[MD] A problem with the MOQ.

[Ant McWatt]

Tuukka
stated April 13th 2012:



My project, SOQ, is not an LS project. It's the project of me and a 

friend of mine. It obviously cannot compete with the ordinary, 

non-formal way of discussing the MOQ, because the language is too 

technical. By virtue of its approach, it's no more and no less the true 

MOQ than what you're used to. The MOQ may be expressed with English, 

Finnish, Chinese et cetera, so it may also be expressed with formal 

language.



But maybe my work isn't needed. If I'm really going wrong here, could 

you solve these two problems for me, and set me on the right track?



http://www.moq.fi/sets-of-quality/introduction/IInconsistent-Usage-of-Subjectivity



http://www.moq.fi/sets-of-quality/introduction/IIncluding-Mathematics-in-the-Intellectual-Level





Ant McWatt states: 



Tuukka,

 

Just a
brief comment about your second problem which I hope is helpful.


You state in your “Introduction to the MOQ”:


“Including
Mathematics in the Intellectual Level”


In a 2003 letter to Paul Turner,
Pirsig includes mathematics in the intellectual level of LILA. He writes:


'“Intellect” can [...] be defined
very loosely as the level of independently manipulable signs. Grammar, logic
and mathematics can be described as the rules of this sign manipulation.'


And:


'…it seems to me the greatest meaning
can be given to the intellectual level if it is confined to the skilled
manipulation of abstract symbols that have no corresponding particular
experience and which behave according to rules of their own.'


However, the intellectual level
already contains empirical science. Including mathematics to the intellectual
level entails that the MOQ fails to distinguish between empirical and normative
science. This distinction is generally recognized in the philosophy of science.


Furthermore, it is unclear how
theories of empirical science should have no corresponding particular
experience... 




Ant McWatt comments:


Because theories of empirical
science are concerned with corresponding experiences that are REPEATED (not
particular); that is to say “static patterns”.  

Towards the end of the Copleston Annotations, Pirsig confirms this:


“In the MOQ repeated experience of
the pattern gives it its “thingness.”  All sorts of ephemera pass in front
of the scientist’s eye but the patterns he values are those that repeat
themselves.”


Best wishes,


Ant




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