John, You are such a funny guy... Here's a repost of my very, very favorite DanG story...
John, From: Dan Glover <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 02:01:51 -0500 Subject: Re: [MD] (no subject) Driving down the road one day, in a hurry as usual, I caught sight of a sign just as I passed it. Curious, I made a u-turn and went back. The sign said: Buddist Temple and just below that was a little hand-painted note that said: All Are Welcome. So I drove into the compound. I parked the car in the parking lot and walked into the temple. Your sign is misspelled, I told the young man at the counter. He laughed a loud belly laugh. I thought maybe he hadn't understood me. I explained that there should be an "h" in Buddhist. He laughed again, this time falling to the floor and rolling around as he grabbed his sides with his hands as if his ribs hurt from laughing so hard. About this time an older man appeared from behind some curtains, apparently drawn by the laughter. Thinking that the older man was in charge, I approached him. He wore a long orange robe and he looked quite regal from a distance but as he got closer I could see many tattered rips in his robe that had been carefully repaired and I could see his nose hair needed trimming. The man looked very old. Hey mister, I said, I thought you should know that your sign out on the road is misspelled. It should read B-U-D-D-H-I-S-T, not Buddist. He looked at me a long time without saying a word. I thought perhaps he didn't speak English. I looked over my shoulder for the younger man who could perhaps translate for me but he had disappeared. When I looked back towards the old man, he had turned around and was walking back through the curtain from where he'd first appeared. He waved a hand over his shoulder as if motioning me to follow. So I did. We walked down a long hallway, made a turn to the left, and then a turn to the right, and emerged outside close to where I parked. The old man motioned me to get in my car, so I did. Then he waved goodbye. So I drove off. On my way out of the compound, I stopped, pulled down the Buddist Temple sign, and threw it in the weeds that grew by the road. ----------- -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of John Carl Sent: Sunday, August 02, 2009 12:45 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [MD] John Carl's Critique of Pure Experience INST04 On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 2:01 AM, Ian Glendinning <[email protected]>wrote: John, DMB, again, you are at the nub of all our issues ... Well for some that might be an aggravation, but for me it's a relief. I only think "root" when I hear "radical". Nothing else. Well... there is this quick conceptualized radish that twinkles in my brain for a moment. I always associate radishes with radicals. Just like Dave associates lima beans with low quality. > > > DMB "the idea is to fix that defective value-free intellect." > > John "Man will inevitably conceptualize, its in his nature." > > It certainly has been human nature ... but it's an evolved and > evolving nature ... we can still learn. > > Clearly we are never going to get some "pure" definitive handle on > pure-experience (or Quality) without contaminating it with conceptual > objects. Almost there, "contamination" should be in quotes cuz that implies some sort of evil infiltration, does it not? What is the whole point of man's existence but to conceptualize? It's something we do better than all the animals, it lies at the heart of our intellectual being, and I don't see the point of denigrating or bemoaning the fact that we inevitably conceptualize. Because it keeps us from experiencing the moment? What moment? That one right there? Or the one coming up next? It's a ridiculous game invented to keep you going in circles so you can see the circles so you can stop going around in circles. "Transcend" is the aim of that game. But because Pirsig has to make some sort of static statement to get you to see these circles, and W James comprehends the needed psychotherapeutic solution to the static intellectual traps of SOM, acolytes of Jamesian Pirsigianism turn the circle into an object of veneration which means it's now degeneracy to get off! Let us all bow down and say Ohhhmmmm before the great Pure Experience. And on and on it goes, whither it stops, nobody knows. I wonder if this is sort of Bo's point. I'm not very good at following other people's arguments. But then, nobody is. > BUT what this kind of radical empiricism is saying is PLEASE > notice that defect, PLEASE discount your pre-conceived objects so far > as you possibly can whenever experiencing something, or interpreting > experience in another. > Which might be very helpful to some kinds of intellectuals, in some kinds of intellectual traps. I mean please look carefully at "pre-concieved" What exactly is that? I know it means "that idea that is in your mind BEFORE experience" but some ideas that are before experience come in right handy. For instance, if I have an idea that the stove might be hot, my pre-conception is gonna keep my butt from getting burned. Is that "lower quality" than actually getting the pure experience of blistered buns? Has anybody ever defined the MoQ as a system designed specifically to cure the world view problems of academics? I don't think that's fair. Motorcycles mechanics need metaphysics too, ya know. Preferably something easy to handle that stores nicely but works well when you need it and doesn't break. A larger-than-lifetime guarantee wouldn't be so bad. 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/
