MOQ_Focus is run as a series of monthly workshops during which a single question is discussed.
Each month a number of suggestions are sent in during the CALL FOR TOPICS period.
All topic suggestion that are not used are listed below and are available for future use
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Topic Suggestions From May 2004
Does Lila Have Quality
Posted by: David Buchanan
How can we apply Robert Pirsig's ideas to our individual and societal
relationship with money?
Posted by: Nathan Blakely
Can the MoQ be applied practically?
or
How can the MoQ be applied practically?
Posted by: Sam Norton
What role could the MoQ possibly play in the future development of mankind
towards progress, both individually, and as a whole?
Posted by: Matthew Poot
Can Pirsig's romantic-classic split and his
Dynamic-static split both be useful explanatations in
the MOQ, and how are they related to each other (are
they different divisions of the same thing or
divisions of different things)?
Posted by: Kirk Rankin
Topic Suggestions From April 2004
In understanding the metaphysics of Quality, there seem to be two
competing conceptions of the relative place of dynamic and static quality.
Conception 1: that Quality is the source, from which dynamic Quality and
static Quality are both derivative aspects, of equal Quality, albeit that
one is a temporal product of the other; and...
Conception 2: that Dynamic Quality is the source, and Static Quality is
the derivative aspect, so Dynamic Quality is Qualitatively superior to
Static Quality.
I think Conception 1 is correct, whereas David Buchanan thinks Conception 2 is
correct, and that difference, I believe, underlies much of our
disagreement re: religion and mysticism. I think that this would
benefit from further analysis.
Questions:
A) do the Dynamic and Static aspects have equal claim to the ascription
Quality, or does the Dynamic possess more Quality than the Static?
B) is it possible to discern which of these Robert Pirsig advocates?
C) if it should be that Conception 2 is what he advocates, is it
coherent and consistent with the presentation of Quality in ZMM and elsewhere?
Posted by: Sam Norton
Topic Suggestions From March 2004
Could a film about ZMM and the MOQ, centered around graphic depictions of Robert Pirsig undergoing
electro-shock treatment at the hands of psychiatrists, with flashbacks to his moments of
enlightenment and flashforwards to his painstaking re-discovery of Quality through a splintered
memory, help galvanize a movement that propels the MOQ forward to being the dominant worldview that
Pirsig envisions for it?
Posted by: Glenn Bradford
Topic Suggestions From February 2004
Are the patterns of one who well understands music notation aesthetically
more beautiful than one who does not well understand music notation? One
may think of this question in terms of ability to improvise and ability to
play notated score.
Posted by: Mark Maxwell
Is the romantic/classic split from the ZMM model (classic/romantic)
really separate from the MoQ? Or are these just different ways of cutting up
the same pie?
Posted by: Amilcar Kabral
Seen in the light of the MOQ can the value that ZAMM treats in
connection with the Sophists and Ancient Greece's "Aretê" be given a
position in the static hierarchy?
Posted by: Bo Skutvik
Can we detect any discrepancies between these two quotes?"
Pirsig in ZMM chapter 20:
"Phaedrus remembered Hegel had been regarded as a bridge between Western and
Oriental philosophy. The Vedanta of the Hindus, the Way of the Taoists, even
the Buddha had been described as an absolute monism similar to Hegel's
philosophy. Phaedrus doubted at the time, however, whether mystical Ones and
metaphysical monisms were introconvertable since mystical Ones follow no
rules and metaphysical monisms do. His Quality was a metaphysical entity,
not a mystic one. Or was it? What was the difference?"
Pirsig in Lila chapter 30:
"The MOQ associates religious mysticism with Dynamic Quality but it would
certainly be a mistake to think that the MOQ endorses the static beliefs of
any particular religious sect. Phaedrus thought sectarian religion was a
static social fallout of DQ and that while some sects had fallen less than
others, none of them told the whole truth."
"He thought about how once this integration occurs and DQ is identified with
religious mysticism it produces an avalanche of information as to what
Dynamic Quality is. A lot of this relgious mysticism is just low-grade
"yelping about God" of course, but if you search for the sources of it and
don't take the yelps too literally a lot of interesting things turn up."
Posted by: David Buchanan
Topic Suggestions From January 2004
Many sophists before the time of Socrates had such an extremely high degree of aesthetic
intelligent perception of exceptional SQ-SQ coherence (DQ), and felt able to teach perception
of 'it,' that their artistic natures were regarded largely as a threat to less gifted individuals.'
Posted by: Mark Maxwell
Seen in the light of the MOQ can the value that ZAMM treats in connection with the
Sophists and Ancient Greece's "Aretê" be given a position in the static hierarchy?
Posted by: Bodvar Skutvik
Is the MOQ a true metaphysics? Or is it simply a model of intellectual and social
development?
Posted by: Amilcar Kabral
Topic Suggestions From December 2003
Can we use the MOQ to decide what to
buy our partners for Christmas? (Does the MOQ even support the giving of
presents at Christmas?)
Posted by: Matthew Forrest
Is language a primarily social level phenomenon in the MoQ?
Posted by: Sam Norton
Is there a religion or spiritual practice that the MOQ supports?
Are there circumstances in which it is moral to take illegal drugs?
Are the policies of George W. Bush evil?
Posted by: David Buchanan
Does Phaedrus' sympathy with the Sophists mean that their representative Protagoras'
"Man is the measure of all things" slogan is valid in the MOQ of LILA?
Posted by: Bodvar Skutvik
Does the MoQ accommodate Global population management?
Posted by: Mark Maxwell
According to the MOQ, is intelligence inherited?
Posted by: Dan Glover
In MoQ terms, should the main aim of a question be to elicit a Yes/No answer?
Posted by: Jonathan B. Marder
