Dear Bodvar --
[Ham, previously]:
Classical Idealism is a belief that the only existing substance is mental.
Phenomenalism is the theory that representations (or sense data)
are all that exist. Then, of course, there is pure objectivism which
states that mind, values and ideas are all derivatives of matter.
These are all monistic worldviews predating Pirsig's MoQ and
Priday's Essentialism.
[Bo]:
If young Hamilton went around flaunting sentences like this
you must have been quite a prodigy. I only knew that existence
had been split along the mind/matter "fault" and even if I lived
in a world full of sounds, smells, colors, tastes ... these were
subjective (which spells illusory in SOM). Had I not been so
mercilessly "rational" (using intelligence from reason's premises)
I may like my contemporaries have enjoyed life.
When I became a septuagenarian I called myself "the world's oldest child
prodigy." (It was my excuse for the long delay in exhibiting the intellect
of "ordinary" prodigies.)
On Newton and Einstein you reveal that you don't understand
the MOQ, that you always have been safely within SOM's or
intellect's perimeter. Lucky fellow!\
Alas, like you and everybody else, I am literally "subject" to these
perimeters. But the great thing about intellect is that it does not limit
your concepts to finitude. In the 15th century a theologian named Nicholas
Cusanus deduced that "The first principle cannot be other...than an other or
nothing." I know of no more profound concept in the annals of philosophical
thought in the 600 years since this was penned.
Although Cusa was referring to God, his First Principle might as well have
been Quality or Essence. He had cleared the way for a primary source that
transcends empirical difference. I stumbled upon Cusa's logic less than a
decade ago, and for me it was the key that could not only unlock the MOQ/SOM
enigma but could make Essence plausible as the ultimate Reality.
Despite the officiaI atheistic posture of this forum, I sense a "spiritual
revival" occurring within the ranks. It comes across in these personal
narratives, and it can only bode well for the MoQ and for the future of
postmodern philosophy in general. Spirituality is sorely missing in today's
culture, as is the understanding that belief in a transcendent reality does
not have to be anti-intellectual. Indeed, we need all our mental faculties
to realize metaphysical truth. We stand divided as individual creatures;
but intellect and value-sensibility affords us the potential to be
spiritually united with our unceated Source. And that is philosophy's great
hope.
Respectfully,
Ham
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Dear Ham
As far back as 18. July.
I had said:
> Not that I knew any SOM, it was the mind/matter abyss,
> ourselves as isolated minds fundamentally alienated from
other minds and - most of all - from reality, only approaching
"it" by way of theories, that however close only were
subjective descriptions of an enigmatic something.
I knew the impossibility of this dualism, but it did not
> alleviate my oppression, it merely looked like an added
sadistic game that existence played with us.
Ham:
How did you know "the impossibility of this dualism"? Such knowledge
could not have arisen from the experience of an "alienated mind".
Certainly empirical evidence contradicts that conclusion. It must have
been either a personal intuition or your exposure to idealistic
philosophers. Whatever the source of this "dilemma", its resolution has
obviously become your personal challenge.
I compare myself with young Phaedrus, he was submerged in an
"intellectual" time - reason ruled - yet he saw the impossibility of
reason from reason's premises. I had not arrived at something as
advanced as his
"The number of rational hypotheses that can explain any given
phenomenon is infinite" (page 107)
but had nevertheless had my own insight of the fundament of reason
giving way beneath me and when I first read this "infinite number of
hypotheses .." passage it hit me like lightning as did the talks on
Newton. So I will very much claim that insights (not knowledge) about
reason's "impossibility" can arise from an alienated mind - ONLY from
it can it arise. .
This is a bit over the edge. The Yin and Yang of Taoism is a way of
resolving the duality of nature by seeking balance between its polar
opposites.
The point is that I - like P. - was totally submerged in SOM or Reason,
I could not fathom any realty beyond the mind/matter, that's the point. I
had read Alan Watts for example but he made no sense ... those wool-
headed Orientals had just not seen REASON! - it was not until Pirsig I
understood what Watts may have meant.
If young Hamilton went around flaunting sentences like this you must
have been quite a prodigy. I only knew that existence had been split
along the mind/matter "fault" and even if I lived in a world full of
sounds, smells, colors, tastes ... these were subjective (which spells
illusory in SOM). Had I not been so mercilessly "rational" (using
intelligence from reason's premises) I may like my contemporaries
have enjoyed life.
Another misconception (in my opinion) is your insistence on the
evolutionary development of intellectual ideas as if they were
"existents", as, for example:
> Most revealing for me was the section on how SOM emerged with
> the old Greeks, IT HAD NOT EXISTED as SOM itself wants us
> to believe "always, just for the Greeks to discover".
Whatever the essence of Reality, it doesn't change simply because someone,
at some particular time, posits it as a metaphysical thesis. Newton
didn't "invent" gravity, nor did Einstein create relativity, nor is SOM
Pirsig's conversion of subject/object duality. Theories merely
reinterpret reality; they don't change it.
Young Ham may have known the correct context from the outset, but
young Bo thought the mind/matter fault went all the way down, no
undivided essential reality somewhere. This was why ZAMM's about
SOM having entered history was such a relief.
However, I enjoyed reading 'Bodvar's Odyssey' and appreciated the
opportunity to get a first-hand account of your struggle. I think we can
all relate to your experience.
Thank you Ham, I read your story with great interest, may comment it .
some day, you and I aren't "twitters"
Bodvar
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