[MD] Dr McWatt's advice to his unknown student from a remote spot of the world.

[Dan Glover]

Dear all, and especially Ant,

I found this email in my box this morning. Apparently the sender meant
to mark it for moq.discuss but put my email address on it by mistake.
It is apparently from the student that Ant mentioned...

------------------------------------------------

My Dearest and most wondrous Dr. McWatt,

I want to thank you for taking so much of your extremely valuable and
extraordinarily busy time to answer my nonsensical questions. Please
disregard my use of the many and assorted words such as you, I, me,
him, her, them, and any other term that might somehow even distantly
relate to an inferred embodiment of self no matter how ephemeral it
may seem or to my inadvertent mentioning of that which might otherwise
be taken as something corporeal like this fictitious keyboard with
which I am (supposedly) typing out these carefully nuanced and
structured sentences meant as but a feeble attempt to convey my
befuddlement at the audacity of your wisdom.

I offer you greetings.

If you should ever find yourself during your many and illustrious
travels around and about our most glorious globe in the vicinity of my
poor tribal village in a remote spot of the world please do not
hesitate to contact me. I am of course but one of the many beautiful
daughters of the chief of my village and should you take me up on my
offer please understand it is our custom to share with our guests not
only the plentiful and highly nutritious food that we have so
carefully grown and even going so far as to roast one of the many
greased pigs that we have so lovingly raised from piglets but also
know that we will as a matter of course offer up for your enjoyment
all the tanned and gleaming virgin bodies of our women and girls who
are said to be every bit as desirable as of that of those beauties of
your own Elizabethan era and much easier to undress.

Needless to say I have pored over each word of your most generous
response to me but still I find I am nevertheless markedly confused
and what's more perhaps even more so than before. I am forced to
apologize profusely and repeatedly and what's more I humbly offer my
profound regrets at my incredible stupidity and beseech you once again
to delve into your massive missive that you have so painstakingly
compiled upon the MOQ and lend to me your most pertinent and
perspicuous teachings which may in time come to annul my befuddlement.
For instance:

When you say:

"The four levels of static quality patterns have nothing directly to
do with individuals, subjects and/or objects."

I can only wonder what is the value of that which has nothing directly
to do with me and you. I of course have taken many liberties in
assuming that by 'individuals' you do in fact mean me and you though
of course if we do not actually exist - if we are in fact but enormous
and walking masses of bacteria that are but convenient fictions
perpetrated upon our world by those who should know better - then I
have to wonder to whom it is that I am writing this long and for me
extremely laborious letter. Should I simply print it out, take it to
the outhouse, and use it as we use all paper products here in my
lonely and isolated corner of the globe? For I am quite certain at the
bottom of the pit that is indeed at the heart of the outhouse there
also lurks an enormous mass of bacteria which for all I know may well
be in contact with the bacteria that comprises you, my esteemed friend
and learned teacher.

Please let it be known that it saddens me to think as a young women (I
assure you there are but one of me but perhaps you are referring to
the many masses of bacteria that comprise the fictitious me) I would
be banned from Rome and I cannot help but wonder if that was indeed
the case why Rome did not fall far sooner than it did. In my poor
tribal village our strength is found in our children and so far as I
can determine it is impossible for men to conceive. Perhaps you are
only using this anecdote to frighten me away from traveling back to
ancient Rome but I have never entertained any such notions and thus my
continued bafflement as to why you might include this in your
otherwise most intelligent and intriguing response to me.

In closing, please convey my many regrets to Patrick Doorly at not
having the resources and opportunity to purchase and consume his tome.
Should the time come when my father gathers enough goats together to
pay for such an illustrious book let it be known that he has promised
me it for Christmas, which of course we do not celebrate here but
nevertheless it is a generous and thoughtful offer on his part.

Many blessings upon you and yours,

Your Unknown Student

---------------------------------------------------------




On Sat, Aug 16, 2014 at 8:02 AM, Ant McWatt <antmcwatt at hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
> Dear unknown student from a remote spot of the world,
>
> I think you have reached a point where you have to decide whether you want a degree just for social reasons e.g. to forward a career, prestige from your family & peers etc., or primarily for intellectual reasons i.e. whether you actually want to obtain a good understanding of the Good (or what Pirsig terms "Quality"). Until you have the latter understanding, I am sorry to say that you will still be trapped in Plato's mind as nearly all people who are dominated by contemporary Western culture are.  A culture where Beauty, Love, poetry, music & the Good are seen as relatively unimportant and secondary to
> "material concerns".  Robert Pirsig offers us a metaphorical key (possibly the only one in 2014) to escape this (fundamentally) immoral, unpractical world.
>
> If you do choose the latter, I would strongly advise you as a (relative)
> beginner in this area to drop all notions of "subject", "object", "subjective" and "objective".  At least for now.  They are all (Platonic) terms of SOM ("subject-object metaphysics" as Pirsig terms it) and will just confuse you.  This is illustrated in Section 1.1., Chapter 1 of my PhD (starting with a quote from David E. Cooper):
>
>
> "When we refer to people, methods and opinions as objective, the contrast is with ones that are biased, partial, prejudiced and the like.  Objectivity of
> this kind is, one might say, an epistemic virtue, something to be striven for
> if knowledge is to be effectively and reliably acquired.  But we also
> speak… of entities, properties and values as being objective.  Here, the
> rough intent is that something is objective if it exists or obtains
> independently of what people may think, experience or feel.  Expressions
> like ‘objective judgement’ and ‘objective proposition’ are therefore
> ambiguous.  The former, for example, may refer to a judgement arrived at
> in a suitably impartial, detached manner, or to one that concerns an objective state of affairs - the price of a wine, say, as opposed to its quality."   Cooper (2002a, p.214)
>
> It is apparent that for SOM the notions of ‘subjectivity’ and ‘objectivity’ are assigned as metaphysical terms (referring to types of reality such as mind and matter) in addition to being assigned as epistemological terms (referring to ways of knowing; as in the ‘spectatorial’ accounts of knowing criticised by Heidegger).  A further SOM semantic construction of note is that being a ‘subject’ (for instance, being a centre of consciousness) is not usually considered problematic but (with the simple addition of a seemingly neutral suffix) being ‘subjective’ (as a criticism of being engaged in conscious activity that will lead to an incorrect relation with an object) is.  On the other hand, it is considered problematic to treat people like objects but unproblematic (in most contexts) to treat them ‘objectively’ (i.e. without prejudice).  In this context, to treat people ‘objectively’
> entails that they are not treated as ‘objects’.  On the other hand, it can
> be argued that it is only by subjectively identifying and empathising with
> their subjects that anthropologists, for instance, can arrive at fair-minded,
> informed and more ‘objective’ accounts.  Yet, this shows an ambiguity in
> SOM as we observe ‘subjective’ knowledge (gained through empathy and
> identification) mysteriously becoming ‘objective’.
>
>
> ------------CUT----------
>
>
> Moreover, it is apparent that the terms ‘subject’ and object’ are usually complementary, in that a knowing mind is a ‘subject’ insofar as it is aware of an ‘object’ while an object is termed an ‘object’ insofar as it stands or, at least, can stand, in a certain relation to a subject.  On the other hand, the terms ‘subjectivity’ and objectivity’ are usually perceived as being opposed, in that as one increases, the other decreases.  Finally, as noted above, an ‘object’ can be an object of thought, a grammatical object or a physical object.  It should be noted that the above illustrations are by no means exhaustive so, in consequence, pinning down the meaning of particular SOM terminology can be often like catching the proverbial ‘greased pig’.
>
> Considering the ambiguities surrounding subject-object terminology, it comes as no surprise to  discover that Pirsig (2002h, p.530) was considering a complete jettisoning of SOM terms when constructing the MOQ...
>
>
> END OF QUOTE
>
>
> You stated in your last e-mail of August 15th:
>
> "I tried to make a relation between the four patterns of static quality
> maintained in your thesis but as far as I can perceive they are patterns
> defining one's interpretation about one single object (as the instance given in p. 89)".
>
> The four levels of static quality patterns have nothing directly to do with
> individuals, subjects and/or objects.  For instance, Buddhism and modern science show us that notions of "the individual" or "the self" are largely just useful fictions.  Contemporary biology tells us that out of all the cells that make-up the average "human" body, only 0.10 % are genetically human.  99.99% of these cells are actually non-human and largely consist of bacteria that live on the skin or in the gut and do things such as breaking down food and dirt particles.  A quick Google search will indicate the truth of this matter as of 2014.  (Of course, future scientists might think something else).
>
>
> You then stated in your last e-mail:
>
> "I am seeking the measures being causes of a change in quality (and it goes without saying that a measure which can improve the quality of an object might act vice-versa for another, e.g. compare the role of time in changes applied to the knowledge (extended) and a cellphone (out-dated)). After the classification of them, I will focus on the influence of such indicators on the education of architecture."
>
>
> Hmmm... The four levels of static quality patterns actually refer to how Pirsig thinks the "Everyday" or mundane universe is best divided and includes every sub-atomic particle, every virus, every tree, every animal, every society and every idea (including this one!).  The only things not included within the realm of the four static patterns (and this is the important, critical point that Plato got wrong) are the (essentially) formless Beauty, Love, and the Good.  They can only be understood by metaphor in the form of poetry, fiction and music.
>
> (In fact as a young women, you might be interested to know that not only would Plato have banned all poets from his ideal Republic but also all women,
> all musical instruments, most modern technology and, for some weird reason,
> sounds of water too.)
>
> http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-aesthetics/
>
>
> In other words, everything that can be measured in this life (such as
> Love) is not necessarily the most important or valuable things.  Beauty,
> for instance, can not be measured in the same way as a length of string or a
> duration of time.  We are brainwashed in the West to think otherwise but
> it's simply not true. For instance, when you see a beautiful painting, do you
> first get a ruler out to make sure the artist has faithfully followed the
> "Golden Ratio" before you decide that you "like" it or, as Pirsig would say, do you see that you simply like a painting on "face value" (i.e. Dynamically - in the moment) and then - if you're really interested in it - work out later why?  If the former, my guess is that you will soon be banned from your local fine art galleries for being a crank! :-)
>
> http://www.goldennumber.net/art-composition-design/
>
>
> This is also why I highly recommend you to buy a copy of Patrick Doorly's book "The Meaning of Art" book which shows in great detail what a lot of
> nonsense the "Golden Ratio" is!  As a bonus, it also has a damn good overview of the MOQ.  My review of Patrick's book can be read here:
>
> http://moq.robertpirsig.org/Doorly.html
>
>
> That is end of today's "lecture".  I will go through my books this weekend and find my favourite architecture texts for the next stage of your research.  But, in the meantime, please don't include the following words in your e-mails to me: "subject", "object", "subjective" and "objective".
>
> Thank you!
>
> Yours sincerely,
>
> Dr McWatt
>
>
> .
>