Case and possible interested parties On 27 Mar. you wrote:
> I understood ZMM as a version of Taoist metaphysics a long time ago. I > first encountered the Tao in a survey of religions course about a year > before reading ZMM. I had a long time to stew on it. The Lila levels > did not arrive for nearly 20 years. I still regard ZMM as the more > profound work. I too regard ZMM the best of Pirsig's works in the "making friends and influence people." sense but this is irrelevant regarding the MOQ and its levels. > Even so, as a novel Lila is structurally Yin and Yang. Dropping the > first person completely, Pirsig encounters a feminine archetype while > floating through one of the great fractal geological systems in North > America. Along the way he discusses a "metaphysics of randomness". > What's not to like? > In my view the first cut of the Tao into Yin and Yang is a > metaphysical distinction worthy of G. Spencer Browne. Form and > formless can be classified on the basis of their active and passive > Qualities. I have never understood how Taoism works as a metaphysics, except that of Tao being its "groundstuff", but then what? This goes for Zen Buddhism too, why I see the MOQ as an East-West bridge. Have you read Watts on Buddhism? I did but did not understand until I met with Pirsig's ideas. > A metaphysics is a bit like Vonnegut described stacking cannon balls > in Cat's Cradle. The first layer you put down determines the shape of > the pile. > The purpose of a metaphysics is to provide a coherent structure for > integrating sensory input into memory. What we attended to and how we > apportion value; what to leave in and what to leave out. Your first > metaphysical cut establishes the fundamental structure of your system > of thought. Elementary, doctor Watson ;-) > It just seems to me that everywhere I look I see things in terms of > what it moving and what is still, background and foreground, sunlight > and shade; what is the same and what is different. This is the biological level's "sense value", the second stage of the value hierarchy. > I see opposites converging and merging into awareness. Dynamic quality > is motion and change. Static Quality is what survives in its wake. Amen! > Beyond this any system of you try to impose degenerates quickly into > legalism. "Legalism"? Laws? > "Thus it was that when the Tao was lost, Wen pure DQ was lost. > Its attributes appeared; the inorganic world appeared. > When its attributes were lost, when the first level was transcended > Benevolence appeared; the social level emerged > When benevolence was lost, ...ditto > The proprieties appeared. Reason (intellect) appeared. (it only lacks the biological level) > Now propriety is the attenuated form > of legal-heartedness and good faith, > and is also the commencement of disorder; > swift apprehension is (only) a flower of the Tao, > and is the beginning of stupidity. > -Lao Tsu > I think all the bickering over the levels reduces them to frills on a > headboat. The lesson I took from Lila was; this is "how" the MoQ can > be used, not this is how it "must" be used. Well, you are not the type to be told anything, but to me the level lay-out is a fantastic tool that explains - well - everything. For instance what we "bickering" about, namely intellect's impact on the social level through the Jesus figure, but you turned a deaf ear. And when the same thing manifests through the Islam vs West you (all) scoff at that. However, for me, the real gem of explanation is the intellect=SOM, but THIS even the "moqists" scoff at. Well, no wonder when you refuse to see through the MOQ telescope - and (almost) all refuse to see through my refined "Hubble" type. > This is not a widely held view I suppose and I do actively discuss the > levels at times. After all the system Pirsig used obviously has value. > But I do not think MoQ rests on it's levels so much as it needs to be > wrested from them. Still I regard the level system its heart and soul. Without it what have we? Even Taoism has to name some "levels" when its purity were "lost" IMO Bo 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/
