[MD] expanded rationality

[ARLO JAMES BENSINGER JR]

[Arlo]
Only by burying your head in the sand. Any symbolic system capable of indexing experience contains inherent self-referentiality.

[Mark]
No, by realizing that such a thing is static quality.  Knowledge is something we create.

[Arlo]
Realizing that there is such a "thing" as static quality is the point where the self-referentiality begins, Mark.

[Mark]
It is not something that loops around. 

[Arlo]
I can understand why this is difficult for you to grasp, I think. But this just evidences a great deal of confusion on your part. "Knowledge" (that is created) is a description of "experience", and as such the only 'escape' is to recognize the inherent incompleteness of this endeavor. This is why Pirsig left Quality undefined. Any attempt to create a "perfect" or "non-self-referential" system is a fool's quest, and indeed was the folly and fail of SOM.

[Mark]
This reflection loop arises from Western logic. 

[Arlo]
Just not right. The "loop" arises in ALL languages, East to West, North to South, and every symbolic system in between. The "West" made the mistake, as you continue to do, to think one can "get out" of the loop. Eastern cultures recognized the incompleteness and this is why their cultures were not SOM like the West.

[Mark]
MoQ does not create a box unless you choose to create one.

[Arlo]
This is almost too confused for me to even bother to disentangle. "MoQ" does not "create" at all, Mark. It is a set of ideas advanced by Pirsig to replaced flawed SOM thinking (as you evidence above). In this case, "the MOQ" is a box, albeit one that accepts the self-referential paradoxes with a chuckle rather than a foolish quest to "escape" the box.