[MD] Are There Bad Questions?: Pirsig

[Mary]

Hi Bo,

> The diagrams in ZAMM aren't half-hearted stabs but contains the
> Quality Idea far as it was brought there, the blunder is the the
> Reality
> box above the SOM diagram that changes into Quality in the MOQ
> diagram and divides into the Romantic/Classic split. It's the DQ (or
> RQ) which spawns the SQ (or SQ) 

[Mary Replies] 
I agree.  If in 1974 he had said RQ=DQ, which spawns CQ, which spawns
subjects and objects, he would have had it.  But what are you saying here:

not any Quality that spawns the
> MOQ. 

This is Pirsig's variety of Einsteins "cosmological constant" that
> E. regretted the rest of his life, but the latter day Pirsigs seems
> blithely
> unaware of its grave ramifications for the MOQ.
> 
> This blunder originates in the paragraph below (from LILA).
> 
>     "By even using the term "Quality" he had already violated the
>     nothingness of mystic reality.  The use of the term "Quality" set
>     up a pile of questions of its own that have nothing to do with
>     mystic reality and walks away leaving them unaswered.  Even the
>     name, "Quality," was a kind of definition since it tended to
>     associate mystic reality with certain fixed and limited
>     understandings.  Already he was in trouble.  Was the mystic
>     reality of the universe really more immanent in the higher- priced
>     cuts of meat in the butcher shop?  These were "Quality" meants
>     weren´t they?  Was the butcher using the term incorrectly?
>     Phaedrus had no answers. . . . [ellipsis Pirsig´s] That was the
>     problem this morning too, with Rigel.  Phaedrus had no answers. If
>     you´re going to talk about Quality at all you have to be ready to
>     answer someone like Rigel.  You have to have a ready-made
>     Metaphysics of Quality that you can snap at him like some
>     catechism.  Phaedrus didn´t have a Catechism of Quality and that´s
>     why he got hit." (124)
> 
> Pirsig says he violates Dynamic Quality "by even using the term .." and
> seems unaware that even thinking is as much of a violation as
> saying/writing it, this is the blind alley I wish he hadn't started
> down, but
> stuck to the "no-one can avoid metaphysics" opening, because that
> one is rock solid: There is no existence outside the explanations of
> existence, the explanation which says says there is an existence
> independent of our explanations IS THE SUBJECT/OBJECT
> METAPHYSICS!!!!!
> 
[Mary Replies] 

Yes.  "The explanation which says there is an existence independent of our
explanations is SOM". 
 
"There is no existence outside the explanations of existence" is the correct
construction, where 'explanations of existence' = our response to Quality,
and 'response to Quality' = Static Quality.  And this is true for all levels
not just the Intellectual.

Another way to say it would be,

Existence = Response to Dynamic Quality = Static Quality

Where "existence" includes every "thing" and every "idea" (you may need to
add this to make it understandable to a SOM thinker)

> Thus LILA could have started where ZAMM left off by just changing
> the Romantic/Classic into Dynamic/Static, enlarged the static level as
> we know it, and skipped the renewed effort to prove the Quality
> =Reality sentence, which is neither provable nor important: 

[Mary Replies] 
I hope you say this because it is gilding the lily.  Once you accept the
premise of your first statement all else follows without need of further
explanation.  

The same
> chain reaction that old Sarah initiated could have started around many
> seed crystal. There are several unassinmilated concepts as we know. I
> have nothing against Quality, but Beauty, Harmony or Intuition  are
> just
> as indefinable, it is the Dynamic/Static and the old S/O as a static
> level
> which is the stroke of genius.
> 
[Mary Replies] 
Then reading further with your seed crystal analogy, I believe that is
exactly what you are saying, so we are in agreement on that.  

Where we appear to diverge is where you say, "...the old S/O as a static
level".  Does the subject-object split inhere in all levels or only the
Intellectual?  When a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear,
did an event occur?  I do not believe you are implying that the Universe and
everything in it did not exist until the first human intellect noticed it,
are you?  

One SHOULD argue that the static construction of our world, the
understandings we have latched, represent reality but are not reality.  This
is clear from Pirsig, but to extend that to say that nothing existed at all
would take you away from Pirsig and his static levels entirely would it not?
Unless, of course, you say that the entire static hierarchy is nothing more
than a SOM cloak for the MoQ.  Interesting thought, that, and tempting, but
it violates the concept of moral hierarchy - or seems to.

There's more going on here than meets the eye (so to speak).  I keep
returning to the idea that all is Quality and this hierarchy of morality is
only relevant from the position at which it is viewed.  The quick and dirty
way to understand the MoQ levels is to see them akin to Maslow's Hierarchy
of Needs.  But that's a cheap shot and I digress.

> Had he done that he would have had SOM by the same deadly grip
> that Phaedrus had it in ZAMM had and every piece of the puzzle would
> have found its place. But alas he was obsessed with the Quality issue
> and let the MOQ fall victim to it by postulating it as just one
> possible
> static theory about Quality. A child will see that Quality here has
> assumes the same role as "objective" in SOM and MOQ its
> "subjective" role, and thus the MOQ became a SOM subset before it
> could get off the ground.
> 
[Mary Replies] 
This is the trap.  Applying the customary definition of Quality to the MoQ,
where Quality is an attribute and not the source.

> Matt:
> > What sometimes gets lost in metaphysical system-building is the
> > person doing the building, and what the building is for.
> 
[Bo]
> This is not true Matt, the subject has been the latter day philosophy's
> focus after a long and futile pursuit of  the object, but the subject
> will
> also lead to frustration - guaranteed. MOQ's thesis is that all static
> levels are incomplete and that the goes for intellect's S/O too, it
> will
> only reveal the social level if pursued hard and long enough. This is
> what most of this discussion fail to realize, like Ham they are dead
> sure that the subject gazing out on its world is the one given
> immutable fact - and that the MOQ resides inside this subject - but
> this
> isn't so, 

[Mary Replies] 
Agreed.

there once was no S/O  - search the old books of the bible
> (examples of the social reality according to Pirsig)  they are devoid
> of
> any "I think about the world". The S/O arrived as told in ZAMM, it
> assumed its role as SOM, but has been superseded by MOQ's
> Dynamic/Static explanation and relegated the role as its 4th. level
> 


[Mary Replies] 
I disagree with this, Bo.  SOL has existed for as long as there have been
'minds'.  What was new with the Greeks, was an attitude.  The discreteness
of thought was always there.


Thanks,
Mary