[MD] Hot stoves and those who sit on them

[skutvik at online.no]

Marsha, Andre (who will not see this) All.
 
March 28. you said to Andre

> I certainly will miss your Buddhist wisdom.  But I cannot help but wonder
> about the expression of your "having to defend Pirsig against himself" ,
> especially when RMP talks in ZMM of explanations being both true and
> false, and in LILA of more than one set of truths.  

After his "conversion" to orthodoxy Andre gave the impression of 
defending Pirsig against my heresy, but had he said "having to defend 
the MOQ against Pirsig" he would be right because Pirsig can be 
ambiguous to say the least. Let's have a look at these quotes.

> "Any philosophic explanation of Quality is going to be both false and
> true precisely because it is a philosophic explanation. The process of
> philosophic explanation is an analytic process, a process of breaking
> something down into subjects and predicates. What I mean (and
> everybody else means) by the word quality cannot be broken down into
> subjects and predicates. This is not because Quality is so mysterious
> but because Quality is so simple, immediate and direct." (ZMM, Chapter
> 20) 

SOM and "philosophy" are identical. The old Greek philosophers who 
started the search for eternal principles also started the search for 
Truth, or (as it happened) to try to  distinguish the real article from 
what just appeared as true (these two quests are indistinguishable). 
Thus Pirsig is correct that "philosophical explanations" will be both true 
and false i.e. never escape SOM because SOM IS the "true/false" 
aggregate. But Pirsig has created a metaphysical explanation that 
transcends SOM and this (DQ/SQ) metaphysics relegates SOM the 
role of its own highest yet static level. And now he can't continue the 
"MOQ-just-another-intellectual  ..." sophistry. Now it's for real.      

> "...if Quality or excellence is seen as the ultimate reality then it becomes
> possible for more than one set of truths to exist. Then one doesn't seek
> the absolute Truth.  One seeks instead the highest quality intellectual
> explanation of things with the knowledge that if the past is any guide to
> the future this explanation must be taken provisionally; as useful until
> something better comes along.

Well, this is wrong, here he gives intellect - the level - the role as the 
judge of what is GOOD *) but no static level knows the overall view, 
they all promote their own limited static good, and we know, intellect's 
immune system struck Phaedrus down, let him go through the 
treatment and spat him out as cured.   

*) here he means "intelligence" 

> One can then examine intellectual realities the same way one examines
> paintings in an art gallery, not with an effort to find out which one
> is the 'real' painting, but simply to enjoy and keep those that are of
> value. 

Yes, that's what the MOQ does, but it does not merely examine 
intellectual patterns, but all static levels and their patterns. And from its 
meta-view there aren't really good and bad patterns inside a level, 
rather simple and complex ones.    

> There are many sets of intellectual reality in existence and we can
> perceive some to have more quality than others, but that we do so is,
> in part, the result of our history and current patterns of values.
> (LILA, Chapter 8)    

"More intellectual quality"? Hmmmm. Take for instance Greek Physics 
versus Newton's, the former were full of strange notions that could not 
explain much except create paradoxes, all of which Newtonian Physics 
dissolved, and yet the former were a necessary first baby grovel. I 
would have used simple vs complex.      

> Maybe I'm fortunate to have painting to totally distract me when I get
> feeling stuck. For instance, I have started painting, from an old etched
> print, a gypsy woman seriously playing a guitar.  It is an impossible
> task, I love to paint.  -  What do you love to do?

Agree, although (as Platt said the) the most rewarding phase is to 
contemplate the empty canvas - countless great paintings is hidden on 
it, only one can get stuck in manifesting one of them. Agree even more 
on MD and painting as a good combination, but that may go for all jobs

> I've often wanted to ask people, how does the MoQ make their lives better?
>  Abstract thinking about metaphysical subject matter is wonderful, but has
> it changed your life?  

Yes definitely, but only after the SOL interpretation dawned on me. 

Bodvar