[MD] East meets West

[118]

Hi Jan Anders,

Thank you for the input on your book.  I must admit I did read your book
rather quickly as I do sometimes to get the overall feel of a book such as
this.  I appreciate the time you took to provide more explanation.  I am
providing some MoQ related comments below, so that you can get an idea
where I am coming from so far as Quality is concerned.

On Sun, Sep 30, 2012 at 8:50 AM, Jan Anders Andersson <jananderses at telia.com
> wrote:

>
> Mark
>
> I think you should be interested of what "Money and the Art of Losing
> Control" has to do with MOQ as it seems that you want to know more about
> Quality. MALC is generally a story about how to USE (or not use:-) the
> knowledge of MOQ and Quality in our daily ordinary life.  I don't consider
> MOQ to be just some mind game. It's an intellectual tool to be used.
>

Mark:
I believe this is a place where we may differ in terms of Quality.  We both
probably agree that MoQ is a metaphysical presentation of what Pirsig terms
Quality.  He uses this term with good reason since we all know what Quality
is without having to define it.  However, it is my impression that Quality
does not fit within the traditional S/O interpretation of reality.  For me,
Quality is a manner of interpreting reality in a manner which does away
with subjects and objects.  Therefore, when I think of "using" Quality, I
think in terms of interpreting the world as Quality (seeing the world as
objectless).  The metaphysics presented in MoQ is one example of how this
can be done, but the interpretation of existence through a Quality paradigm
can be explained in many ways.  While the levels are interesting, they are
not necessary for beginning a journey by Quality.  This should be obvious,
since many people knew what Quality was long before Lila was written.

>
> JA:  One of the most basic issues of the MOQ is change. Without change
> there would be no cosmological evolution. Without the possibility of a
> change there would be no meaning in motorcycle maintenance, getting drunk
> and picking up bar ladies.
>

Mark:
As presented, MoQ could encompass change.  It would not be the first
metaphysics to do so, since an interpretation through science also brings
change to the forefront.  So I do not think that Change is a big part of an
interpretation through Quality.  I think the main force of such
interpretation comes from the ability to completely dismiss subjects and
objects.

>
> JA:  Change deserves time-space. Time is crucial for the experience of
> Quality because there is a moment before the experience, under and after.
> Every pattern is repeated, from time to time, it is frequently recurring.
> Truth is something that we can presume will occur again with great
> significance. Every time it meets our expectations we will call it true.
> From the smallest Higgs-Boson particle to galaxies in the universe we can
> see that it is a Way, Pattern or Method, to gain Energy, with its Form and
> with its Value. If something doesn't have a certain amount of Energy, a
> characteristic Form and an influencing Value, it is not proved to exist as
> a real static pattern.


Mark:
I understand why you bring in traditional scientific paradigms, for that is
what we are brought up with.  However, such examples can lead directly away
from an appreciation of Quality.  For what science does is create objects
as its main mode of interpretation of reality.  These objects are very
misleading and can cloud any understanding of awareness through Quality.
 The more objects and examples one brings in from this scientific
discipline, the more one is drawn away from Pirsig's Quality, in my opinion.

However, I do see what you are trying to do, and i like your examples.  We
make things up like Energy and Patterns, for that is our way
of interpreting existence in traditional Western ways. That is, we create
these things.  That we see there is a Way, it is only because we have
created such a Way.  Of course this is important, since it is of great
value to make the cosmos personal.  The world we create "out there" is
actually happening in our heads and is determined by the make up of our
bodies.  It is the interaction of that "out there" and our bodies that
becomes the reality we are sensing.  As such, we cannot rightly separate
ourselves from that which we see. They are both the same thing.

>


> JA:  The conditions that let matter, patterns arise as Static Values
> depending on Dynamic Quality are important to know. One of the most
> important experiences for any pattern is the time experience. Before, now
> and later.
>

Mark:
So far as I can tell, patterns do not arrise, we create them.  We are
responsible for the patterns by which we interpret the world.  Without
anybody to create these patterns they do not exist.  Patterning is one of
the highest achievements of Man.  The other one is, of course, humor.
 Matter does not arise, we bring it to life and call it matter.  We are the
creators of such matter since they become patterns in our heads.  This is
what is meant by the Ghost of Reason.  Matter as we traditionally use the
word is a ghost, it is a fabrication.

>
> JA:  Every event, every episode in the book MALC is an example of the
> influence of Quality and the levels affecting our reality patterns. The
> trip starts and ends at the same place, like a circular movement. It has
> its certain top and bottom points. Every emotional sensation is
> representing a value transmitted to the owner of the human pattern, how to
> read the 42 guiding "lights" from the biological level and make the best
> choice from that. Biological patterns build their patterns upon their
> experience from inorganic characteristic patterns. When Elsa is a sleep,
> when John falls asleep, they are leaving the social level and all that is
> left is their biological and inorganic patterns. Social patterns depend on
> biological values, some time it is true, sometime the intellectual pattern
> in the mind mirror show a false picture of the social level.
>

Mark:
OK, cool, I will keep that in mind when I get there (second time around).


> JA:   When the spear passes Johns face he's facing the danger of a
> One-dimensional pattern thrown by a disguised enemy with an untrue Quality
> experience. The dogs represents static power with not much intellectual
> understanding. Our modern era dominated by Monetaristic thinking is very
> dangerus because it is sort of a one-dimensional pattern. The "economic
> man" is so primitive and that is why I suspect Ayn Rand to be a undercover
> agent sent by Josef Stalin to infiltrate western thinking into some kind of
> photonegative mindmap of the economic machinery planned by the russian
> communists. MALC is my contribution to broaden the perspective and show the
> other important dimensions of economics.
>

Mark:  When you speak of "primitive man" it reminds me of a movie I just
saw called The Master.  It is meant to be about "Scientology", where we are
trapped in our primitive brains due to evil forces, of something.  A pretty
good movie.  I really have no problem with Scientology although I am not
a practitioner, it is Scientism that I have a problem with.  We have become
so bewitched by the world of objects and their "measurement" that we do not
see that they are simply shadows being cast within our brains, and we
forget what it is that is casting these shadows.  Of course Plato speaks of
this as well.

The point of MoQ is to get out of the cave of shadows.  Forget Science and
all that it professes.  All that stuff is entertaining, but is also
addictive.  People actually think that light is a wave or a particle.  Of
course it is neither of these things, such models are
simply descriptions of light.  Light has nothing to do with waves or
particles, those are just patterns we create.  If I paint a landscape, I do
not then confuse my painting for the actual landscape.  In the same way, we
should not confuse light with our description of it.  Scientism is a dead
end.  It leads nowhere in terms of metaphysics.

>
>   JA:  When John is chased by the ice floes, he's experiences the danger
> of Two-dimensional patterns. When the passing train makes the ground to
> vibrate it is a power like exergy in change that creates new patterns.
>  When the rabbit is crushed by the tyre it changes its Three-dimensional
> pattern into a two-dimensional and it dies. Flat dog, no good.
>  When John walks through the dressing room his biological pattern is
> causing trouble for the female social environment. His biological nose is
> misleading him and so on. He is a lousy card player, why doesn't he care
> more for it?
>

Yes, I like the two dimensional patterns for that is what objects are.  If
we live in a world of self created objects, we become two dimensional.  MoQ
provides one way in which to escape this form of existence.  We are allowed
to stand up and actually look around rather than scurry around as shadows.

>
> JA:  Thanks for the inspiration. Maybe you should get more from a reread
> with this in mind.
>

Thanks, I will.

Hope what I present makes sense.  I find much more value in a world without
objects.  Like I say, Quality is a different way of looking at reality.
 Most would call it insane.  But that is simply because it has not caught
on, yet...

I have to say, that I interpret the levels in a very different way than you
do, as well.  Whatever works, heh?

>
> All the best,
>

Mark

>
>
> 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
>