can 
experience.  Quality or Value is something we feel or sense prior to 
experience.  Pirsig himself maintained this it's "the cutting edge of 
reality".  Isn't subjective discernment the key to the MoQ, or any other 
philosophy for that matter?

> For the nth. time, the S/O is only relevant at the
> intellectual level, the highest and best static value, yet subordinate
> to the overall Dynamic/Static system.

Existence is subordinate to its essential source, just as the parts are 
subordinate to the whole.  By that paradigm I can understand Temporal vs. 
Eternal, Finite vs. Absolute, Differentiated vs. Whole, Sensibility vs. 
Otherness, Proprietary vs. Universal, Subjective vs. Objective, Appearance 
vs. Reality, Actuality vs. Potentiality, Existence vs. Essence.  These are 
all workable metaphysical dichotomies.

However, an ontology that is split between "Dynamic and Static" just doesn't 
make it for me.

But thanks again, Bo.  I appreciate your patience with a "non-believer".

--Ham