[MD] Some historical perspective

[John Carl]

On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 10:17 AM, <skutvik at online.no> wrote:

> For John.
>
> 25 Oct.:
>
> > Blind Man Bo wrote the most ridiculous words I've yet witnessed on this
> > forum:
>
> > You once pointed to Bohr's "we are suspended in
> > > language" thus it's the ocean we swim in, there's nothing not
> > > conveyed by language in this world.
>
> > When the blind man touches the elephant, true information  is conveyed.
> > When the Blind Man formulates the words, the truth is gone.
>
> A little friendly bantering is OK particularly when about a  most
> interesting topic. Now collect your wits and listen.



Ok Friend-banterer Bo,  I will do my very best in the time I have...




> The MOQ postulate
> that existence's fundamental divide is the DQ/SQ one, this in contrast
> to SOM's subject/object divide.
>


Yes.  But now that you ask me for my wits, I'm going to use them on every
single thing you say.  What is the real difference between the two?  If you
ask me, its the postulation of the self as the center of existence.  SOM
says its the fundamental reality of a self sitting there and analyzing the
reality out there.  MoQ postulates this as problematic, "self"
contradictory, and then comes to the conclusion that Quality is the
fundamental reality.  That which is Good.  Asking what is good is a
meaningful question and coming up with a metaphysics that takes Good as the
basic fundament leads to higher quality explanations for existence - such as
the MoQ extended version that Pirsig started and we are discussing and
continuing to work out.



> The (elephant) allegory somehow indicates that senses presents
> TRUTH and that words (=language) is a secondhand derivation. Now
> if you compare it to the S/O and DQ/SQ divides, which of the these
> does it correspond to? The S/O I'd say.
>


No.  The elephant allegory indicates  the incompleteness of isolated
individual perception.

I used it to point to you the fact that when you are blind and touching an
elephant, there are no words conveying information to your brain, there are
other means of conveying information than intellectual or linguistic.

This was to refute your silly sentence that  there is NOTHING not conveyed
with language in this world.  Obviously there is a great deal conveyed all
the time without language.

What you should have said, to be correct, is that there is nothing conveyed
without language in this world of words we share on this forum.  Maybe that
is what you meant, but if so, then you should say what you mean.




>
> Now, for some reason this Reality/Language distinction has seeped
> into the MOQ as some meta-metaphysics that overrides MOQ's
> DQ/SQ. Tragically it's Pirsig himself who introduced it with his
> embrace of William James (and DMB peddling this a revelation) and
> his (Pirsig's) weird "Quality/MOQ" postulate, namely that the MOQ is
> secondhand because it's a static - written - thesis fundamentally
> different from the Quality Reality it describes.
>
>

A couple things Bo, first, I agree with you that W. James was the wrong
person to turn to for metaphysical assistance, and it seems evident to me,
even though I came late to the game, that this wrong fork in the road was
followed for too long. Overly Static attachment to earlier commitments
demonstrates that someone wasn't listening to "Kill all intellectual
patterns" very closely...

However, the "Quality/MOQ" postulate you rail against is something to which
I do partially subscribe.  Let's call them two versions the fundamental MoQ
and the MoQ extended version.

The fundamental MoQ is just what I stated earlier - that Quality is the
fundamental basis of reality - the cosmos is a moral order.

The MoQ extended is Pirsig's explanation of existence based upon this
fundamental realization.  A snapshot in time that was fully developed when
Lila was published.

The Lila's child further development was an ongoing evolution of this
thought, and will hopefully continue long after we all are gone, because the
nature of high quality intellectual and social patterns is that they persist
beyond our biological beingness.

Now, with my understanding of the situation, you're disgruntled because you
feel the low - quality of a dogmatic and static system being latched down
tight without reference to the Dynamic aspect of Quality.  The MoQ can't
evolve, because it is whatever Pirsig and DMB said it is period.

But if that is what is bugging you at heart, you ought to cast it out.  It's
gone.  It's doesn't exist except in your memories and mind and you are free
to SOL to your heart's content.

Now.  Which is the best way of portraying reality?  You've presented your
case many times and failed to earn much applause for it, but if you are
absolutely sure of yourself then by all means continue.  But try a different
tactic.  Convey your thinking in terms you haven't used before or write a
poem or something.  Because honestly, just goin' over it all the time with
stuff like:

"this Reality/Language distinction has seeped
into the MOQ as some meta-metaphysics that overrides MOQ's
DQ/SQ."

doesn't really make sense to me.  "Overrides??"  How?  What do you even mean
with such words?  What does your mind picture when you make them?  When I
read them, I picture nothing so concrete but the pejorative connotation of
dominance that sends a snarl to my lips when I think of anybeing trying to
get up and override me.




> This is not only un-moqish, it's outright SOM-ish Again, MOQ's divide
> is Dynamic/Static, not between Qualify and its linguistic presentation.
> There is nothing that is NOT language, silent as thoughts or spoken
> out loud ... or written. Even the "elephant" story point could not be
> conveyed without language. This, however, does not prevent us from
> "speaking/thinking" about a pre-language or non-language reality, i.e.
> that language entered the Q-evolution at some stage
>


Yeah and I have a big problem with the way you like to order everything so
statically in stages and progressions and hierarchical orderliness with the
nice neat climb from cave dwellers to intellectual Bo.

Big problem.




>
> As little as MOQ's postulating a Dynamic Quality is "static" and makes
> the MOQ inferior to what it is about. Wish I had a metaphysical
> grindstone and could put you nose against it (SMILEY)
>
> Bodvar
>
>
But Bodvar dear, you do.  Yes you certainly do. My nose and ears are
 bleeding just from having to to read that sentence and make it make sense
to my brain.

Nope.  Can't do it.