[MD] the sophists

[Andre Broersen]

Bodvar to Andre:

I see DMB's footprint here, but the MOQ's fundamental is NOT Pure
existence/Concepts, but Dynamic/Static Quality. FYI

Andre:
And immediately we appear to be at war again Bodvar! The 'MOQ's fundamental is Quality out of which is sliced DQ/sq. (just bear with me for a minute before you are beginning to rant and rave again. Mr. Pirsig presents his MOQ from a static perspective, he says so quite explicitly in LILA). This has ramifications because how do you convey, communicate the Quality idea(!)arrived at 'dynamically' to an audience? Well, you present it through books and through talking about it. You present it in a way that you hope people will most likely understand you. You do this intellectually, through metaphor, ideas, concepts and this is inevitable.

But your final remark, noted above, betrays your frustration and bias. This is a direct reference to William James who Mr. Pirsig has accorded his appreciation and similarity with regards to his radical empiricist theory and his pragmatic approach (also theory, by the way).

You are no fan of William James and by implication no fan of Mr. Pirsig (the 'latter-day', mature Phaedrus!). You seem to be rejecting radical empiricism in the way it presents its fruits, its insights to the world. You appear to be rejecting James''immediate flux of life which furnishes the material to our later reflection with its conceptual categories', Northrop's 'undifferentiated aesthetic continuum', the Buddha's 'Nothingness'( within which there is great working) and also by implication Mr. Pirsig's Dynamic Quality... as the source from which DQ/sq is abstracted.

I think this rejection is based on your notion that you want desparately the MOQ to have emerged out of SOM and out of your SOL interpretation ( to give it status I suppose). But, as I have pointed out to you very often (and never got a response) this simply isn't the case. ( See Anthony's PhD and textbook if you do not believe me... well you probably believe me but you reject it!).
Mr. Pirsig says himself that it arrived 'dynamically' without the use of the analytical scalpel.

Within MOQ terms, call it the interplay, LILA's dance, in a relationship between the intellectual level and the code of art.Mr.Pirsig refers to this as the 'Dynamic Code'. This 'Code' 'refers to something that cannot be conceptualized but is known to be better e.g. the code an abstract artist 'follows' when producing art. Stapledon's (1929, p 8)'dark god' illustrates it well:
In literature and art, war is waged against authority and restraint.We are familiar with the cruseade for spontaneity,instinct, the sub conscious, and with the cult of the creative and non-rational'.
(Anthony's textbook, p 46)

This you will probably reject because of your bias but if you and when you accept Mr. Pirsig's definition of the intellectual level, i.e the critical(not just thinking, not just language!)the CRITICAL (also meaning: conscious) manipulation of symbols, you may appreciate that you can also creatively manipulate symbols and this is what Mr. Pirsig has shown us. This creative process has not only led to Phaedrus' Quality idea (!) in ZMM but it has also produced the MOQ of LILA, out of which arose a new set of symbols for us to consider.( to be used as a guide, a finger pointing at and a way to orientate our dharma towards on our quest to betterness for ourselves, our fellow sentient beings and future generations)  To wit: Dynamic Quality and static quality patterns which Phaedrus 'manipulated' into an evolutionary order.
This is what Mr. Pirsig says himself about their 'origin':
'I didn't get the idea (!) that the MOQ is an evolutionary theory of value patterns from anybody. It just arrived Dynamically on day the way a good chess move arrives Dynamically. There was probably some stream of consciousness, a series of intellectual jigsaw puzzle pieces that didn't fit anything and were immediately forgotten, when among them appeared this puzzle piece which fit everything. It seemed of higher quality than anything I had thought before on the subject and so became incorporated into the static pattern of the MOQ'. ( from Anthony's Textbook, p 41).


But of course this way of relating is totally wasted on you Bodvar. You reject the insights, plus the way they are presented from radical empiricism in the same way as you reject the insights of the Eastern' mystical philosophies. This is why you say they are 'woolley'. (Mickey Mouse stuff).

The Buddha's 4 Noble Truths and the 8-fold Path are also conceptualizations. Lao Tzu's Tao is also a conceptualization (the name it can be named is not the eternal name) in the same way that the MOQ is a conceptualization (DQ/sq).( It is an intellectual pattern of value. It is of the highest quality thus far...until something better comes along). It has to be because as soon as you have 'abstracted' some experience, some learnings from DQ it becomes static, immediately. You have the Dynamic experience and the resultant conceptual (static) valued insights... which, if of high quality you will develop into a static pattern of value (to either follow or avoid or anything in between...as time goes by).

Your notion of 'intellect' is simply another ghost.Intellect is just another intellectual conceptualization, a  construction and as far as your definition of it is concerned; it is regarded by the MOQ as of low quality...(Mr. Pirsig has said so) framed and relegated to where SOM hangs: in the cellar of the gallery.

Anyway, this is my take on it Bodvar...FYI.

You'll probably reject the lot, but who cares?

I hope it has been of some value to others and, to the more enlightened on this discuss I'd appreciate to hear where I err.