Hello everyone On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 12:30 PM, John Carl <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Dan, > > sheesh! This is jumping in the wayback machine. I see "ten days ago" > marking this message so I hope you have patience enough for the slowly > developing.
Dan: I am in no hurry; no worry. > > >> >> Dan: >> I have to agree with Robert Pirsig. It is nonsense. Spirits becoming >> subjects? How on earth does a spirit construct itself objectively to >> itself? Do you honestly agree with this? >> >> > > John: > > The problem is their use of the word "spirit". I think some translation of > that term is necessary to make sense of where they were coming from when > they were using it. Dan: As the Copleston book shows, the Victorians were staunchly religious. They really believed in God and spirit and soul. Make no mistake. It was demanded of them. Starting from that point of view precludes any possibility of viewing reality outside of religious notions. In my opinion, they were spouting nonsense, pure and simple. Unless of course someone believes in that nonsense. John: The term as I best translate it in MoQ terms is > "ghosts" the way RMP used it in ZAMM. If you remember, he used it two > ways! First, as a rejection as a silly superstition when Chris offered that > he had a friend who believed in them. Then he realized Chris's friend used > the term differently and he adapted and accepted. Yes, THOSE ghosts are > real. They're real because they are constructs of thought in that culture. > You have to interpolate. Dan: Yes but to compare Native American culture with the Victorians is a stretch. Not even in the same ballpark, I'd say. >John: > Another analogy for spirit is wind. When Pirsig talked about the wind and > Goethe, he reminded us that the ancient Greeks didn't use the intellect for > understanding truth, they listened to the wind. That is a good analogy too, > for what the romantic period idealists meant by "spirit" and they were on to > something. Dan: Well, ruach is a Hebrew word that literally means both wind and god. It has to do with a kind of vitalizing force... the wind of god brooded over chaos in the creation story to bring forth life. It is a what, not a who, however. Now, they may have been talking Dynamic Quality! But not the Victorians with their spirit and soul. Sorry. >John: > An analogy I've used myself a lot, in my own thinking, is translate it as > "software". Spiritual realities are intellectual patterns. Having to do > with programatic relation or meaning on an ultimate scale. The ancients > were most concerned with the spirit world, but we seemingly have left all > that behind, and now we use the term to mean what we think we're lacking in > our "spiritually empty" existence. I'd say, Quality is spiritual and has to > do with ideas. Anything that has to do with the idea of ideas, is in some > sense a spiritual concern. That's my definition and use of the word > "spirit" and when I read their works with that idea and from within an MoQ > framework, I look at "spritual reality" as a way of describing 4th-level > phenomena, that's on the sq end of the scale, and true spirit is more of a > DQ thing. Dan: I don't think it is a good thing to conflate god and Dynamic Quality, which you seem to be doing here, hence my discomfort with spirit and soul as used in Copleston. It is nonsense. > > > >> >> >> > John: >> > >> > Actually dan, I don't think any interpretation of the MoQ is a "wasted >> time" >> > but I do think there is a tendency to refuse to think about things that >> are >> > assumed. >> >> Dan: >> We disagree. I do think some (supposed) interpretations of the MOQ are >> incorrect and therefore a waste of time. There are certain assumptions >> that make up the context of the MOQ and without those assumptions the >> MOQ ceases to be. >> >> > > John: > > Well, you're probably right. What you say seems right to me. I do think > that, at times, but perhaps I over-construe. It happens. > > > >> Dan: >> The way I understand it, the Copleston annotations were an attempt by >> RMP to answer Ant's question pertaining to Victorian values and how >> they compare to the MOQ. They are filled with religious notions >> prevalent during Victorian times... notions like spirit and soul. The >> MOQ sees this as nonsense. >> > > > John: > > Now, you're over-reaching. For just like the example with Chris, the MoQ is > also very much concerned with a rapproachment with Indian thinking and > consciousness and "notions like spirit and soul" are very much part of that > thinking and consciousness, and shouldn't be treated like nonsense anymore > than the theory of gravity. You're expressing an inappropriate prejudice > bequeathed by a reaction to christian indoctrination. > > Free yourself my son! Dan: I am not indoctrinated, sorry. Never been a church-goer. Never studied religion, christian or otherwise. I did read the bible as a teenager and actually memorized a good deal of it but that was on account of reading somewhere that Hemingway did the same to better his writing. I've also read the Gita and the Koran and checked out the Book of Morman (God, what a load). For the record, the ghosts that RMP speaks of in ZMM have to do with social and intellectual patterns of value, not spirits or the soul. In fact, he equates the theory(s) of gravity with those ghosts. And I am not your son. > > > >> >> Yes there is value there, I agree. And if you're serious about >> discussing ideas presented therein, perhaps a less flippant and >> derogatory attitude might work wonders. >> >> > > Well. I am. I'm willing to be patient. It appears we have enough > discussion on our hands at the moment, just with your basic and fundamental > MoQ principles. But they await in my drafts box and I would like to take up > that discussion some day. The Idealist of that period were a big influence > to me, coming as they did to me, at the same time I was studying Sessions > and Gary Snyder's approaches to Deep Ecology which is how I found about ZAMM > in the first place. I like revisiting the studies of my youth, heh-heh. > Spoken like a true old fart. Dan: As I've told you before, I am not a philosopher and have done no formal studies. I would be interested in going over the Copleston annotations to further the MOQ, however. > > > > >> Dan: >> We both have a choice and have no choice, at the same time. That is >> what the MOQ is telling us. > > > > John: > > That doesn't satisfy me at all. Logical contradictions are not very > useful. Philosophically -wise. Dan: It is not a logical contradiction. To the extent we follow static quality, we have no choice. To the extent we follow Dynamic Quality, we are free. Where is the contradiction? > > Dan: > > >> To cling to the notion that only free will >> offers quality is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of >> experience, which is what I told Ham last time we spoke. >> >> > John: > > I admit, sometimes it feels like I'm arguing along Hammian lines. But > really, I'm not. For one thing, Ham thinks free will resides in humanity > alone, and I disagree. I say free will is co-fundamental with Quality as > the basic stuff of the whole enchilada. That the levels, are demonstrably > ratchets in choice. I feel that the MoQ is entirely in agreement with my > formulation. Dan: Yes, co-fundamental works. We need both Dynamic Quality and static quality. Quality (if we're talking Dynamic Quality/static quality as I assume we are) is both free and determined. It is not synonymous with free will however. > > > Dan: > > >> To move from a low-quality situation to a high-quality situation isn't >> a choice. The hot stove experiment illustrates that nicely. It just >> happens. No choice involved. >> >> > JOhn: > > Well, I've argued against this adequately. Sometimes it's a valid choice to > sit on a hot stove. Like when your butt is freezing. And the surprised > reaction involves a bunch of pre-selected choices that are acted upon > quickly because they were all thought out ahead of time. IF there was > absolutely no pre-conception of heat or stove, then there wouldn't be an > instantaneous reaction. And some of this is built-in on the biological > level, but I believe choice is really a fundament of that level too! Thus > we say "he has no choice" because his cells are "choosing" without benefit > of his intellect! That doesn't obviate choice, just transfers it to a lower > level. Dan: As I told Ham, you are missing the point of the hot stove experiment. Moving off the hot stove isn't an intellectual decision. That comes later. Your 3-stove analogy completely missed that point and I cannot see that you've grasped it yet. > > > Thanks for your patience, Dan. You're welcome, and thank you for yours as well. Dan 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
