[MD] Awareness and consciousness in the MOQ

[118]

Hi Ant, again, some comments below.

On Sun, Apr 8, 2012 at 2:44 PM, Ant McWatt <antmcwatt at hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Ant McWatt commented April 8th 2012:
>
> Andre,
>
> You're thinking of a paragraph in Pirsig's letter dated August 17th 1997 in the
> McWatt-Pirsig Letters PDF:
>
> "People with scientific training often think of the term , 'mystic' as a
> synonym for 'demented,' but by mystic I only mean that which is known but is
> inherently without any kind of intellectual definition.  If Dynamic
> Quality were merely called 'God' or 'oneness' [such people] would have it shoved
> out of philosophic bounds without question.  But they cannot shove Quality
> out of bounds.  Mystic or not, they can't deny it exists.  They
> cannot eliminate it as a meaningful term.  In fact 'meaningful' means
> 'having social or intellectual quality'."
>
>
> Mark Smith stated April 8th:
>
> With all respect to Pirsig, the quote above indicates that he has no concept of
> what "God" means.  God is not definable.  He falls into the modern trap
> of treating God like an object.  It is no more an object than his Quality.
> Understanding this brings one respect for those with a dynamic
> relationship with "what is".
>
>
> Ant McWatt comments:
>
> Mark,
>
> Maybe Pirsig is just decrypting one message using the algorithm of another. ;-)

Yeah, got it.  Thanks for that!

Have you ever taken the beginning of Chapter 12 (lila) and in place of
the words put in the roots of the words?  So, for example (using
Dictionary.com): Quality: "1250–1300; Middle English qualite  < Old
French  < Latin quālitās,  equivalent to quāl ( is ) of what sort +
-itās -ity".  Or, Level: "1300–50; Middle English  (noun and v.),
variant of livel  (noun) < Middle French  < Vulgar Latin *lībellum,
for Latin lībella  plummet line, level, diminutive of lībra  balance,
scales; for formation, see castellum" (where catellum gives you:"<
Latin:  fortified settlement, fortress < *casterlom  < *castṛlom  <
*castrelom,  equivalent to castr ( a ) (neuter plural) fortified camp
+ *-elom  diminutive suffix; see -ule, -elle)".

We use certain words for a reason even if we do not know why.  If you
have the time, break down the beginning of Chapter 12 and see what you
find through root word replacement (you get to choose the root you
use).  It may surprise you.  It may free up your mind.
>
> Two serious points:
>
> 1. Though Pirsig doesn’t like to interchange the words (because the former term
> has a lot of distortive, traditional connotations from established religions), “God”
> can be used as a synonym for “Dynamic Quality”.

Yes, I would agree with the distortion there, but we are more clever
than that.  Once Quality is understood, God is easy to come by in
terms of understanding.  Certainly Pirsig wants to stay away from the
mess of dogmatic religion, and I am with him all the way on that!  It
is difficult being a spokesperson.
>
> 2. To return to these “people with scientific training” (read logical positivists;
> Richard Dawkins?) in the quote from the above letter, Pirsig would say that you
> need some sort of faith to believe in God (at least if you’re including some sort
> of supernatural personality in your understanding that you can pray to).  However,
> you don’t need any faith whatsoever to know that values exist.  You don’t pray to
> Dynamic Quality!  As such, the latter is more difficult for an atheist or logical
> positivist to ignore or “slough off” in a metaphysical construction of the world.

I think that Dawkins is a complete buffoon if you want my opinion, and
he does not speak for scientist.  Believe me, I work with scientists,
and many of them are mystics as well.  As you know, science came out
of religion; monasteries became universities.  Bacon was a very
religious man, as were many of the early scientists.  Science and
religion walk hand in hand, and they cannot be separated.

This whole concept of "faith" is also one that tends towards
distortion.  People have faith in science as well, to the point where
they believe what scientists tell them.  This is the whole predominant
area of Scientism that I often rail against.  No, God, like Quality,
is not supernatural and was never meant to be until the militant
religion used it as such to gain political power (ah, the follies of
man).  One does not need faith to know that a God exists for them.
This God is simply a relationship with 'what is'.  Much such belief is
certainly much better than the "evolutionary theory" that is the mode
of the day.  Sure, data can be interpreted within such a theory, but
it can also be interpreted in many other ways.  People do not take the
time to realize this and simply accept the latest fad.  Especially if
Scientists say it is so.

I am not sure if you know what praying really is.  Have you done it
successfully?  Do you at times sit in wonder of Dynamic Quality and
contemplate on it?  Do you see things differently when in such
contemplation?  It is so easy to dismiss such things as "praying" in
our existentialist environment as silly.  If you take a look at some
of the great philosophers (yes, people smarter than you), I do not
think you would find them silly or misguided.  They thought about
these things a lot, and some realized the value of some kind of
personal God.  I found the writings of Kierkegaard quite enlightening
at one time.

We certainly do not want any sloughing off.  It is up to the
interpreters of MoQ to not allow such a thing to happen.  However, as
soon as one brings in the indefinable stuff, you loose most of your
audience.  For those are terms from religion.  There were times when
not even the name of God was allowed to be spoken, no images are
allowed even today in Islam.  I do not think we need to go there,
unless we cannot find a better way to explain Quality.
>
>
> Mark Smith continued April 8th:
>
> We can objectify all we want, but that is missing the point of MOQ.  Comparisons
> can be useful, but only if used with positive intent.  Trying to elevate Quality
> at the expense of fundamental understanding is somewhat farcical.  Quality is not
> farcical.  The term merely is condescending and comes from ignorance.  Let's not
> go there, we are better than that, we have belief.
>
>
> Ant McWatt comments:
>
> Mark, this all sounds very worthy, though God knows why comparisons can be useful “only
> if used with positive intent” (what if you’re neither being positive or negative but,
> at least initially, impartial?) or why (if I’m reading you right) you think Pirsig’s use
> of the word “God” is “condescending and comes from ignorance.”  Isn’t someone such as a
> priest interceding on a congregation’s behalf with the Divine essentially condescending?

The reason I say this is to not form "camps" of the MoQ and anti-MoQ.
There is enough within MoQ to allow all in.  As soon as we berate
other forms of metaphysics as wrong, we create a little club of MoQ
and stop its spread.  I do not see why Pirsig has to become a Priest
in all of this and preach from the pulpit. I find priests to be
abhorrent since they cannot seem to move on, and want to trap people
on a path and not let them move on either.  Religion should be a means
to an end, and not an end in itself.  These priests just go stuck.

Yes, Pirsig wrote some good stuff, but none of it was new by any
means.  It seems to me that Pirsig has no idea what God is.  He seems
to be off on his horse battling windmills creating a nemesis that does
not exist (I say this just to be provocative in case you do not know
me yet).  Perhaps I am wrong, but this anti-theism stuff seems rather
ignorant to me.
>
> Moreover, isn’t the belief that you can indeed intercede on someone else’s behalf in this
> manner derived from an essentially limited and (relatively) ignorant view of the world?
> Finally, YOU might have belief but you haven’t said in what or whom (e.g. do you mean
> belief in the MOQ, Dynamic Quality, your capability to think and analyze or something
> else entirely?).

Nobody can intercede.  There are some that have a gift for showing
others a different path, but the path must be travelled alone.  Me?  I
have been a fan of Quality since 1974.  Since Pirsig seemed as if he
was not going to write anymore on it, I worked on it myself.  At one
point this was to disastrous ends, and I needed a break.  It is
certainly not something that you can understand from reading a book,
as I am sure you are aware.  The point is, what does one do with such
a belief (yes, belief)?
>
> Hope these last two paragraphs don't sound too farcical!

Not at all, I always enjoy a discussion.  Don't worry about hurting my
feelings, I know Quality and it is real.  It is not some argument that
needs to be supported.  My point was, that there is no need to fight
against God, since that is not the point of MoQ.  It is just
distracting and trivial.  We are not atheists that continually need to
show how atheist we are.  For to do that implies that one really does
believe in the power of God.  I do not see anything of power there.

I hope I have given some of my points of view in an understandable
fashion.  I am happy to drop this God stuff (I had a long battle with
dmb at one time), and move on.  My interest at this point is the
relationship between DQ and SQ, in metaphysical analogies of course.
Perhaps you could present that in a nutshell.  I would be most
grateful for your opinion there.  I would love to get into detail
there always understanding that DQ is before some thing.
>
Cheers,
Mark
>
>
>
>
> .
>
>
>
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