[MD] MOQ and Completeness Theories (Sorry, Godel.)

[Arlo Bensinger]

[John]
This issue dates way, way back to a problem I had with the conflation 
of two different connotations of the word Quality.  Is it a line?  Or a vector?
According to you, and dmb way back then, and according to you now - 
the whole MoQ, it's a line.  According to me and Platt, it's a vector.  Quality
is a direction, rather than merely differentiation.

[Arlo]
Hope you are feeling better.

I can't speak for DMB, but I don't think Quality is a "line", maybe 
if you want a geometric analogy is more like a "field". The problem I 
have with "direction" is that its entirely anthropomorphic (if not 
tinged solipstic). I remember a Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin 
deduced that he was the pinnacle of evolution by realizing that 
everything that has ever happened in history happened for the sole 
purpose of producing him. Since he exists, the "logic" goes, it must 
be that everything happened with the goal of producing his existence.

[John]
I also strenuously argue against any sort of specialized 
language.  What next?  A secret handshake?   I thought the purpose of 
the evolution of a metaphysical system is to go out and make converts?

[Arlo]
I don't know where you're getting this stuff, but no one is saying 
any such thing. However, you can't say (1) Pirsig redefines the term 
"Quality" but (2) we are going to keep using it the same way we've 
always been using it.

Language evolves, terms grow and expand (or wither and die), and this 
is no different. "Quality" as a central concept in a MOQ is different 
from "quality" as its used in its "conventional", read S/O, sense. 
The whole thesis of ZMM was to redefine Quality away from its 
"conventional" use into a more expansive, more powerful, concept.

[John]
It helps to use the differing levels to understand what I 
mean.  Something on the biologically negative scale would be 
something that kills, for
instance.  Not in order to eat, or to dominate, but just for the pure 
sake of killing.  That's a negative quality for biological patterns.

[Arlo]
You have a few things conflated here. First, there can be no 
"negative quality", as no quality implies non-existence. Second, you 
are making a moral judgement on the biological level from the vantage 
of the social. From within the biological level itself, killing for 
the sake of killing is an empty concept. Things "kill" to survive, 
and all behavior is tied to some value appraisal of the situation. If 
a dog or lion or ape or germ or shark kills, it does so because 
within the context of its act it appraises doing so as better than 
not doing so.

It is human socio-intellectual vantage that passes the judgment that 
if WE can see no understandable context for the killing, then it must 
be "negative". I think this is entirely the kind of thinking a MOQ 
argues against. Certainly, the pattern being "killed" would appraise 
the context as having very low Quality, but "negative quality" makes 
no sense within a MOQ.

[John]
Articulate?  Does that mean explain in understandable 
terms?  Translating into the lingua franca?  Because then I agree 
completely.  But turning terms
into a private language that nobody else can get, is what I mean by "esoteric".

[Arlo]
Who is saying anything about a "private language"? Pirsig has gone to 
great lengths to articulate the distinctions between his use of the 
term "Quality" and the "common use" of that term. Indeed, he finds 
the common use indicative of a very deep problem, and his act of 
redefining is central to his rooting out this malady.

[John]
But basically, I agree that writing a metaphysics IS a lived, real 
experience. But it's an experience pertaining to intellect, and is a 
far different beast than say, cookery or dancing. ... For we are then 
discussing the difference between intellectual analysis and artistic 
creativity.

[Arlo]
Then I'd suggest you go back to Square One, because this is precisely 
the erroneous thinking that ZMM was written to overcome.

"Art" within Pirsig's ideas is not a separate domain of human 
activity, it pertains to ALL human activity; and writing a 
metaphysics or building a rotisserie is just as much "art" as 
painting a picture or dancing a tango.

I still am a bit speechless that there is a trend towards "art 
elitism" in this forum. "Art" is everyday lived experience. It is the 
way we respond to Quality in the immediate moments of our lives.

"Art is high-quality endeavor. ... Art is the Godhead as revealed in 
the works of man." (Pirsig, ZMM)

For what its worth, "art" is another term that is greatly redefined 
under a MOQ. I think in a MOQ, for example, "art" is a verb. It is a 
manner of responding, a in-tune caring and openness to Quality. Or 
maybe an adverb if you wish, an artful way to build a rotisserie and 
a non-arftul way to build the rotisserie. Artful  building and 
non-artful building. The outcome, or product, or artifact of that 
process is what we traditionally call "art", but the rotisserie is 
not the "art", it is the result of the "art".

In the same vein I think the elitist label "artist" has to go, 
especially as its applied to painters and sculptors but not 
machinists and metaphysics writers. We can dispense with "she is an 
artist" and instead say "she does X very artfully". Picasso was not 
an artist, Picasso painted very artfully.