[MD] MOQ Recursion

[david buchanan]

Arlo said:
... Marsha and Bo are adding a new metaphysical entity to Pirsig's ideas, suggesting that in addition to DQ and SQ there is something called "labels" or "levels" that are neither DQ nor SQ (patterns of value) but something else. Or like Mary, they will say the "level" itself is a "pattern of value" but refuse to specify which type, suggesting then there are five types of patterns of value; inorganic, biological, social, intellectual and this other kind that is none of these but is still a "pattern of value".


"...patterns of value are divided into four systems: inorganic patterns, biological patterns, social patterns and intellectual patterns. They are exhaustive. That's all there are. If you construct an encyclopedia of four topics - inorganic, biological, social and intellectual - nothing is left out. No 'thing', that is. Only Dynamic Quality, which can not be described in any encyclopaedia is absent." (Robert Pirsig, LILA, p.149 or first page of chapter 12)


dmb says:

Yep. If you introduce some new category to the MOQ, regardless of the reason for doing so, I think you quite literally have to explain what in the world you're talking about. The four levels are suppose to cover all there is so that nothing except DQ is left out. It's pretty hard to imagine that Pirsig forgot to include "labels" or "levels" or "heart" or "meditation" in the world as we know it. Since the four levels are supposed include all things in an exhaustive way, it's hard to imagine what kind of "thing" would require the addition of a fifth level. Some new category of "thing" that does not exist yet? Is there some part of the world that Bo and Marsha have access to even though it doesn't appear in any encyclopedia? 

I think this whole mess has something to do with defining the 4th level as SOM. When you do that, there is a whole bunch of stuff that doesn't fit on the intellectual level anymore and so you have to invent places to put that stuff. 


If Pirsig's metaphysics were a motorcycle and Bo or Marsha offered to tune it up, I'd get a restraining order ASAP.


 


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