[MD] Is this the inadequacy of the MOQ?

[rapsncows at fastmail.fm]

Andre,
a few things,
Tim

> 
> Andre:
> Well, it seems that you agree with Pirsig in this sense when he says 
> that 'Life can't exist on Dynamic Quality alone. It has no staying 
> power. To cling to Dynamic Quality alone, apart from any static patterns 
> is to cling to chaos.He saw that much can be learned about Dynamic 
> Quality by studying what it is not rather than futilely trying to define 
> what it is'. And therefore he 'turned his attention away from any 
> further explanation of Dynamic Quality and turned toward the static 
> patterns themselves'. (LILA, pp124-5). And this resulted in the MOQ.

[Tim]
a few pages from the end of 'Lila': "All this twentieth century sanity
wasn't as interesting as the old days of his incarceration but he was
getting a lot more accomplished, at the social level at least."  It is
the 'social' that brings the 'staying power', right?

> 
> Andre:
> Agree. 'It is important to keep all 'concepts' out of Dynamic Quality. 
> Concepts are always static. Once they get into Dynamic Quality they'll 
> overrun it and try to present it as some kind of concept itself'. 
> (Anthony's PhD, p35)

[Tim]
I think maybe it helps to keep other people's concepts out of DQ, but as
you live, I think you NEED certain concepts to make it into the utter
present somehow.


> Andre:
> Perhaps you mean this one:'The place to improve the world is first in 
> one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there'. 
> (ZMM, p291)

[Tim]
my pages don't line up, but I remember him talking about the government
and how the solution wouldn't be some big govt. program...  

>
> [Andre] So, no, I do not think that the 'solution would be a really simple and 
> subtle change'.

[Tim]
if you look at it at the scale of a superorganism, it might look
drastically different, but I don't know that it would seem more than
simple and subtle at a personal level.  THere would still be mostly
mundane choices... and Quality would be lots of little things (I think
there would be a passage to back this too)...

> 
> [Andre] I do not agree that the MOQ is a 'detour in the abyss' nor that it is 
> 'trying to pick up lost souls'. It is a metaphysics, not a religion.

[Tim]
it seems to me that they both service the same function.  And by detour
in the abyss, I don't mean to suggest taht such a detour should not be
taken, but that it should be taken, if it should be taken (which it
probably should), in submission to the higher mystic (dynamic) level. 
That is, the point is still to get back out: one, in submission to the
mystic/dynamic reality in the utter present, and two, to ahve something
intelligent to say to the lower, social pattern.
 
>[Andre] Nobody is trying to force Pirsig's MOQ down anybody's throat as the 
> ideas of God and the Devil are forced down little children's throats. To 
> down-grade Pirsig's MOQ to religious status is an immoral act.  [SNIP]
> 
> There is no 'belief' in the same sense of a belief in a God required 
> here. It is very pragmatic and empirically verifiable and adheres to the 
> Buddha's statement when he told his followers not to believe in his 
> teachings because he said his teachings were true. He simply told them 
> to see for themselves. Do not take my word for it.

[Tim]
my comments didn't bother me, but I didn't attach all that stuff to
them.  Forget it.  But?  Do we agree that Pirsig would have hoped that
others would find higher Quality from his efforts?
 
> Tim:
> 
> IF the metaphysics is trapping people rather than pulling them out of the
> trap...  This is why it might be, strictly speaking, immoral.
> 
> Andre:
> How is 'the metaphysics' 'trapping people'?

[Tim]
I shouldn't ignore this, but ... let me just say that 'trapping' is
probably a lighter word to me than to you, like thinking of the MoQ and
religion together.  This might help: sometimes when I try to think of
what 'I' am, I think I am 'trapped'.  So it isn't that trap is
inherently bad or anything, just that some traps are more confining than
others.

Tim
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