[MD] MOQ Recursion

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[John]
Hey Arlo.  I think the point could be made.  The problem with the
word"definition" is the limits it places.  It's a way of saying, here's the
limit.  So I don't see the MoQ as a definition, so much as a process of
defining, infinitely and creatively.  I don't think this is a "definition".

[Arlo]
Hey John. I see what you're saying, but I am now convinced the problem is the
acronym. The "MOQ" is not a verb, it is a "metaphysics of Quality", it is the
result of the "defining process", one undertaken infinitely and creatively, but
IT is an artifact not a process.

I do agree, of course, that Pirsig's central thesis in ZMM was to showcase the
artful nature of the "figure sorting sand into piles". Or, in Carse's terms
(which I think you are referring to) to show how playful- an infinite game- the
discrimination process is, that it is NOT fixed- a finite game.

So I am not disagreeing that the act of defining- infinitely and creatively- is
where our "sorting sand into piles" should be, only that the "Metaphysics of
Quality" is a particular pile of sand as sorted by Robert Pirsig; a
high-quality one to be sure, but again its an artifact of the process which
points TO the process, not the process itself. 

Make sense?

[John]
An again, if fully fleshed out, a fully viable meta-twist.  "Labeling" is
synonomous with discriminating.  The process of discriminating is based upon
betterness.  Conceptualization IS Reality, you could make a pretty good
argument for that, I think.

[Arlo]
Discrimination is the "proof of Quality", as it were, and static patterns of
value are a result of an infinitude of discriminatory value-responses. I think
this is already in the Metaphysics of Quality.

But again, I think a "label" is an artifact of the labeling process. Right, so
a "label" is a static pattern of value that results from value-discrimination.

So I see a "label" as a static pattern of value, but Marsha seems to see
"labels" as being something other than SQ or DQ, something that precedes the
discriminatory process, rather than the result of it.

In any event, we're drifting from my original question here, and I'll restate
it.

Is the "inorganic level" itself a pattern of value, and if so what kind
(inorganic, biological, social, intellectual), and if not then what it is? 

Bo's answer to this also posits a third metaphysical type, "levels", which is
neither DQ nor SQ (exactly how Marsha added "labels", which are neither DQ nor
SQ).

I asked this because, of course, you can also ask "is the intellectual level
itself an intellectual pattern of values?", or "is the set of all intellectual
patterns itself also an intellectual pattern?" If not, what is it? 

[John]
Instead, Bob went a different way.  Lila's child is explicitly, part of an MoQ
that includes the reader, the interpreter as part of the dialogic process and
that's... unique.

[Arlo]
I'd argue the uniqueness is the recognition, but not in the form. ALL
metaphysics are evolving dialogues, everything that has ever been said is said
in response to, and in anticipation of, the historical dialogue (Bahktin).

The difference then is on focus, one privileges the artifact another the
process, but both are a process dialogue that creates artifacts along the way.