[MD] humpty dumpty

[X Acto]

Mark,
If you provide an address, I'd gladly send you a dollar, euro, pound or frank to promptly purchas a clue.
Your smugness might have a bit more rhetorical impact if you have actually read the material.
 

From: 118 <ununoctiums at gmail.com>
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org 
Sent: Tuesday, August 7, 2012 7:43 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] humpty dumpty

dmb kindly provides some answers to Mark's questions, which Mark now
follows up on:

On 8/7/12, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Mark asked:
> Why does Pirsig choose the scientific levels of inorganic, biological,
> social, and intellectual in order to create a metaphysics based on Quality?
> I know what they are, I am a scientist.  Why does Pirsig find this
> particular method of sorting helpful?
>
> dmb says:
> I suppose there are countless reasons but the central purpose is to provide
> a set of moral codes based on an evolutionary hierarchy.

Mark follows up:
Yes, there are countless reasons.  However, they must all fit with
what Pirsig is trying to describe with these specific examples.  If I
understand what dmb is saying, he is suggesting that each level is a
moral code, and all four levels create a set.  If morality is indeed
codified by the levels, what is it within the levels that results in
morality?  Is it not better to say that morality creates these levels?

My question to dmb, however, was more basic than that.  Why does
Pirsig find it to be necessary to present metaphysics of Quality using
the four levels?  What is fundamental about MoQ that necessitates
this?  By answering this question I was hoping he would provide some
insight into some fundamental arguments of Quality.  Are levels
essential to create a metaphysics based on Quality?  Are there not
some fundamental parameters which better describe it?
>
> Mark asked:
> ...why does Pirsig choose Static and Dynamic Quality for which to construct
> a metaphysics based on Quality.
>
> dmb says:
> Same answer. DQ is what drives the MOQ's evolutionary morality. It's the
> source and substance of all static patterns and forms to basis for the
> highest moral code, the one that says DQ is higher than even the most
> evolved static level.

Mark follows up:
dmb's opinion of DQ is very reminiscent of Ham's Essentialism, which
is interesting. As I understand it, DQ is morality and is not a
driver.  I do not believe we have morality on one side, and DQ on the
other.  But this may not matter towards dmb's explanation.

There does seem to be an unknown in dmb's analogy.  That is how static
quality is differentiated from dynamic quality.  In order for that to
happen, there must be some kind of "actuator" which transforms one to
the other.  This actuator cannot be either DQ or SQ, since it acts on
both.

The question to the group would be how they envision DQ becoming sq,
if we are to go by dmb's explanation.  Perhaps dmb can tell us what
Pirsig proposes as an explanation for this?  Seeing as how this is a
modern take on standard metaphysics throughout the ages, mechanistic
examples are appropriate.  We have a metaphysics which is based on
Quality.  An epistemology would describe how this works.

I would like to propose another reason for Pirsig's use of DQ and SQ.
It is a modern version for the spiritual/material dichotomy.  If one
understands that dichotomy, then it is evident that MoQ is a twist on
that presentation.  As you know, I am not a religious person, but do
enjoy philosophy along those lines.  Once the spiritual nature of the
world is apprehended, it can be denoted as DQ.  Or better yet, if you
understand DQ, then you will understand what others mean by the
spiritual world.  The static world is, of course, the material world.

The spiritual world is the most evolved.  In some presentations,
angels are depicted as purely the intellectual level.  That is, "they"
have no emotions, cannot see color and so forth.  There are many forms
of metaphysics which then go on to create a more elaborate structure
by creating more separations than just DQ and sq.  MoQ has a way to go
there.  However, once MoQ is understood, many of the more spiritual
writings become clear.  It can be used as a translator for many older
forms of metaphysics which are based on the same principles.
>
> Mark said:
> You are wrong, Quality is not a thing, not even "the source of all things".
> I thought we had got beyond that.  MOQ is a description of Quality, it is
> not the metaphysics of turtles.
>
> dmb says:
> Pirsig says Quality is the source and substance of everything. The MOQ
> spells this out and so getting "beyond" that is exactly what you don't want
> to do - presuming that the purpose here is to understand Pirsig's ideas.

Mark follows up:
Yes, he does say this, and thereby creates parameters by which Quality
can be understood.  What I was asking for was dmb's understanding of
Pirsig's ideas, not what he wrote.  I was hoping he would explain why
Pirsig presents MoQ in this way.  Perhaps he misconstrued my question.

I am confused by dmb's comment about "going beyond".  Is he suggesting
that this should be accepted as dogma and not be questioned?  This
would be a James' approach to believing in a manner of metaphysics
(just do it and find out what happens).  However this leaves for
little discussion.

It seems like dmb may be taking Pirsig's statement literally like some
kind of cause-effect (or subject-object) paradigm.  However, if
Quality is both source and substance, then we are really not saying
anything.  We could also say that God is the source and substance of
everything.  We are creating an object in the form of Quality, and
then giving it the properties of a source and substance.  I do not
believe this is what Pirsig is saying at all.

What is important is what Pirsig means by this.  Does the group have
any ideas here.  If Quality is everything, and, what makes everything,
what does that say to you?  Perhaps we could discuss some ideas here
of what Pirsig means.

>
> Mark said:
> I am trying to ask some fundamental questions here.  I was hoping you had
> dealt with them in your thesis.  If not at least you can speculate based on
> your understanding of Quality.  Maybe Pirsig explained this more directly
> than in Lila.
>
> dmb says:
> Yes, but these fundamental questions are predicated on misconceptions such
> that the questions don't make sense and can't really be answered. The best
> one can do in such a situation is try to untangle the misconceptions behind
> the questions.

Mark follows up:
There are no misconceptions behind the questions, so it appears that
dmb has misconceptions concerning my questions.  One of the problems
with getting dogmatic with MoQ is that one can only frame the vast
possibilities of Quality in a single manner.  This creates the cage
that Pirsig warns us of.  There is often a desire to make this cage as
airtight as possible.  Any keys provided to be released from this cage
are questioned in an antagonistic fashion, when their only purpose was
to help.

What are misconceptions for some are opportunities for another.  It is
quite possible that dmb is finished with MoQ and is simply polishing
it up now for display.  There are others of us which want to continue
building towards the heavens.>
>
> Mark said:
> He could have made other choices through which to present Quality.  Has
> there been any discussion on that?  Once one has a grasp of Quality, other
> analogies can work.  If this has not yet been discussed perhaps we can do so
> here.  Other forms of metaphysics use other types of levels, as you know.
>
> dmb says:
> With respect to Quality or DQ, Pirsig himself makes many different
> comparisons. The Tao, the One of Plotinus, the ineffable empirical reality
> that philosophical mystics share in common, the Native American "Manito",
> the "nothingness" and the "Emptiness" of Eastern philosophies, etc., etc..
> It's very supportive of the perennial philosophy, which says this is
> recognized in the esoteric core of the world's great religions, and Pirsig
> tells us that he's not inventing a new idea here (It's the oldest idea known
> to Man, he says), but rather he's dredging out silted up old channels,
> cutting a new trail over the same old spiritual mountain, etc. His version
> is relevant to our highly technological and scientific culture, is meant to
> serve our time and address our problems.

Mark follows up:
Yes, I agree with this.  However, dmb must also agree that there are
subtle distinctions between all those nouns which you provide.  Of
course Pirsig is speaking as an outsider of these philosophies and we
have to rely on what he knows about such things.  Since dmb (or Ant)
have worked with Pirsig, perhaps they could elucidate what aspects of
Emptiness (for example) can be related to Quality.  I am assuming they
understand why Pirsig would even claim such a thing.
>
>
> The hierarchy of static levels, however, is a separate topic however. Again,
> because DQ is the source of everything knowable and definable and static
> patterns are those knowable, definable things. ("The Tao which can be NAMED
> is not the real Tao".) And yes, our culture's contemporary scientific
> worldview is just about the only worldview that does NOT have a hierarchy of
> being. In our own history and in most non-Western worldviews there is some
> kind of great chain of being that extends from dirt to divinity. And, as I
> mentioned last time, Pirsig draws his lines based on very old ideas.
> (Physical vs mental & mythos vs logos.)

Mark follows up:
All that the Tao quote presented means is that the Tao cannot be
pointed to.  This is only one of many aspects of the Tao.  Love cannot
be pointed to either, so what?  Nothing is being said with the NAMING
quote.  Nothing is ultimately definable, absolutely no thing.  Words
have definitions, of sorts, but this is simply to make them useful.
There is no such thing as a "defined" thing.  This is where one needs
to get with MoQ.  Otherwise one is making a distinction up where there
is none.  We exchange ideas, not things.

Science also extends from dirt to the divine, so I am not sure we can
leave this out.  What we create in all these cases is the result of
what we are as humans.  They are all basically the same thing.  The
only difference about science is that it chooses to only deal with the
measurable.  By doing so, people lose sight of what is not
measureable, and assume it does not exist.  This is where MoQ comes in
handy.
>
> There are countless reasons for slicing things up that way but the
> over-arching goal is to paint a coherent picture of an evolutionary process
> in which freedom (DQ) and order (sq) are the essential ingredients.

I like what dmb said there.

Thanks,
>
>                        
> Moq_Discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org/md/archives.html
>
Moq_Discuss mailing list
Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
Archives:
http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
http://moq.org/md/archives.html