[Ham] Arlo believes that society precedes intellect. [Arlo] Moreso, Pirsig believes this. Let's be clear about that.
[Ham] John believes that non-human nature precedes both. [Arlo] As does Arlo. And moreso, as does Pirsig. Let's be clear about that. Inorganic-biological-social-intellectual. [Ham] What's wrong with Descartes' own conclusion: "I think, therefore I am"? Simply that it does not acknowledge the otherness of which his thought consists. [Arlo] There is nothing wrong with it per se, except when it is used to support a non-social view of intellect. Pirsig was taking this commonly used dictum and placing it in a larger context, or rather he was adding the context that must be there for it to hold as "true". [Ham] What Descartes MIGHT have said is: "I think, therefore something is self-evident." [Arlo] In order to "think", Descartes needed a language/culture. Once assimilated, "self-evident" is biased. "Our intellectual description of nature is always culturally derived" (Pirsig). [Ham] But of course that's a logical truism, because nothing is more evident than one's thinking. [Arlo] I'd say Quality is. "Thinking" is an abstraction from the flow of experience, but since it derives from experience, I'd say that experience (Quality) precedes "thinking", and hence is "more evident". Nothing is more evident than the Quality-moment of NOW. [Ham] All this talk about a hierarchical reality evolving in time and producing an intellectual creature in the course of it is fraught with difficulty and paradox. [Arlo] Hardly. But in the end any "metaphysics" that ignores or contradicts or denies "evolving in time" is meaningless and irrelevant. 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/
