[C raig, from "to all who get it]
> It seems that there at least 4 views on reality currently > being bandied about the MD: > 1) At one end of the spectrrum, the view that humans create > reality (athro-centrism). > 2) At the other end of the spectum, the view that humans > are not different in kind from other animals, just more > complex (glorified apeism). > 3) In between, the view that humans are different in kind > from other animals but evolved from them (evolutionism). > 4) Askew to this spectrum, the view that reality is never > (or only under special circumstances) accessible to humans > (mysticism). [Arlo] > But again I think its worth noting that Pirsig's comments > from ZMM point to a landscape that is not "naturally divided" (my > words), that is what we see as "discreet" is not in fact so. We > divide, then we forget that our divisions are illusions of > convenience, matters of pragmatic import, and culturally-derived, and > come to wrongfully believe that these "separations" precede our > "analytic knife", when in fact they are created by it. This is neither Pirsig’s view nor does it accord with reality. There are all sorts of “natural divisions”. Take the water cycle: lakes evaporate, the vapors form clouds, rain down into rivers which flow to lakes. M inerals don’t evaporate & fall down as pebbles. Cats have kittens not cubs. That’s not an illusion—it’s nature. If there’s any illusion here, it’s that we create nature, rather than are a product of it. Pirsig's view is that there is more than one way to organize the data, but there are ways to get the data wrong. Craig 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/
