[MD] Is the MOQ static, or a static pattern?

[ARLO JAMES BENSINGER JR]

[Tuukka]
I did not understand what part of the MOQ do you find as recursive, and how.

[Arlo]
Recursiveness is not a function of a 'part' of the MOQ, it is a unavoidable feature of all symbolic systems. A language (formal or informal) sufficiently powerful enough to describe experience will necessarily contain self-reference/recursion. This was the problem Pirsig found when he "made the scientific method the object of analysis itself", and what you are finding when you 'apply the MOQ to itself'. 

Your specific difficulty in saying the MOQ can't be an intellectual pattern because it describes a level called 'intellectual patterns' is this exact same form of recursion. You seem to think you need to 'back out' or 'back up' and this will make the recursion go away. It won't. What it leads to is simply endless regress. 

I think this is what Goedel was saying when he said (paraphrased) "All consistent axiomatic formulations of number theory include undecidable propositions". In this case, the question could be paraphrased using Russell's paradox, "Does a set containing all sets contain itself?" (which is exactly your stated problem).

Hofstadter is great here because not only is he a mathematician, but he ties this inherent recursion to multiple forms of 'art'; painting, music, koans, and storytelling. You can't avoid it. You can't define it away. You can't invent more and more powerful formal systems in hopes of creating one that is not recursive. 

For example, if we start with the axiom that the fundamental division of experience is DQ/sq, and we subdivide sq into i/b/s/i patterns of value.

Then we say, as you propose, that this description is not part of the initial system (DQ/sq), so we redescribe the system as DQ/sq/MOQ, then we can ask, on what level is this new description? It can't be on the "MOQ" level, since it contains the MOQ! So we call this new description mMOQ (metaMOQ) and now we have redescribed the system as DQ/sq/MOQ/mMOQ. Of course now we can ask, on what level is this meta-MOQ? It can't be on the meta-MOQ level since it contains the meta-MOQ level!

As soon as you redefine the system to add a 'back up' container, you've in effect just created a definition that 'contains' that container!

In saying that the MOQ = sq, you are committing a second error, as I've said, and that is conflating the description with the thing-described. Its akin to saying "the menu = the food because it describes the food". The MOQ-menu (intellectual pattern) is not the Broccoli-SQ (biological pattern) because it describes it. By saying that "the MOQ manifests on every level", you directly confusing "the metaphysics OF Quality" with "Quality". You continue this error below.

[Tuukka]
A potato does manifest as inorganic value (chemical compounds), biological value (taste, nutrition), social value (see van Gogh's "Potato eaters" - potatoes were the food of the poor back then) and intellectual value (biological taxonomies regarding potatoes, the evolution of the potato plant, etc.) So there's no reason to insist, that potatoes are exclusively biological value.

[Arlo]
Here you've conflated, say, the economic value (social pattern) of a potato with the organic construction (biological pattern) of the potato. This is not the potato manifesting as a social pattern, this is a social pattern (economics/trade) controlling a biological pattern (potatoes). 

You are correct in saying that "Quality" is manifest on every level, this is the "inorganic pattern OF Quality", "biological pattern OF Quality" and on that note you could say that the potato is a manifestation of Quality and the economics around distribution are manifestations of Quality, and the taxonomies we create are manifestations of Quality, but they are NOT manifestations of "the MOQ" nor are they manifestations of a potato. 

I'm going to back out a bit and let others chime in as they wish here. I think I am just going to be repeating myself, maybe someone else will have something useful to add. 

And as you mentioned, you may be talking about your own metaphysical system, in which case I have no familiarity to comment. If you want to define a potato as a social pattern (among other types of patterns), you most certainly can.