Mark, > Mark > Besides, can we not invent something that is real? I am afraid that Wilbur > has followed the same wrong turn that you have. Perhaps he is not real > either.
Quality is Quality, it is not an analogy for anything. Only > the concept is an analogy. Please, get real. Dave This is not my argument. It's the start of PIRSIG'S argument as supported and defended by many of others here over the years. I started years ago as an aficionado of Pirsig's work but over time, as I better understood philosophy in general, his philosophical arguments, and other peoples interpretation of his work my opinion has flipped 180. So when you ask, " When you step on a thorn, do you consider that to be real?" Absolutely. But according to Pirsig's quote the "thorn" is not a "given" part of our environment, it is an analogue and invention created by continuing stimulus of quality. Look at this exchange with dmb which I started in part by posting this: [Quality is the continuing stimulus which our environment puts upon us to create the world in which we live. All of it. Every last bit of it.] ZaMM 146 Dave T said to dmb: If for argument purposes let's say the Quality described here is the Quality that gets carried over to start Lila. Look at the two sections I put in brackets. It seems to me that the first quote falls to the myth of the given. The environment being the "given." ... dmb says: In the preceding paragraph Pirsig explains that "he used this example because his chief questioners seemed to see things in terms of stimulus-response behavior theory". He says this sort of explanation was "easiest intellectual analog of pure Quality that people in our environment can understand". Also, despite the fact that he's explaining this in terms a behaviorist can understand, the substance of his claim strikes a direct hit against the myth of the given. Think about it. If every last bit of reality is an invented analog, then everything is constructed and nothing is given. >Mark > If you can show me some way, using clever rhetoric, that our thinking is > somehow not a real process, then I will consider your view that any analogy is > not real. For an analogy is something that we create from real things. There > is nowhere in that process where it becomes unreal. Studies have shown that > thoughts can be stimulated by placing electrodes in the brain during brain > surgery. Here we have the direct stimulation of thought. I suppose you could > say that we are imagining that such brain surgery is even taking place. If > so, then I know where you are coming from. In my opinion, thoughts are as > real as anything else, even if the mechanism for self awareness is not > known. People do not remember or act when the electrical activity in > their brain is not there. Dave Who is the original champion of "clever rhetoric"? The one who's work this site eulogizes? Get my point? Dave Dave 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
