[MD] Truth and Relativity 2.0

[David Harding]

Hi Mark,

You sure do talk to me a whole lot when I'm not talking to you :-) Regardless, there are things I disagree with here.  

First and foremost, I'll restate how I see the difference between SOM and the MOQ. Within SOM everything is relative and there is no way we can say whether anything is better than anything else.  Moreover, we don't really have free will as A causes B and thus everything is determined.  

The MOQ solves all this. Quality is fundamental so we can say whether something is better than something else. Moreover in regards to static quality, yes our actions are completely determined, but in regards to DQ our actions are completely undetermined and 'free'.  It is important to keep DQ undefined as it gives the MOQ its strength.  All things going well the MOQ as sq will be replaced by something better. As far as I know this is the first ever philosophical system to say so!

> Perhaps truths are static representations, but truth is not sq. Truth
> is a dynamic awareness from which we form truths. This would be the
> interaction of consciousness, as you present it, with DQ. It is
> important to make this distinction.
> 
Truth is sq. It is a static representation of reality as per a dictionary definition. 
 
> 
> If indeed truths are static patterns, then such a truth (about truths)
> is also a static pattern. If this is the case then we can not claim
> dominance of one such truth over another. We cannot say that it is
> true that truths are static patterns, for that would imply that one
> such truth is more important than another in the description.
> 
> 

Yes, and what is wrong with this implication? Some things are better than others right? Being that truths are static quality, they can be ranked like qualities.  Some truths are better than others. 
> It is this sinking into a morass of relativeness that is important to
> guard against, otherwise the conversation becomes meaningless.
> Indeed, if one proposes a heirachy of truths, and at the same time
> states that such a heirarchy is static quality no different from that
> which it seeks to encompass, then one has no firm ground on which to
> stand. We cannot claim that the "heirachy of truths" is itself at the
> top of the heirarchy, for this would be self-proclaimed dominance. We
> must be careful about the truth about truths. One is dynamic quality,
> the other is static quality.
> 
> 

Nowhere have I claimed that truth is DQ?  DQ is undefined quality.  Truth on the other hand can be defined.  It is intellectual patterns of value.
> If RMP claims that static quality represents everything
> conceptualized, then where is he speaking from? We can certainly
> agree with him, but such agreement is dynamic, not static.
> 
> 

Agreement being something that can be defined is static not dynamic.
> A
> conceptual understanding of conceptual understandings is a circle
> which does not promote dynamic quality. If we rigorously claim that
> what Pirsig presents is dogma instead of rhetoric, then we get stuck
> with no way out. One must appreciate the importance of DQ rather than
> try to subject it to sq parameters. This is why Pirsig writes the way
> he does about rhetoric. Presenting verses from the Bible is putting
> MoQ into a stranglehold, which many seem willing to do. We are better
> than that having learned from the disasterous consequences of dogmatic
> religion.
> 
> 

I agree.  But I don't think that simply pretending some such a static quality is dynamic solves the issue.  Any new idea which anyone presents is more static quality.  We're surrounded by static quality on this discussion board and we can't get away from it.  We can talk about DQ through analogies but those analogies themselves are still yet more static quality.  How do we get out Mark? We're trapped!

Weirdly, I think the way out is through that circle of 'conceptual understandings'.  The real way to free oneself from static quality is to go over and over and over it.  To perfect it. And once it is perfected, it no longer grates on our conscience and is gone. Thinking about Lila over and over and over again has helped free myself to some extent from the book and the MOQ.  It is like a Zen Koan. If you think about something long enough, you end up becoming that thing, and it's gone!  If people are presenting Pirsig as dogma then I don't see any trouble with that. So long as they are thinking about it when they repeat it and don't forget that it is there to represent DQ.
> It is important to realize that the point from which the individual
> views the world is DQ in essence. We are not provided this view from
> the outside in, but from the inside out. 
> 
> 

I know that you like this analogy however it is more sq to me..  We've had this discussion before and using DQ in your mind as some static thing is dealing not with DQ but with sq!
> Try as we may to promote the
> perspective that we must consider our awareness relative to everything
> else, it is not possible to do so. We shine like the sun; the sun
> cannot shine on itself. Quality can not be "before the individual"
> since that would put us as separate from Quality, and we then return
> to the "God-like" presentation of such a thing. 
> 
> 

Quality can be 'before the individual'. The quality which is before the individual is DQ, the individual is sq.
> We are DQ as we
> create experiences, we are not subjected to experiences. 
> 
> 

I would be careful here.  Suggesting there is a 'We' always along with DQ implies that DQ is some thing.  DQ isn't anything.  We, on the other hand, is sq.
> Modern
> thought in areas such as evolution and psychology would deny this
> free-will. MoQ seeks to dispel our estrangement from Quality, not
> strengthen it. The relegation of our appreciation of existence into
> static quality only works in favor of making the human existence
> something relative, and in my opinion, meaningless. 
> 
> 

I do not see how relegating our appreciation of existence to sq, makes sq 'relative?   If I appreciate some such a static quality that means I regard it highly.  Regarding something highly like that is a sq act..
 
> The "creation of
> meaning" is DQ, (note that I do not state that "meaning is DQ"); It is
> about as dynamic as it gets.
> 
> 

Yes, DQ is the source of all things including meaning. However when we say, such and such 'means' something, this is a sq statement and thus it is instantly not DQ.
 
> 
> I, for one, know that my view out into existence is not relative. I
> have nothing to compare it to since such view is all I have. To say
> that this truth I present in the first sentence in this paragraph is
> static quality is missing the whole point, in my opinion. Let's stay
> focussed rather than drift into never ending circles of reason.
> 
> 

In my view, quality solves all paradoxes and never ending circles of reason like this. As soon as quality is brought into the picture, so is common sense.
 
> Thank you for starting this thread.
> 
> 

and thanks for participating. 

-David.