Greetings Bo, Trustworthy witness? A trustworthy witness would have no-thing to say; all else are patterns, lost and found.
Bo On Jul 16, 2010, at 4:41 AM, [email protected] wrote: > Mary, Arlo, All. > > Arlo had said: >>> What focus on "THE" does is trap the conversation in "who speaks for THE >>> metaphysics of Quality?" rather than "whose ideas are better?" And not >>> only that, it leads to absurdity after absurdity. I mean, you don't >>> really want to support an "argument" that says "Pirsig is a weak >>> interpreter of Pirsig"? Do you? Because since he denies he wrote >>> anything in his books that would lead to that conclusion, that is what >>> he becomes. Too dumb to understand what he himself was saying, and part >>> of the "weak interpreter" camp that promtes a "dead MOQ" (whatever that >>> means). > > Bodvar comments: > The "THE" issue is artificial, we all know that it is our respective > opinions we express, but can't put IMOs and IMHOs in front of - or > after - each sentence. > > Mary replied: >> Here is what Pirsig says. > > ZMM Chapter 16: Phædrus¢ second metaphysical phase was > a total disaster. Before the electrodes were attached to his > head he¢d lost everything tangible: money, property, children; > even his rights as a citizen had been taken away from him by > order of the court. All he had left was his one crazy lone dream > of Quality, a map of a route across the mountain, for which he > had sacrificed everything. Then, after the electrodes were > attached, he lost that. I will never know all that was in his head > at that time, nor will anyone else. What¢s left now is just > fragments: debris, scattered notes, which can be pieced > together but which leave huge areas unexplained. When I first > discovered this debris I felt like some agricultural peasant near > the outskirts of, say, Athens, who occasionally and without > much surprise plows up stones that have strange designs on > them. I knew that these were part of some larger overall > design that had existed in the past, but it was far beyond my > comprehension. ... It is probably a long way from what he > thought. When trying to recreate a whole pattern by deduction > from fragments I am bound to commit errors and put down > inconsistencies, for which I must ask some indulgence. In > many cases the fragments are ambiguous; a number of > different conclusions could be drawn. If something is wrong > there¢s a good chance that the error isn¢t in what he thought > but in my reconstruction of it, and a better reconstruction can > later be found. > > Bodvar comments: > Thanks Mary for finding this, it pertains to a most sensitive point that > we have touched on from time to time, but have left quickly: Pirsig > may not be the most trustworthy witness about what Phaedrus' ideas > were and may explain why his presentation varies so wildly between > ZAMM where he equalizes SOM with "intellect", to LILA where MOQ's > 4th. level is a bland no-one-knows-what thing. The initial equation is > radical beyond anything hitherto conceived and Phaedrus must have > felt alienated and scared over what genie he had let out of its bottle. > This combined with the immense pressure he exposed himself to > when attending the philosophy course while teaching at the Navy Pier > University. Anyway he was treated with the electrical equivalent of > lobotomy and his "hard-disk" was partially erased. What I believe Mary > means and this quote says is that the post hospital author of ZAMM > found big and small pieces of Phaedrus' written material whereby he > reconstructed the Quality Idea to the point he believed was as close to > the original, and this contains the "Genie" - the Intellect = SOM - but > when starting on LILA (further removed from Phaedrus in the time) the > Quality= Reality issue took precedence and the erroneous conviction > formed that if this could be proved "mission was accomplished" - MOQ > just an arbitrary ordering of Quality. But - alas - the Quality=Reality is > an axiom, it cannot be proved the proof is what reality the DQ/SQ > constellation creates (plus the static levels with the former > Subject/Object constellation the top level) AND THAT IS A > FABULOUS REALITY! > > Again thanks Mary, but also thanks to Arlo, this was a "fair" approach > to the issue. > > Bodvar > > > > > > > > > > > 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/md/archives.html ___ 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/md/archives.html
