[MD] Hot stoves and those who sit on them

[MarshaV]

On Mar 29, 2010, at 8:55 AM, skutvik at online.no wrote:

> 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.      

You know I agree with you on the fourth Intellectual Level reflecting 
a reality formed through the SOM prism.   I think this quote explains 
the contradiction between the MoQ representing a Reality equal to 
Quality (DQ/sq), and RMP's definitions, explanations and examples 
of the MoQ which turns it into "an analytic process, a process of breaking
something down into subjects and predicates."  If one accepts the MoQ,
then Reality has gone from being subjects and objects -to- Reality being
Quality(Dynamic/static,) from a metaphysics based on subjects/objects
to a metaphysics based quality, from a dualism to a monism, from SOM 
to MoQ.  
 

> 
>> "...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" 

I do not see problem with this quote;  it seems obvious enough to me a 
dismissal of the search for Absolute Truth.  

I agree with you that there is a difference between Intellectual static
patterns of value and intelligence.  I understand 'intelligence' as the
skillful use of whatever patterns (organic, biological, social & 
intellectual) a given situation requires, or possibly to use no patterns 
if nothing is required.   



> 
>> 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.    

I think this agree with my above definition of intelligence.



> 
>> 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.      

Even between complex and complex there could be a best for the occasion;
the best for a particular occasion, and for a 'generality'  a remembrance 
that in all probability a better solution will eventually come along. 


> 
>> 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. 

For me the important realization was the nature of patterns.   And the MoQ
became less confusing when I realized the Intellectual Level was, most 
certainly, a subject-object level.   This second realization was not a result
of your arguments directly.  It struck me like a 2x4 in the middle of disagreeing
with you. But you were correct!  The fourth level is a formalized subject/object 
level.


Marsha 



 
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