[MD] Is this the inadequacy of the MOQ?

Tue Nov 2 23:14:42 PDT 2010

Mark,

First, thanks for the compliment.  But I think that I should maybe
clarify my intent.  ...  I'm struggling to get started here.  When I was
reading these two books, I was thinking, "great!  here is someone else
who seems to see the world a lot like I do."  (I looked up the author,
"wow, he is actually alive too!")  While I was
reading, it was fine, fun, whatever; I kept looking forward to his
further analysis.  Then it ended.  While reading I had been thinking of
a friend of
mine to whom I was planning on recommending these books.  But within two
days after I was done, I was questioning my recommendation!  I was
thinking that there was something very substantial missing.  And I was
thinking that the really valuable advice was not given its proper place,
and it was swamped by the intellectualization.  I wonder if the book
will be more helpful or more harmful to my friend.  I wonder why the
author wrote it.  I wonder if the writing of it was more a form of
personal maintenance...  Then I think, "echhhhh, quit being so
critical."  But still I don't know if I should recommend it, and if so,
do I need to qualify my recommendation?

So, that is what was behind when I said "And perhaps there isn’t much
point in a critical analysis of the underlying intellectual framework
..."  And
there is something interesting in this, at least I think.  Phaedrus
disregarded (social and) intellectual quality in Lila (the character)
and
he granted her
biological quality.  But what is most important is that he seemed to
lean towards her having Dynamic Quality (think of the interchange when
they were getting groceries and she defended the little girl; think of
her in the restaurant in NYC, when she realized that she had no money;
etc.).  She didn't need the intelligence to tune in dynamically, but
Rigel, who was intelligent and who had social quality, was given next to
no dynamic quality.  So I
guess my point is that - and this is so especially if the writing of
this
book were his personal maintenance - the "sign post" that is 'Lila':
isn't it a sign showing how to get out, rather than deeper in?  And
isn't this confusing as presented (though Phaedrus does point at it on
several
occasions)?  (Anyway,
this was the concern I had for my friend, when thinking about giving
'Lila' a recommendation or not.)

I find the semantics here interesting too!  The metaphors on
intelligence seem mixed. 
On the one hand there is the "high country", but on the other hand there
is "deeper" understanding.  (You also used the word "muddle" in
reference to muddling through the logic.)  In 'Zen', when there was the
metaphor
of the 'high country', Phaedrus was manic, and Pirsig even wrote about
this
that he was feeling 'messianic' thoughts.  Also, he had a great deal of
arrogance, whether it was justified or not.  I also recall him writing
something like, ~"if you don't make a journey through that high country
you are forever stuck in one valley."  Maybe this is so.  But maybe not!
 (What ever happened to Lila?)  And even if the journey is necessary,
 maybe it is because it is the getting out that is the Quality Event!

Phaedrus's metaphysics isn't the only metaphysics that puts morality in
the first, xxx , and (the other first) life (specifically human life). 
Phaedrus says that the
connection to morality is in the utter present, it is a pre-intellectual
connection: _____________ .  Phaedrus calls it Dynamic Quality, perhaps
it is best that he used a new term, in order to avoid the (excess)
baggage of other terms.  But other attempts at metaphysics appear to
have their own terms for exactly this same position.  Is it not
conscience?  Is it not faith?  Is it not communion with the Holy Spirit?
 Is it not to walk with your god?  Wasn't Phaedrus, then, rejected for
 trying to convert the heathen?

Wasn't Phaedrus saying that while hard, repeatable science can - perhaps
- be done on the inorganic and biological, at the social and
intellectual
levels we are part of the experiment, we cannot achieve that strictly
objective vantage.  Wasn't he saying that to hold to a hope for OUR
hard, repeatable, objective science in these greater areas is foolish:
it is an interminable descent into the abyss rather than a summit trip
in the high country.  Wasn't his turning around on his hike with Chris
symbolic of his turning from OUR hard, repeatable, objective science so
many times in his life.  Wasn't he also saying that just because WE do
not have that vantage does not mean that the measurements we make, and
the data we collect (we being, arguably, scientific instruments in a
grand experiment which complexity is beyond our ability to draw hard
conclusions), on Quality-morality, should be ignored; but rather, they
are the key?

I guess one more thing, wasn't Phaedrus, the teacher of rhetoric,
convinced, or all but convinced, that Quality-morality was not so much
teachable intellectually, but that the connection to Quality-morality
had to be fostered experientially.  Has he led us into the muddle to
force us to find our way out?

Tim

On Mon, 1 Nov 2010 17:46:58 -0700, "118" <ununoctiums at gmail.com> said:
> Hi Tim,
> Thanks for your post.  Often we reply to a segment of what is posted,
> with
> comments.
> 
> [Tim]
>   Perhaps this is the point.  And perhaps there isn’t much point in a
> critical analysis of the underlying intellectual framework for the
> terminology.  There is such a thing as ___________ (Quality–morality); we
> have access to it; and it is best if you can tune into it rather than
> trying
> to analyze what it was before, and then perhaps trying to predict where
> it
> might be…  If you get off track the intellectual analysis might be
> invaluable as a corrective, but the goal of the correction is to get back
> in
> tune, good working order, whatever.  The motorcycle is for riding, the
> maintenance is a bonus – a pre-requisite, but a bonus none-the-less.
> 
> [Mark]
> Yes, I like the way you put that.  Often one can get caught in the
> logical
> muddle, often we question semantics, or what one truly means.  I approach
> it
> as metaphors or analogies which point to deeper understanding.  As such,
> Lila is a sign post on a path in the high country.  Such a thing is
> followed
> through our personal understanding.  Such understanding is of course open
> for discussion and progression.  As a text, often Lila seems more like a
> series of images put to words, to me.  Clarification is of course an
> appropriate topic of discussion.  For me, sleeping on it often helps too.
> 
> Thanks for the insight.
> Mark
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