[MD] Mao & The MoQ

[skutvik at online.no]

Dave T.

17 Feb.: you spoke.

> The problem is that as science moves on, particularly in the
> biological and brain sciences, the MoQ as it stands is already in
> shambles.  Had RMP just named the levels and left it at that he would
> have been fine. He also wouldn't have been doing metaphysics.

Right, only the levels would not have been a new metaphysics, the 
Dynamic/ Static divide was necessary and his was/is his stroke of 
genius, but RMP got distracted with the futile task of proving the 
"Quality=Reality". The "tree is only known by its fruit" and the paradox-
free existence that the MOQ offers is its "fruit".     

> Unfortunately his broad and general rules, ie "discrete", "moral
> order", "in it's parent's service" etc. etc., start to break down as
> science finds phenomena which violate those hard and fast rules. 

IMO there's nothing wrong with the static ordering, nor with the MOQ 
tenets in general  - the "in it's parent's service" an exception -  nor is 
there anything wrong with the 4th level, "intellect" DOES mean the 
ability to distinguish between objective and subjective ...hadn't it been 
for you &%¤#"! Americans who have %¤#&/ up her Majesty's language 
and transformed the said term to mean "turning of mental wheels". 
(SMILEY).

> As biological science has progressed under people like E.O. Wilson,
> who invented the field of Sociobiology, the whole paradigm of "dog eat
> dog" ,"competition is king" model of biology has been thrown out the
> window. Not completely but it more like 90% cooperation 10%
> competition instead of the reverse. So as science finds out more and
> more about symbiotic relationships and the importance of groups and
> group behavior in biological evolution social (group) behavior comes
> more and more into play.

That there are cooperation and altruistic-like behavior galore among 
the higher mammal animals. that even birds care for their young and 
even flies lay their eggs where they can hatch - all this  is plain, there 
would not be any life if not, but just as plain is it that that EMOTIONS is 
not their motives for doing so (to stay with my "expression" list) Even 
more true to the Q-social hallmark is the realization of there being an 
existence and consequently a non-existence - death - and the 
formation of societies based on these "life and death" mythologies, 
later to become religions. Here we see the break with biology's "eat 
and proliferate" value.        

However I understand that you have accepted Magnus' "infinite social" 
heresy and in addition embrace the "infinite intellect" one. The MOQ 
would have stood tall hadn't it been for all who don't understand and 
undermines it by imposing their slightly camouflaged somish views.  

Bodvar 


PS:

[Lila 51]
> > Henri Poincare, who asked, 'Why is the reality most acceptable to
> > science one that no small child can be expected to understand?'
> > Should reality be something that only a handful of the world's most
> > advanced physicists understand? One would expect at least a majority
> > of people to understand it. Should reality be expressible only in
> > symbols that require university-level mathematics to manipulate?
> > Should it be something that changes from year to year as new
> > scientific theories are formulated? Should it be something about
> > which different schools of physics can quarrel for years with no
> > firm resolution on either side? If this is so then how is it fair to
> > imprison a person in a mental hospital for life with no trial and no
> > jury and no parole for 'failing to understand reality'? By this
> > criterion shouldn't all but a handful of the world's most advanced
> > physicists be locked up for life? Who is crazy here and who is sane?

Pirsig has obviously had many "great insights" some very good 
regarding ZAMM, but not so useful after having  worked out the MOQ, 
still, he couldn't resist including them in LILA. For instance the "Hot 
Stove" which clearly is another version of ZAMM's "Cutting Edge", but 
in LILA it merely confuses and so does the Poincarè argument which 
is also from ZAMM where SOM or "intellect" - with science its foremost 
pattern  - was the only static fall-out and , and as we know, produces 
paradoxes galore that not even "university-level mathematics" can 
reconcile. 

I can understand his resentment against psychiatry that declared him 
insane, but in a MOQ hindsight this fits his own level "immune system" 
theory with psychiatry the intellectual such and the hospital staff its 
henchmen who had to take care of him in the state he were.

Now, what he means is obviously that a child will "intuite" that "Reality 
is Quality" and according to the MOQ even atoms and earthworms 
intuites their respective value "roles", but to follow in Pirsig's path and 
transcend the intellectual level and for this to be possible we have to 
understand that the MOQ lies beyond intellect)  and this requires an 
understanding of SOM = intellect and that's no child play, but seems 
as difficult as the proverbial camel through a needle eye according to 
this discussion.