[MD] Awareness and consciousness in the MOQ

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Mark]
Here we try to separate "belief" from "faith".  "Belief" would be 
something that we continually need to justify, whereas "faith" we do not.

[Arlo]
This is interesting, would you say then that 'doubt' is a part of 
'belief'? That is how I read this, that 'certainty' would be 'faith', 
whereas anything 'uncertain' would be 'belief'. Am I reading that right?

[Mark]
We have science, which is done when one puts his hand in the shower to 
see if it is hot enough.  Then there is Scientism which is a religion.

[Arlo]
This would indicate a process/content distinction, or one where 
'science' becomes a verb rather than a noun (I like that, personally, 
the same way I think 'art' is better thought of as a verb rather than a 
noun or, worse, an adjective).

Given the above, this would suggest to me that as soon as we achieve 
'certainty' in our thoughts, the content of those thoughts become 
religious? You can likely guess my next question, and that is does the 
'certainty' which we hold our beliefs differ in kind? Is there a 
distinction (in this scenario) between 'psychological certain', 
'pragmatic certainty', etc. I hold, for example, that the 'moon orbits 
the earth' and I don't actively investigate that, so I'd assume you see 
that as 'faith', something I hold 'religiously'. And yet this 
'certainty' is never far removed from doubt as new experiential data 
comes in (whether from personal experience or trusted authority).

I guess what I'm saying is some forms of 'certainty' are entrenched so 
deeply that they are inflexible even in the presence of conflicting 
data. Other forms are more 'loose' in that they can change rapidly as 
experience changes. Peirce (if I read him correctly) believed that on 
the one end, tenacity, belief was fixed very rigidly, it was very 
difficult for a person to move from belief to doubt (a state he believed 
was a necessary transitional state to change), whereas beliefs fixed on 
the other end, scientific methodology, were more apt to change (enter a 
state of doubt) when confronted with contradiction.

Do you see this axis as irrelevant to something being 'faith' or 
'religion'? Or would there be no fundamental distinction between the 
beliefs "God hates fags" (Wellsboro religious faith) and "the moon 
orbits the earth" (Arlo's religious faith)? Are they both examples of 
religious faith?

I think Peirce may have argued that 'religious belief' is a function of 
both non-experientiality and inflexibility to experiential data. Thus it 
is not 'certainty' that would define something as 'religious', but 
whether or not it the basis for it is rooted in experiential activity 
and whether or not it is adaptive to changes that arise from 
contradictory or conflictional experiential activity. Thus a book about 
astronomy would not be a 'religious' text, and my understanding that 
Pluto is a sub-planetary body that orbits the sun at the reaches of our 
solar system would not be a 'religious belief' as it is rooted in 
experience and flexible to ongoing experiential contradictions (Poor 
Pluto...). I take it you would disagree?

[Mark]
That policies are made based on such book readings in order to control 
human behavior is not different from the inquisitions of old.

[Arlo]
Are you suggesting that policies derived from the constitution are 
fundamentally similar to the inquisitions?

A further point, if I (a policy maker) conduct an experiment (defined 
any way you wish) and find clear evidence that roadways without enforced 
central lines demarking directional flow leads to greater death, injury 
and damage, and implement a policy to 'control' driver behavior by 
enforcing adherence to directional flow, would this- at this point- be 
no different than an inquisition?

Now, a few years later, after I leave office, someone reads my research 
findings and decides that this law is worth renewing, does it at this 
point become an inquisition (because this person is deriving his policy 
from reading my words rather than carrying out his own empirical study)?

Would you say here, in the same vein as above, that there is no 
fundamental distinction between a law enforcing driving regulations and 
a law enforcing that women are not to be schooled?  They are both 
'inquisitional'? (Would you say Pirsig might characterize one as an 
intellectual pattern, and the other as a social pattern, and draw a 
moral distinction there?)

I'm not trying to be overly-hyperbolic, but I'm trying to see if what 
appears to be a pretty absolute charge you're making has nuances or 
distinctions, or if you genuinely mean them as absolute as they read.

[Mark]
We certainly have faith that knowledge derived from direct experience is 
real (otherwise we would be considered insane).  However I am not sure 
this can be turned around and stated that faith is the bedrock of 
everything we are.  This would make the concept of faith useless (and 
perhaps this is also what you are saying).

[Arlo]
Yeah, that's what I'm trying to understand. To me, its part of the 'if 
everything is purple, then the concept of purple (and color!) is 
meaningless'. If we say 'everything is a religion', then the concept of 
religion has no meaning as it has no contrast. Does it completely 
trivialize 'religion' to say that when I open my 'fridge and take out 
some milk, my faith that that milk is not spoiled (prior to opening it) 
is religious faith?

I'd argue that for 'faith' to have any meaning, there has to be a 
'non-faith' condition, for 'religion' to have any meaning there has to 
be something that is a 'non-religion', and I think you've answered for 
me how you see that (although I might have misread your meaning).

[Mark]
I would put the three principles in the following order of importance: 
Tenacity>science>authority.  I am using tenacity in the positive sense 
of Will.  As you know, I cannot stand authority, but it is sometimes 
necessary.

[Arlo]
I'm not sure how we could function at all without some recourse to 
fixing our beliefs via authority. I think for Peirce a critical point is 
maintaining a 'pragmatic certainty' (not his term). Using Pirsig's 
terms, to be open to Dynamic Quality even as one acts within unavoidable 
static confines. It is the matter of degree we hold onto static 
structures that is of concern, not that we hold onto static structures 
as we necessarily must.

[Arlo had asked]
what would be the value of using 'God' instead of 'Dynamic Quality'?

[Mark]
I would simply say that by doing so, we get a better understanding of 
what others think of in terms of God.

[Arlo]
Let me ask you another question, would you say that everything that is 
undefinable is interchangeable with the term 'God'? It seems, from your 
answers and posts, that non-definability is the point of contact that 
makes 'Quality' and 'God' synonomous, and that because 'Quality' is 
indefinable it is therefore the same as 'God', is that right? Therefore 
any concept that is indefinable is 'God'? Yes?

[Mark]
I would see the value added when we try to interpret older texts (such 
as the Gnostic Gospels) and think in terms of Quality.

[Arlo]
I think such an interpretation would please the Gnostics, as esoteric 
systems tend to be unconcerned with formalizing their structures. 
Indeed, the are esoteric by virtue of suggesting that there are no 
'literal' truths behind the 'metaphors' that point to the "the one, 
shape-shifting yet marvelously constant story" (Joseph Campbell), or no 
literal hands upon which the fingers pointing at the moon are connected.

But I think when you move into the realm of exoteric structures, this is 
more problematic, as built into these is deliberate literalness which 
the adherents' concepts derive. It won't help you understand them to 
revision their words esoterically, even though it may help you, 
personally, in painting your diorama of human existence.

[Mark]
Of course MoQ belongs to Pirsig, he made it up.  However, by 
distributing it, he relinquished control over how it would evolve from 
personal pressures.  This is not to say that it does not have some 
fundamental ground which Pirsig is working from.  We all stand on that 
fundamental ground.

[Arlo]
See, I read the above as "by distributing [his ideas], he relinquished 
control over how [his ideas] would evolve." I'd word this instead, "by 
distributing [his ideas], he relinquished control over the evolutionary 
trajectory that would emerge from [his ideas]".

A lot has grown from Peirce, for example, but I don't think I'd say that 
Peirce's ideas evolved. Unless Peirce changed them, his ideas are his 
ideas. But the body of dialogue of which those ideas are, perhaps, 
foundational has certainly evolved. People have taken his ideas, in 
parts or in whole, in agreement or in disagreement, and rebuilt 
structures according to their ideas.

This is, I'm sure to most, a semantic issue, but my point was only that 
it, at times, has been a source of tension-confusion in the dialogue. 
The central question (in seeing this division) is asking 'Can Pirsig 
have been wrong about the MOQ?' If you answer 'yes', then 'the MOQ' is 
not Pirsig's description of Quality, the MOQ *is* the object of 
description itself. Does this make sense? Whereas if you answer 'no', 
then 'the MOQ' is Pirsig's description of Quality. (This may make more 
sense if you consider the other question, 'Can Pirsig have been wrong 
about Quality?', and see that these are very different questions).

Say I propose that Pirsig was wrong, that animals do exhibit social 
patterns of activity. Let's say I convince half of you that I am right. 
Now, which side of this forum is arguing for 'the MOQ'? Both? Let's say 
I convince everyone but you. Would you cede that 'the MOQ' has evolved 
to account for animal socialization? If someone was reading an entry on 
Pirsig's ideas in a philosophy book, should it read "In deny non-human 
social patterns, Pirsig was incorrect about the MOQ?"... Are you 
following me? Or am I now beating a horse that died sometime around the 
end of the Incan civilization? :-)

This is what I get for ordering a large coffee this morning...