[MD] A problem with the MOQ.

[Tuukka Virtaperko]

Ham, Mark,


>
>
>
>> Mark: As you well know, MoQ does dwell partly in the esoteric
>> since that is where our intuition of DQ comes from.
>
> Ham: Frankly, I've found nothing particularly esoteric about Pirsig's 
> philosophy. He
> equates Value (i.e., differentiated Quality) to direct experience, 
> offering the pain felt when sitting on a hot stove as his prime 
> example.  Where does he describe the esthetics of art, music, or fine 
> literature?  Why does he avoid explaining the epistemology of love, 
> desire, awe, and inspiration by which our value-sensibility is 
> experienced?  Is it that emotional feelings are too closely associated 
> with the lowly "biological level" or that they are too esoteric or 
> insufficiently "exoteric" for philosophical analysis?

Tuukka:
The SOQ includes love, desire and awe in the social level, and treats 
most emotions as the romantic quality equivalent of the social level. 
They also manifest in the subjective consideration level. The aesthetic 
level is the 16th and highest level of the standard formulation of SOQ.

>
>> Mark: Within MoQ there is the notion that everything is SQ that can
>> possibly be thought of, therefore there can be no intellectual
>> understanding of DQ (for such a thing converts DQ to SQ)....
>>
>> In fact there are those in this forum that find "solace" in this
>> paradox of SQ.  For it points to the ever-unattainable
>> understanding of DQ through the persistence of SQ.  However,
>> for one to succumb to such a paradox simply shows the lack of
>> education of such a thing.
>
> Ham: I don't understand your point here, Mark. Why should an insoluble 
> paradox give one solace?  Isn't it philosophy's goal to come up with a 
> solution?  If we can't approach DQ through experience, intellection, 
> or intuitive logic, what justification is there for positing it as a 
> fundamental tenet, let alone "educate" ourselves on its properties?

Tuukka:
To say that DQ is a paradox or an enigma is rather Western. I don't 
think it must always be treated as a difficult concept.

>
>> Mark: For once awareness is converted to words, it is no longer that
>> awareness.  The "Quality that can be written, is not Quality".
>> One must therefore always keep in mind what one is doing
>> with MoQ, so as to not provide it more reach than it deserves.
>>
>> Any written or spoken metaphysic is conveyed to the willing
>> listener by giving clues as to what underlies such metaphysics.
>> Once these clues are assimilated and used, the clues themselves
>> disappear, and the student is then able to move forward without
>> remembering them. ...
>>
>> Therefore, there is a subtle difference between doctrinal and
>> dogmatic.  If the dogmatic were the words one must utter in a
>> prayer, then the doctrinal is the church in which the praying
>> is done.  There are many prayers in a church.
>
> Ham: I disagree with this whole premise which stems from Pirsig's 
> statement that once something is defined it is destroyed or rendered 
> useless.  Words don't destroy awareness.  The fact that ultimate truth 
> cannot be defined doesn't make attempts to do so less important or 
> useful.  Theoretical Science and Philosophy are kept alive by the 
> desire to know the unknowable, and "definitions" don't have to be 
> verbal.  I've often said that truth is in the concept, rather than in 
> facts and numbers.  A plausible concept, properly developed, is often 
> more explanatory than a doctrinal tenet or rhetorical maxim.  To 
> really know something is to understand it conceptually, not as a set 
> of rote definitions.

Tuukka:
True, Ham, but in the field of mainstream philosophy there are a lot of 
nonrelativizably used predicates, which are created in order for people 
to believe mainstream philosophical problems exist. In fact, they don't, 
and the problems modern scholastic philosophologers are actually trying 
to solve is that they are trying to create philosophical problems which 
their great ancestors (Plato, Aristotle) predicted to exist, but which 
don't. The actual philosophy part of that discipline is more or less 
dead. I don't think these inquiries are useful - I think the academy 
should study the MOQ instead, or at least something new, such as the 
CTMU. But the MOQ would probably be better than the CTMU.

>
>> Mark: I would have to say that DQ is not synonymous with Value.
>> However, I am hard pressed to explain this.  Having said this,
>> I cannot find a useful definition for Value which is not somehow
>> self-referential and therefore redundant. ...
>
> Ham: All value is self-referential in that it relates to the self who 
> experiences it.  What makes that "redundant"?   And since Pirsig 
> himself equated Quality with Value, I don't see why the "ultimate 
> Quality" DQ should not be synonomous with Value as well.


Tuukka:
Like Pirsig says in LILA, any thing is identified by its properties. 
Since any thing is, according to the MOQ, Quality, there will never be 
anything Quality would not be supposed to refer to, and Quality is thus 
a nonrelativizably used predicate. The true purpose of the concept of 
Quality is rhetoric: it is intended to convey the impression, that it's 
inappropriate to perceive the MOQ as an extension of any traditional 
Western ontology, such as materialism or idealism. The statement 
"everything is Quality" is intended to clear the reader's mind of 
arbitrary conceptions, not to convey much metaphysical content per se.


> Ham:
>
> I'm disappointed that you don't recognize the difference between an 
> evolutionary paradigm developed around a moral platitude and a 
> cosmology founded on a transcendent, all-encompassing Source.  (Maybe 
> that's why you've stopped corresponding with me.)

Tuukka:
There's that "evolutionary" again... I find the temporal interpretation 
of metaphysics to miss the point. It makes metaphysics a branch of 
history. Emergence is not necessarily temporal, and would apparently 
perform quite a similar function than what "evolution" is intended to 
achieve. In any case, the SOQ is neither of those two. Grounding 
metaphysics on temporal evolution makes the metaphysics vulnerable for 
being contradicted by objective evidence, and difficult to extend beyond 
what we have objective evidence for. That's why I find the MOQ in LILA 
to be something like an OM with DQ, that is, objective metaphysics with 
Dynamic Quality. It's probably an improvement to SOM without DQ. But 
when I initially began constructing the SOQ, my intention was to create 
a SOM with DQ.

Best wishes,
Tuukka