Arlo, In a better world, "meaning" is negotiated and refined as intent and > interpretation play off each other over time. In this world, Pirsig's > protestations about his intent WOULD matter, and certain "interpretations" > would be seen as disagreements and divergences from "intent". >
There's a lot of intent, in the works of Pirsig, that is made perfectly explicit and its the important stuff. Trying to decipher intent on unimportant stuff, seems to me to go against the intent made plain in the rest. If you have an alternative explanation for something, then explain how it's better, in clear english. If you can't, then why argue for it anymore? This is one place I fear that dear Bo went plainly wrong. But that's beside the point of the moment, your erudite explanation of the negotiation of meaning is great, as far as it goes. I agree completely. > We cannot, in other words, remove one utterance from the flow of a dialogue > and > claim that it exists in an intent-free vacuum, one has to consider instead > the > dialogue, which includes both intent AND interpretation, back and forth and > back and forth, refining and evolving.... > > An intention-free environment is impossible, I agree. What our goal is, I believe, is to cease to intend only our own selfish interests, and intend more quality in thought and expression instead. Quality of expression is judged by a quality interpretation. 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
