John, This is the cultural specticals Pirsig refers to, the ones that are handed to us from birth. the tradition of describing and therefore conceptualizing experience in terms of subjects and objects, self other was created by the pre-socratic greek philosophers, flowering with the axioms of Plato and Aristotlian schools, the ones our schools are modeled on today. the traditions of analytic were created by the ancient greeks. Matt Kundart recently wrote a nice essay on the subject, also Dmb recently wrote a rather nice piece regarding it. Plus the "rhetoric and madness" paper addresses it at length. I wrote a rather esoteric essay on the subject titled "the function of form" on the MoQ.org opening page, I knew what I meant when I wrote it, but, it's questionable whether or not anyone else will understand what I meant.
-Ron ________________________________ From: John Carl <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, May 16, 2009 3:13:09 PM Subject: Re: [MD] Arlo's Rant and 3rd levels [Ham] Moreover, if, as John says, "the sage proclaims that the self IS defined by the ten thousand things and rational intution confirms this," then subjective awareness (the self-evident experience of phenomena) defines our existence. Does this not support Pirsig's thesis that "experience is the cutting edge of reality" and that "something that is not valued doesn't exist"? [Ron] Here is the idea, self and other do not originate in experience, self and other originate in the description of experience. This is Pirisigs main thrust. [John] hooboy. I am confused after all this clarification. I agree with Ham agreeing with me (big surprise) But I'm sorry that I don't follow Ron's point at all. Which is especially embarrassing if it IS Pirsig's main thrust because I really thought after reading and re-reading I actually got that guy. Ron, please enlighten me as to how the description of experience originates those "things" (self and other) it is intending to describe? And all, let me please regale you with further philosophical meanderings of my new hero, J. Royce, and his explication of the matter. Follow closely his argument and where Royce uses the term "error", substitute Pirsig's quality and tell me where they differ. [Royce] Shall we now give up the whole matter and say that error plainly exists, but baffles definition? This way may please most people, but the critical philosophy knows of no unanswerable problem affecting the work of thought in itself considered. To explain the possibility of error about matters of fact seems hard, because of the natural postulate that time is a pure succession of separate moments, so that the future is now as future non-existent, and so that judgments about the future lack real objects, capable of identification . Let us then drop this natural postulate, and declare time once for all present in all its moments to an universal all-inclusive thought. And to sum up, let us overcome all our difficulties by declaring that all the many Beyonds, which single significant judgements seem vaguely and separately to postulate, are present as fully realized intended objects to the unity of an all-inclusive, absolutely clear, universal, and conscious thought,, of which all judgements, true or false, are but fragments, the whole being at once Absolute Truth and Absolute Knowledge. So far then we propose this as a possible solution for our puzzles. But now we may insist upon it as the only possible solution. Either there is no such thing as error, or else there is an infinite unity of conscious thought to which is present all possible truth. [John] Sounds like Quality with a "Q" to me. I vote for "infinite unity of conscious thought". What do you guys say? Does this pass for fundamental Reality Ham? I'm off to the lake. Looking forward to food for thought when I get home. Love to all, John 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/
