dmb,
First I didn't mention a comparison between the John Smith's and Paul Turner's opinion concerning the MoQ. Naturally Paul Turner's understanding would be more informed. I was addressing only one point. You can label John Smith a novice and Paul Turner an expert, but it doesn't negate that the difference between their understanding is based on their different static pattern history. I've already told you that the cure/disease metaphor appropriate, so that makes no impression. Marsha On Sep 26, 2013, at 12:28 PM, david buchanan wrote: Marsha's hypothetical example of how "these patterns pragmatically exist relative to an individual's static pattern of life history": John Smith, in August 2013, purchases LILA from a bookstore and reads it having never read ZAMM and never before having heard of Robert M. Pirsig and the MoQ. After reading LILA once, John Smith's understanding of the MoQ will exist very differently than, let say, Paul Turner's understanding of the MoQ. dmb says: What you've done with this example is equate differing life histories with differing degrees of ignorance. Yes, of course somebody like John Smith won't be able to understand the MOQ as well as the person who's read ZAMM, read the academic work by McWatt, Granger, DiSanto and/or spent time with the work of other philosophers. But I don't see how this obvious truism can be equated with Pirsig's assertion. It's quite obvious that understanding and comprehension will depend upon some kind of education and it requires some time and energy to do the hard work. By equating this common sense truism with Pirsig's claim and then using that to defend your "interpretation" of the MOQ as a result of your own life history, all you've done is confess that you and John Smith are relatively ignorant because of your life history. Also, it seems pretty clear to me that you're trying to understand this variability as if the perception of quality depended on the individual's subjective impressions. You're confused, as usual, because you're confusing the cure (MOQ) with the disease (SOM). And yes, I do NOT think this is due to differing values or life history. This confusion is just due to ordinary ignorance, a lack of knowledge, a basic unfamiliarity with the philosophical problems being criticized and the solutions being offered. I think this clearly means that John Smith and you don't have a different perspective so much as you have an uninformed and invalid opinion of the matter. What you've done, in effect, is distort Pirsig quote to assert that Smith's ignorant opinion is just as good as any expert's knowledge. Obviously, this is false, self-serving nonsense. It's like saying that Lila's status - intellectually nowhere and pretty far down the scale of social level values - means that her view of the MOQ is not less valid than the Captain's. It's just different because of her differing life history; her history as a home-wrecking, baby-killing, psychotic whore who has never read a word of philosophy. Clearly, this makes defies the MOQ and common sense. This reading is wholly without merit. ___ 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
