[MD] MOQ Recursion

[skutvik at online.no]

Arlo, DMB, ALL. 

Arlo had 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".

I have spoken to Arlo before and see no use in repeating it.  
 
> > "...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)

As aid the most obvious fact "left out" is that the Dynamic/Static and 
static levels ordering is the  Metaphysics of Quality and it can't fit into 
its own subset called "the intellectual level".   

DMB comments:
> 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. 

What new category - to the MOQ - are you talking about? The only 
extra category I know is the super-Quality that MOQ's DQ is just a 
static sub-set of.  

> 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 know you just write this to tease me, but you - like Arlo - ignore that 
the intellectual level cant contain the system that has created and 
contains the levels. A little logic won't hurt. 

> 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. 

On THAT point you are right, the 4th. level is crucial and defining it the 
way you do as an idea-compartment with SOM one idea, the MOQ 
another, that way ALL IS INTELLECT and that's the demise of the 
MOQ. You bet there are lots of stuff that doesn't fit the intellectual 
level, and never was meant to fit it, for instance inorganic, biological 
and social patterns of value.   


Bodvar