[Arlo previously] An interesting point of agreement? Although I am tempted to ask, what ethics are you ready to accept from the Indians?
[Platt] Kindness to children. [Arlo] Err, I thought you keep reminding me how they "dashed their children's brains out on rocks"? Or are you just funnin' me? (As my dad used to say). [Platt] Tell me more about decisions based on "spirit." [Arlo] Intuition. Gut feelings. Or as Pirsig quoted Einstein, "... intuition, resting on sympathetic understanding of experience". [Platt] Tell me more about decisions based on "spirit." [Arlo] Maybe this should be another thread? Anyway, here is a good passage from The Guidebook to ZMM that describes this. "This is the idea of intuition that you can find in the writings of Henri Bergson (1859-1941), who described intuition with phrases like "intellectual sympathy." It is also the idea of intuition that young Phaedrus encountered in the writings of Albert Einstein, who said that the universal laws of the cosmos could only be reached by "intuition, resting on sympathetic understanding of experience" (quoted in ZMM, p. 99). That idea would be carried forward in the narrator's reflections (undoubtedly inspired by, if not inherited from, Phaedrus) about the relation of Quality to caring (ZMM, pp. 25, 247). Just as for Einstein the intuition of cosmic laws is rooted in a sympathetic understanding of experience, so for the narrator the intuition of Quality is rooted in caring about what one is seeing and doing. But for the narrator the flow goes both ways. Caring-which, you might care to note, involves both willing and feeling-is reciprocally related to Quality. The more you care in your knowing and doing, the more you see (or intuit) Quality. The more you intuit Quality, the more you care. "A person who sees Quality and feels it as he works is a person who cares. A person who cares about what he sees and does is a person who's bound to have some characteristics of Quality" (ZMM, p. 247). The second frequently made and presently pertinent statement is that intuition is holistic. When you intuit, you see wholes in their wholeness. In contrast, when you are engaged in an analytic mode of thought, you seek to know things by breaking them down into parts and subparts (or, in the narrator's terms, concepts and subconcepts-ZMM, p. 86). The rational, analytic mode of thinkking, exemplified in ZMM's breakdown of a motorcycle (pp. 63367), belongs to the "classic" mentality, whereas the holistic, intuitive mode belongs to the "romantic" mentality. In terms of ZMM's landscape analogy (pp. 69-70), rational analysis is what you are doing when you are sorting the handful of sand into varrious piles on the basis of various criteria; intuition is what you are exercising when you grasp the entire handful of sand as a whole. As the analogy suggests, one and the same object can furnish the material for both rational analysis and intuition. While intuition might have its own proper objects (e.g., as some intuitionists sugggest, value), it might also share objects with other modes of thought. You can analyze the motorcycle in terms of its parts and functions; additionally or alternatively, you can intuitively grasp the cycle as the "right thing" for you, a vehicle that suits your style. In the latter case, your intuition is still a nonsensory act of knowing, even though the motorcycle is a sensory object-the cycle doesn't carry a visible label that says "right thing." (Guidebook to ZMM, pp 172-173) [Platt] Haven't you said all language is metaphor? What then is the relation of language to pre-language (pre-intellectual)experience (perception). [Arlo] All language is metaphor. However, "laws" are "literal", meaning that we pragmatically accept a shared understanding of what a "law" says. But, even given this, lawyers debate endless on what any given "law means", no? [Platt] Your introduction above and here of "spirit" leaves me wondering. What is spirit, where did it come from, who created it, and how can I get some? [Arlo] Try joining a drumming circle. :-) 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.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
