Hi Dan, > >From: "Platt Holden" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > > >Quoting Dan Glover <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > > > > > > > > All things arise, flourish, and pass away. Are we things? SOM says > >yes. > > > >MOQ > > > > > says no. If one chooses to believe the SOM myth, then so be it. > >There is > > > > > little I or anyone can do to change their minds. [Platt] > > > >Will your be so kind as to point out where in the MOQ as described in > >Lila > > > >it says we are not "things?" I would appreciate it. (In reply, Dan offers extensive quotes from Lila) > >Sorry you went to all the trouble of looking up and typing out the quotes > >below. > > Hi Platt > > I do love my searchable LILA. Me, too. > >Pirsig doesn't claim that the "universe of distinguishable things" is > >false. > > I suspect you might want to read the entire quote again. Mr. Pirsig is > clearly making a case for using static and Dynamic value as a starting point > in his metaphysics and not subjects and objects (things). Static patterns > become things in our cultural point of view. If it is not a false point of > view then why does he spend so much time explaining this point? I'm thinking of the following passage where Pirsig says SOM isn't false, just that the MOQ is better: "Or, using another analogy, saying that a Metaphysics of Quality is false and a subject-object metaphysics is true is like saying that rectangular coordinates are true and polar coordinates are false. A map with the North Pole at the center is confusing at first, but it's every bit as correct as a Mercator map. In the Arctic it's the only map to have. Both are simply intellectual patterns for interpreting reality and one can only say that in some circumstances rectangular coordinates provide a better, simpler interpretation." (Lila, 8) [Platt] > >His > >point is that instead of being collections of particles and atoms as > >science > >alleges, things are collections of moral values. "If one comes from a > >cultural tradition where an electronic assembly is primarily a moral order > >rather than just a neutral pile of substance, it is easier to feel an > >ethical responsibility for doing good work on it." (Lila, 30) [Dan] > You seem to be using "thing" as a slang term to mean anything you like it to > mean. Perhaps our difference is semantic. Using Merriam-Webster's definitions I go with "3 a: a separate and distinct individual quality, fact, idea, or usually entity." Maybe you think of a thing as " 3 d: an inanimate object distinguished from a living being." [Platt}] > >Perhaps you think of a "thing" solely as a physical object that casts a > >shadow whereas I think of a "thing" as any phenomena of experience, > >including ideas, emotions, and Pirsig's patterns of value. Since my > >question failed to make that clear, I apologize. [Dan] > No apology necessary. But I think your use of the term "thing" has led to > confusion, especially using it interchangeably with static patterns of > value. I am quite sure that Mr. Pirsig says Quality is not a thing. I agree. Quality is not a thing. It cannot be defined. But to me a pattern is a thing (like an electronic diagram of a radio) and a value is a thing (like this radio is better than that one.) Anyway, can we agree that static patterns of inorganic and biological values can be called things, like atoms and aardvarks? (skip) > >[Dan] > > > People exist as a collection of static quality patterns of value, not as > > > objects or things. We value people. That's why we care about what > >happens to > > > them. [Platt] > >People exist. They are real. They are not illusions. That's all I wanted to > >hear. [Dan] > You want to hear that the self exists. You're changing the context here. If > people are real then it means that the self is real. It means the individual > is not an empty concept. Sorry. That is not what I said. I agree people hear what the want to hear. So to clarify you believe that 1) people are not real, 2) the self is not real, 3) the individual is not real. They are all illusions, figments of our imagination. Is that your position? Thanks Dan, Platt 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.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
