[MD] Is this the inadequacy of the MOQ?

[rapsncows at fastmail.fm]

Andre,
continued,
Tim


> Andre:
> No Tim, I think it is experience that maintains the 'staying power'.

[Tim]
I have no idea what you are getting at.  Especially when you deny an
'I'.  I don't know how you can read Pirsig saying "you know quality" but
deny that there is a you.  etc.  How does 'experience' have any staying
power?  One experience is over, the next is here, it is over, another,
etc. Experience is dynamic.  Are you talking about memories of
experience?

Anyway, as I understand the MoQ it is the static patterns that are
'staying'.  MEtaphysics is an intellectual endeavor.  The intellectual
level is bounded by teh dynamic above, and the social below.  THerefore,
it seems taht the point of intelligence, according to the MoQ, is to
bring an intelligent social order to the dynamic reality of the utter
present - this front of the train.
 

> Andre:
> I have no idea what you mean by this Tim. you need concepts to make it
> into the utter present... somehow? You are making things very
> complicated.

[Tim]
it seems very simple to me.  On the other hand, denying ones self,
denying the present, and denying that ones self somehow has to choose in
the present seems to be making reality fit ones hopes of a particular
metaphysics.

> [Andre] You sound like a person with a sense of the absolute as its
> guide and desperately want to make the concepts fit somehow...the
> present.

[Tim]
whatever desperation you sense is a function of social interaction, not
of my independent intellectual endeavor.  BUt it is true, I have a sense
of the absolute as something unavoidable.  Reality doesn't flutter willy
nilly.

> [Andre] This is getting very messy and one of the reasons why William
> James was furiously against Hegel, Royce and all the Absolutists.

[Tim]
I don't know about what these other people thought, so I can't converse
about them.  The one thing that I have read about James was that he
decided to believe in free will, this means he agreed with me: that
there is an 'I'.


> Andre:
> Yeah, just above the quote I gave ye. The narrator in ZMM sees the
> 'solution' not in Govt. programs because that kind of approach starts at
> the end and presumes the end is the beginning. Social values 'become'
> right only if individual values are right. 'Programs of a political
> nature are important END PRODUCTS  of social quality that can be
> effective only if the underlying structure of social values is right'.
> (ZMM,p291)

[Tim]
what version do you have?  How many total pages?

 
> Tim:
> 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:
> Again you keep on confusing me.'...submission to the mystic...'? You mean
> direct experience? and then to have something 'intelligent to say...'?

[Tim]
dynamic quality: is it really unrecognizable when I say 'reality'?  The
static, inorganic up to intellectual, is to submit to the dynamic
according to RMP's moral order.  Within the static, the intellectual
level is to have something to say to the social level; this is the
purpose of the intellect according to RMP.  What's the problem?
   
> [Andre] How about reading about Phaedrus' surrender to Quality(mystic)(all of
> ZMM) and presenting us with the MOQ?(all of LILA)...something intelligent
> to say... .

[Tim]
yes, he admitted that, strictly speaking, he was behaving immorally by
so doing.  And I gave you a quote about him getting more done socially;
this was at the end of Lila, when he was wrapping up with the idol (and
his MoQ).  I think he was saying that the main point was to help people
behave socially in a more intelligent way - which behavior, of course,
is in the utter present of DQ.

> 
> Tim:
> Do we agree that Pirsig would have hoped that others would find higher
> Quality from his efforts?
> 
> Andre:
> Well, yes and no! As Pirsig suggests (in response to the question of
> recommending to someone to read ZMM): 'There is a possibility it will
> make you a better person. If the next question is:'What do you mean by
> better?' The answer should be. 'You'll have to read ZMM and LILA to find
> out'. ( LC, Annot: 105)

[Tim]
where do you get a 'no' from this?


> Andre:
> Well Tim, this does sound a wanky to me but I think I know what you are
> driving yourself nuts with,

[Tim]
again, any perception of 'nuts' has to do with interpersonal
interaction.  I merely suggest that there is a reality, including other
'I's, which I cannot escape. (and when I realize that something-is,
because it must be, I think, 'whoa... okay. this is pretty good then.')


> [Andre] because I think you got the things
> backwards:'This self-appointed little editor of reality is just an
> impossible fiction that collapses the moment one examines it.

[Tim]
I have examined it.  It has not collapsed.  I am.  I am responsible for
my choices.  I do have choice.  The choice is not so much 'free', but
rather I would say confined.  BUt within the confinement there is real
choice.  Do you really think that you do not have choice?  And, if not,
how is there then no absolute?


> [Andre] This Cartesian 'Me' is a soft-ware reality, not a hardware reality'. (LILA,
> p204)

[Tim]
I don't care about a cartesian me.  Again, my pages are different from
yours so I can't locate that quote.  I understand that there will be
aspects to 'me', as I may relate casually, which are not fundamental,
but the fact that some temporary, superficial aspects may become
ossified as me through my choice does not destroy that fact that there
is an 'I' which is, which has chosen in the past, which is responsible,
which is maintained through each and every utter present moment, etc.

Just like the MoQ has static levels, and Quality is absolute (and the
static gives the dynamic staying power).  There is a fundamental I,
though it be clothed in chosen particulars which are not necessarily
inherently fundamental.

> 
>[Andre] 'The word 'I' like the word 'self' is one of the trickiest words in any
> metaphysics... .

[Tim]
and I have not tried to say what it is, just that it is (and that
everything comes through it).

Further, IF there is no I, there is no 'social pattern'.  If there is no
'I', how do you ... what is the ... ?

> [Andre] The MOQ says it is a collection of static patterns
> capable of apprehending Dynamic Quality..if you identify the 'I' with the
> intellect and nothing else (as Platt does) you are taking an unusual
> position that may need some defending'. (LC, Annot:130)
> 
> 'The MOQ, as I understand it, denies any existence of a 'self' that is
> independent of inorganic, biological, social or intellectual patterns.
> There is no 'self' that contains these patterns. These patterns contain
> the self''(LC, Annotn:29)

[Tim]
so I guess there is no place for it in the dynamic present?  How do
these patterns develop?  An absolute deterministic reality?  Individual
choice?  is there a third option?
 
>[Andre] Needles to say Platt (as well as Ham, Mary, Jane, and some otherws here
> on and off contributing), in his defence, uses SOM constructions to
> justify his convictions which is all good and well, but it is reflecting
> the integration,identification and subordination to social patterns of
> value. I am becoming more and more convinced that SOM, by virtue of the
> MOQ, is being relegated to becoming part of the mythos, the social level
> realm.

[Tim]
I'm not sure where you are headed with this, but I will repeat here,
which I have said elsewhere, the MoQ does not do away with subjects (nor
objects).  It just says that there is something, Quality, which precedes
and leads to them.  The difference between a one who has recognized this
and a one who has not, is not such that it is painfully obvious to all;
it is subtle.  There are subjects, and objects, within the MoQ, it is
just that the MoQ provides a way for looking at them which unites them
higher up, and if you see this then you see the subjects more clearly
and truely, etc.

> 
>[Andre] Getting back to you feeling trapped when thinking of 'I' this should be a
> Quality response by Mr. Pirsig. You, who are capable of apprehending DQ.
> You are not condemned to what SOM has led you believe you are...it is
> loads of hypnosis and social conditioning...the (personal) Phaedrus
> references are there in both ZMM and LILA.

[Tim]
I don't know why you think I have to get rid of the idea that I am, or
else I am condemned to some SOM belief that has been foisted on me.  I
admit that I don't know what this 'I' is, at the fundamental level.  I
have admitted that I will almost certainly never know.  I'm open to the
idea that social conditioning limits people more than ...  people are
trapped by their social conditioning, if I may.  BUt to do away with an
'I' altogether is straight foolishness.

this trapping serves the dual function of defining too.  if I am to be,
I must be protected from being destroyed willy nilly.  It seems like
reality does this.  Through a combination of all the ... whatever is
involved: hardware and software, or, inorganic, biological, social,
intellectual, AND dynamic patterns ... whatever it is, my 'I' is
preserved, maintained, etc.  I am.  On the one hand I am distinguished
from the rest, that I may be well-defined, and that I may have choice;
but, concomitantly, I am limited and trapped.  It seems so simple to me.

> 
>[Andre] Barry Gibb sang 'Be who You Are'. The first Zen patriarch in China, when
> asked by the emperor who the bloody hell he thought he was, answered 'I
> do not know'. I am sure, after reading his blog sometimes, Barry will
> love this answer.
> 

[Tim]
'I do not know': this seems wise, for one, and for two, it recognizes
the 'I'.  I don't know how you think you can get rid of your 'I'?  Nor
do I know why you would want to?  And, if you think that your self is
not, that you have no 'I', I don't see how you can say that this is the
same for me.  Really?  You absolutely sure about that?

this wasn't very relaxing ;)
Tim
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