[MD] spanner in the works

[John Carl]

Bo,

Sorry for the tardiness.  I'll try and keep it clear since this is a
dialogue from a week ago:

I took issue with your formulation:


>
>    (Classic=intellect in the diagram and if so Romantic=society)
>
>
>
To which my objection was as follows:


>
> > Catch it Bo?  You put the romantic at the social level.  Tsk Tsk. Very
> > inapt.  Pirsig makes the opposite point, in Lila, I believe. Making
> > the SQ fall into a classic/romantic dichotomy.  You assign the Romantic
> > to the wrong level! I guess because you're an artist, and don't think
> > about what you do as thinking.
>
>
To which you reply:



> No I don't catch any flaws. To "translate" ZAMM into Moqish ain't easy
> and what "problem you have tried to explain" is beyond me. Regarding
> me "putting the romantic at the social level" follow my reasoning:
>
> Premise 1) In ZMM Classic Quality equals SOM equals Intellect.
>
>  "           2)  The Romantic/Classic equals Dynamic/Static
>
>
"Classic Mind" parting company with "Romantic Mind" means
> "emerging out of " and as classic=intellect and the intellectual level (in
> the MOQ) emerges out of the social level then "romantic" must
> correspond to the social level. Elementary Dr Carl.
>
>
John now:

But if the classic fallout from dynamic realization is intellect, then
Romantic Quality is ABOVE intellect, not below.  Elementary, Dr. Stuvik.
And I'm amazed at your blind spot.

After all, we know that Romantic consciousness, as defined in ZAMM
correlates with intuitive, aesthetic insight - ART, and it is ART that is
truly dominant over intellectual (Classic) understanding because Rationality
itself is an art.

Bo:


> But - again - the MOQ-ZAMM translation is a mind-boggling  business.
> In ZAMM there were just the intellectual level (SOM or Classic), but in
> the diagram this level is not seen as emerging from any social level
> rather the Romantic/Classic dualism emerging from Quality  (the same
> fallacy as the Quality/MOQ in LILA)  All this is the author Pirsig's
> failing
> to convey Phaedrus' simple but genial idea which was:.
>
> Pre-intellectual Quality spawning intellectual Quality (SOM) Translated
> into moqish: DQ spawning SQ! .
>
>
John:

My mind is not boggled.  I see clearly what the author tried to convey, and
it makes sense to me.  But I don't see anyway I could reformulate what he
said to make sense to you.  And the way you reformulate what he said makes
no sense to me whatsoever.  An impasse.

DQ spawning SQ means Romantic Spawning Classic means Art Spawning
Intellect.

But how you equate that to 3rd level spawning 4th, is where we disagree
totally, even though I think we understand each other clearly.

But one thing for sure, Romantic Quality is something much more than a
social phenomena.  In a quick one-off I sent some time ago, about the
difference between writers and poets, is, I believe, a key to understanding
how individual vs. social affirmation interact.  Writers produce
communication that must be realized by another to be valid.  But a poet
composes mainly to please himself.  It is the same with all Art.  Primarily
our artistic endeavors give us satisfaction by uniting an inner vision with
an outer expression.  But intellectual formulations are attempts to build
larger meaning - meaning they must include inter-subjective agreement.

Which is why writers are usually depressed and poets are usually happy.

I don't know what painters think.
I just know one who should see a shrink.

(kidding, kidding :-)

Bo:


> Thus when Pirsig began drawing diagrams and settled for the
> Romantic/Classic matrix he should have made Romantic Quality
> spawn Classic (intellectual or SOM) Quality. Period! And then with
> LILA's Dynamic/Static, the same thing: DQ spawning the 4 static
> levels. This would have  made LILA a smooth continuation of ZAMM
> and the MOQ a revolutionary creation.
>
>
John:

Well from this, it seems we basically agree.  I just don't get your
association of Romantic with 3rd level social patterning.  And I also don't
understand how we can disagree about the source of our confusion, when I
basically see it the same way as you formulate here, but I got that from
Pirsig.  And yet you say he didn't say this.



>
>    Paul:
>
>    But if the Sophists were part of the emergence of the
>    intellectual level - as you now accept -
>
>
Bo:


> Me ACCEPTING the Sophists as part of the emergence of intellect??.
> That's been my position all the time while Paul and his pupil DMB hotly
> denies that. What kind of Kafkaesque farce is this?
>
>
Paul:
>


>   and if they held a position which is contrasted, by Pirsig at
>    least, with the emerging subjective/objective dichotomy of
>    Plato, then what can we conclude?
>
> Bo:


> They opposed Socrates' & Plato's OBJECTIVE (Truth) approach but
> launched the SUBJECTIVE (all in man-made) approach and SOM was
> complete.
>
>

John:

Oh dear.  You're arguing about what "they" said and I don't  know if that is
correct, but I do feel its beside the point.  We should stick to what is the
best interpretation of existence, never mind who said what.  We use Pirsig's
MoQ because it grants us the best tool possible for answering the question,
"how do we know the best tool possible for figuring out the best tool
possible?"  And then accepting the Levels metaphor, or as Magnus calls them
"stacks" - which I hope you appreciated as an excellent rhetorical shift, as
I did - for analyzing moral questions and testing these answers in
experience.

This is all admittedly, an intellectual exercize, but that does not mean we
hold intellect as the only possible tool or as always, the best.  I think
that's your biggest hangup, right there.  Your SOM= Intellectual Stack has
got you trapped in only one way of thinking, and that's too inflexible a use
for such a dynamic tool as the MoQ.

 S/O as an either/or understanding will always fall flat.  Either can only
be in relationship to the other.  Subject requires Object and understanding
requires subject, object AND Quality.  A holy trinity indeed.

Out of this trio, Pirsig postulates Quality as absolute, and subject and
object as relative, thus introducing a monism.

Paul:


>    Your only other option is to reject Pirsig's description of the
>    Sophists' position with respect to S/O whilst accepting the rest
>    of his description of this period. This means your "unearthing
>    of the true MOQ" has started to erode the validity of ZMM as
>    well as everything else. You'll be down to one paragraph soon!
>
>
Bo:


> Yes, I definitely reject the Sophists representing DQ, no one can live in
> a dynamic state, the static range is our abode.



John:

So say you, but I wonder.  Ever heard of a Boddhisatva?  Are you projecting
your own stuckness universally upon all others?  How valid is that?

Bo:

They had either to
> represent the old Aretê (=social) era (but this was at least a thousand
> years in the past) or represent SOM's subjectivism and everything
> points to it.
>
>
John:

Your "everything" means everything you see and pick out and emphasize.  But
I can't accept your interpretation of the matter since I don't believe there
has ever been a pre-intellectual human on the face of the earth.  When
social apes formed intellectual patterns, man was born.  When intellect was
held as absolute, SOM was born.

Oh well.  Thanks for the  effort at explanation.  I refuse to give up hope.