Hi David, I don't understand this RMP quote relating to your judgement of good or bad mystical practices, or relating such practices to Mark and I. I agree with the quote, but I do not understand the direction you take it. I cannot speak for Mark, but I am not a mystic, nor do I even know what might be considered a mystical practice. I consider my "self" to be a flow of ever-changing, conditionally co-dependent and impermanent static patterns of inorganic, biological, social and intellectual value in the infinite field of Dynamic Quality, nothing more. Will you please explain your statements and the assumptions they are built upon?
Marsha On Aug 24, 2012, at 8:09 AM, David Harding <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi dmb, > > You're preaching to the converted here, but then I suppose this post > isn't directed to me.. Marsha, as well as Mark, practice bad > Mysticism. They fail to recognise that they make statements about the > truly best way to live simply by their existing. If they ignore > Pirsig's statement that: > > "The only person who doesn't pollute the mystic reality of the world > with fixed metaphysical meanings is a person who hasn't yet been born > — and to whose birth no thought has been given." > > Then, I suppose, the loss in quality is theirs. > > -David > >> David H quoted Marsha: >> >> "The word 'truth' does not interest me." (18th August) "You might like to >> classify patterns as truths, but I do not. " (17th August) "I would say >> that I value the MoQ where the fundamental principle is the idea that the >> world is nothing but value(Dynamic/static); there is nothing additional >> called 'truth'." >> >> >> David H commented: >> As if 'truth' is additional to value? This is the crux of your >> misunderstanding. Truth can be value and truth is value. Truth, just as >> everything else, is a part of value. Truth is one of the better things to >> value in fact. ...You are fighting a 'truth' which has been defeated long >> ago. Quality first, then truth. There's nothing wrong with truth. In >> fact, it's very good. >> >> >> >> dmb says: >> I think that's right. Marsha's mistake, basically, is to use the MOQ's >> critique of objective truth against the MOQ itself. The MOQ says that truth >> is a particular kind of static value, the highest species of static value. >> If we express her comments in the MOQ's terms, it's pretty easy to see how >> convoluted and incoherent they are: >> >> "The term 'static patterns of intellectual value' does not interest me." >> "You might like to classify patterns of static intellectual quality as >> patterns of static intellectual quality, but I do not." "I value the MOQ's >> idea that the world in nothing but value (DQ/sq): there is nothing >> additional called static intellectual value." >> >> In short, it's contradictory in the extreme. She likes the idea that the >> world is nothing but value but then excludes the highest form of static >> values from that world of values. >> >> The MOQ defines truth as a static intellectual pattern within (and >> subordinate to) Quality or immediate experience. This makes the MOQ's truth >> empirical. Since it rejects the correspondence theory, the MOQ's pragmatic >> truth is also plural, perspectival, and generally far more flexible than the >> Platonic or objective kinds of "Truth". In other words, this definition of >> truth drops all pretenses of a single right and real truth and instead, >> truth is more modestly defined as what we can have right now, in our context >> and in our particular situations. It is "what works" in the sense of actual, >> practical value. Truth is an intellectual species of the good in the same >> way that health is a biological species of the good. We value fitness and >> excellence for all ways of living life: intellectually, socially and >> biologically. >> >> "James said, 'Truth is one species of good, and not, as is usually supposed, >> a category distinct from good, and coordinate with it.' He said, 'The true >> is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of belief.' >> TRUTH IS A SPECIES OF GOOD. That was EXACTLY what is meant by the MOQ. Truth >> is a static intellectual pattern WITHIN a larger entity called Quality." >> (Lila -- Emphasis is Pirsig's) >> >> >> >> >> >> 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 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
