Yes. Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful.
SA --- On Fri, 8/22/08, david buchanan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > From: david buchanan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: [MD] What is SOM? > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Date: Friday, August 22, 2008, 7:36 AM > dmb said to Bo: > It seems to me that you must be suffering from a very odd > definition of "metaphysics" and > "intellect". You seem to think the MOQ is reality > itself rather than words about reality and so you are > altering the MOQ so that it is construed as essentialism > rather than philosophical mysticism, which is a vigorous > form of anti-essentialism. > > Bo replied: > Yes if that is essentialism I'm very much so, but > because DQ is part and parcel of the MOQ I wonder how you > avoid being a Quality essentialist too ... without > resorting to the Quality//DQ/SQ variety that even Pirsig > finally had to abandon. > > dmb says: > Pirsig's Quality is opposed to Plato's Quality > precisely because it is not an essence. We can find this > anti-essentialist move in what I take to be the > philosophical and dramatic climaxes of ZAMM.... > > But why? Phædrus wondered. Why destroy areté? And no > sooner had he asked the question than the answer came to > him. Plato hadn't tried to destroy areté. He had > encapsulated it; made a permanent, fixed Idea out of it; had > converted it to a rigid, immobile Immortal Truth. He made > areté the Good, the highest form, the highest Idea of all. > It was subordinate only to Truth itself, in a synthesis of > all that had gone before. > > That was why the Quality that Phædrus had arrived at in > the classroom had seemed so close to Plato's Good. > Plato's Good was taken from the rhetoricians. Phædrus > searched, but could find no previous cosmologists who had > talked about the Good. That was from the Sophists. The > difference was that Plato's Good was a fixed and eternal > and unmoving Idea, whereas for the rhetoricians it was not > an Idea at all. The Good was not a form of reality. It was > reality itself, ever changing, ultimately unknowable in any > kind of fixed, rigid way. > > ..................... > > > What is good, Phædrus, and what is not good...need we ask > anyone to tell us these things? > > It is what he was saying months before in the classroom in > Montana, a message Plato and every dialectician since him > had missed, since they all sought to define the Good in its > intellectual relation to things. But what he sees now is how > far he has come from that. He is doing the same bad things > himself. His original goal was to keep Quality undefined, > but in the process of battling against the dialecticians he > has made statements, and each statement has been a brick in > a wall of definition he himself has been building around > Quality. Any attempt to develop an organized reason around > an undefined quality defeats its own purpose. The > organization of the reason itself defeats the quality. > Everything he has been doing has been a fool's mission > to begin with. > > On the third day he turns a corner at an intersection of > unknown streets and his vision blanks out. When it returns > he is lying on the sidewalk, people moving around him as if > he were not there. He gets up wearily and mercilessly drives > his thoughts to remember the way back to the apartment. They > are slowing down. Slowing down. This is about the time he > and Chris try to find the sellers of bunk beds for the > children to sleep in. After that he does not leave the > apartment. > > He stares at the wall in a cross-legged position upon a > quilted blanket on the floor of a bedless bedroom. All > bridges have been burned. There is no way back. And now > there is no way forward either. > > For three days and three nights, Phædrus stares at the > wall of the bedroom, his thoughts moving neither forward nor > backward, staying only at the instant. His wife asks if he > is sick, and he does not answer. His wife becomes angry, but > Phædrus listens without responding. He is aware of what she > says but is no longer able to feel any urgency about it. Not > only are his thoughts slowing down, but his desires too. And > they slow and slow, as if gaining an imponderable mass. So > heavy, so tired, but no sleep comes. He feels like a giant, > a million miles tall. He feels himself extending into the > universe with no limit. > > He begins to discard things, encumbrances that he has > carried with him all his life. He tells his wife to leave > with the children, to consider themselves separated. Fear of > loathsomeness and shame disappear when his urine flows not > deliberately but naturally on the floor of the room. Fear of > pain, the pain of the martyrs is overcome when cigarettes > burn not deliberately but naturally down into his fingers > until they are extinguished by blisters formed by their own > heat. His wife sees his injured hands and the urine on the > floor and calls for help. > > But before help comes, slowly, imperceptibly at first, the > entire consciousness of Phædrus begins to come apart -- to > dissolve and fade away. Then gradually he no longer wonders > what will happen next. He knows what will happen next, and > tears flow for his family and for himself and for this > world. A fragment comes and lingers from an old Christian > hymn, "You've got to cross that lonesome > valley." It carries him forward. "You've got > to cross it by yourself." It seems a Western hymn that > belongs out in Montana. > > "No one else can cross it for you," it says. It > seems to suggest something beyond. "You've got to > cross it by yourself." > > He crosses a lonesome valley, out of the mythos, and > emerges as if from a dream, seeing that his whole > consciousness, the mythos, has been a dream and no one's > dream but his own, a dream he must now sustain of his own > efforts. Then even "he" disappears and only the > dream of himself remains with himself in it. > > And the Quality, the areté he has fought so hard for, has > sacrificed for, has never betrayed, but in all that time has > never once understood, now makes itself clear to him and his > soul is at rest. > > dmb continues: > We see this same paradox in LILA, where Pirsig says that > philosophical mystics have historically shared, "a > common belief that the fundamental nature of reality is > outside of language; that language splits things up into > parts while the true nature of reality is undivided". > He says, "Historically mystics have claimed that for a > true understanding of reality metaphysics is too > 'scientific'. Metaphysics is not reality. > Metaphysics is NAMES about reality." He says, "The > central reality of mysticism, the reality that Phaedrus had > called 'Quality' in his first book, is not a > metaphysical chess piece. Quality doesn't have to be > defined. You understand it without definition, ahead of > definition. Quality is a direct experience independent of > and prior to intellectual abstractions". > > Let me put it this way, old friend. Dynamic Quality itself > is reality but the MOQ is not reality. It is names about > reality, a set of intellectual static patterns that describe > reality with definitions and concepts. Like its rival, the > MOQ is a product of that analytic knife. In other words, the > deconstructive anti-essentialist moves against SOM have to > be applied to the MOQ too. Its categories and concepts are > not to be confused with the primary empirical reality from > which they are derived any more than SOM's categories > and concepts. I mean, Pirsig is consistently > anti-essentialist even with respect to his own metaphysical > system. Otherwise, the MOQ would be exempted from the art > gallery analogy and the whole thing would otherwise be full > of holes. > > I think this is what gives rise to your SOLAQI. You're > trying to solve problems that don't really exist in the > MOQ. The problems are a product of your essentialist > misinterpretation of the MOQ. Get rid of the essentialism > and the problems will evaporate. > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get ideas on sharing photos from people like you. Find new > ways to share. > http://www.windowslive.com/explore/photogallery/posts?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_Photo_Gallery_082008 > 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/ 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/
