Hello Platt, I think "being" a collection of patterns, of intersecting fields of force, is a fairly accurate and aesthetically pleasing concept. It can be interpreted many meaningful ways.
The singular/pluralism paradox is an ancient one. Platos "Parmenides" is a fine dialog on the subject. When I read it, I came to the conclusion that it was an argument of semantics, Pragmatically the singular and the plural are one experience. The meaning lies in the argument from the particular experience to a universal understanding. The particular experience dies, the universal understanding is lasting. Universal ideals get passed from generation to generation therefore are eternal and their craft is of the utmost concern. The early Christian church fathers are one and the same as the ancient Greek philosophers and they crafted universal ideals from Platos theory of forms. The ideal of the soul is the ideal of the self. Which brings us back to the paradox of how may the self be many yet one? how is it dynamic yet static? How do we all understand a meaning yet not? When the self is realized universally it becomes eternal, the particular experience is ever changing composed of many, all in flux. It is the word, the logos the common understanding which is the fixed and everlasting life. We then have two selves the fixed universal and the ever changing and perishable particular experience. Pirsig states they are one static experience. It is of my opinion that the sum is greater than the parts that the horse and the cart make three, that the father and the son create the holy ghost. the spirit of the universal understanding. that ideal being the good, Quality, Arete, excellence. Conceptualizing the good and universalizing it separated western civilisation from good. Salvation comes from the marriage of the particular good and the universal good. When dynamic and static are one expereince and harmonize, it manifests as a true ideal of Quality, the good. The original christian movement was a Quality movement but it became dominated by the universal good once again and once again western civilazation became seperated. So yes Platt, I think the universal ideal of the self IS larger and longer lasting than the individual expereince but it is the union and harmonization that completes us and give our lives a richer meaning. ________________________________ From: Platt Holden <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, December 15, 2008 3:19:22 PM Subject: Re: [MD] The SOM/MOQ discrepancy. Bo: > The reason for Pirsig's saying that nothing but man responds to DQ is > I believe that he (correctly) regards the intellectual level as Q- > evolution's last stage (leading edge) and that humankind's is it's sole > "inhabitant" here (not even all of those). The inorganic level was DQ's > first creation and what it immediately started to probe in an effort to > escape. The result was the biological level which became leading > edge and what "responded to DQ" .. and so on. The lower levels > workings are now "static responses" as I see it. Your insisting that the > MOQ is - and will remain - an intellectual level is an example of > STATIC intellectual response. The thing now is to free DQ from its last > static creation - intellect - and let the Quality Evolution find its > "final > form". Here things kind of collapses - I admit that - but not only for > the > SOL interpretation, one can't possibly envisage a new intellectual > pattern that contradicts the MOQ without the MOQ collapsing. OK as > always out on my mission. This is how I see it, too. Also, I don't think anyone, least of all Pirsig, would claim that the MOQ is the last word. At least I would hope that in 10,000 years we would have moved on. 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/ 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/
