Skutvik : Thus the oriental intellectual level was every bit as S/O as the Occidental, but the Orientals did not lock on to that level to let it develop into a S/O metaphysics like the West.
Khoo: Wow, Bo this is as superficial as you can get about a culture and a civilisation bounded by a metaphysics that you observe as laboratory rats. Have you immersed yourself among the lab rats in what oriental philosophy, more pointedly Chinese philosophy would be all about before you make statements like that; directly rather than vicariously even through Pirsig. Skutvik: The social level is their primary focus with a Quality-like insight lodged on top of that, manifest as Buddhism and Taoism. Khoo: In a way if thats all how you think of Chinese civilisation being mostly social structures it does not surprise me that you would come up with a particularly grating point of view as below: Skutvik: This is behind their lack of innovation, of aping western music and producing western goods to perfection, but not bringing forth any new things. Khoo: I wonder where the world would be without ice cream, spaghetti and gunpowder. But that said according to your world view - lets not hold our breath for anything new to come out from China -even as blends of East and West and then more. I may have posted earlier on this before - but all innovative activity in China was done and claimed in the name of the Emperor. I was surprised that crossbows and chrome were already made in China when China was first unified under Qin. Does anyone remember the name of the first Chinese Taikonaut; as opposed to Yuri Gagarin and Alan Shepard ? Chinese society today has to deal with the market capitalism of the West - to the extent that greed and lax regulation has allowed melamine to taint baby milk products. But the social values of a country that limiits birth to one child per family will soon enough correct that - as we expect the greater good to prevail over the greed of a few. Skutvik: Most of all no philosophical evolution - like the MOQ for instance - and typically the MOQ could not have been arrived without the strong intellectual level i.e. the SOM. Khoo: Might it ever be considered that Chinese civilisation for all its 6,000 years, barbarism and affluence all taken into account, is the manifestation of a Metaphysics of Quality ? Quality after all precedes SOM; Western civilisation choose to go with SOM as the primary dichotomy. Chinese civilisation stayed with the Metaphysics of Quality and retained SOM as a derivative branch. That is why maybe in your scheme of things the Chinese don't have inventions in the personalised patents under the names of individualised objects; objects who dared identify and name the ten thousand "things' as though they discovered "them" and therefore possesed "them".. Finally I am not inclined to get into a debate where the premises have no common ground but I will say that if one accepts that the fundamental worldview of the Chinese is alliterative rather than objective; then we may start to get to the point. 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/
