Case and Group On 31 Mar. you wrote:
> [Bo] > 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. > [Case] > If what you are actually saying is that in some ways the confusion > sparked by Lila detracts from the significance of ZMM, perhaps we > agree. But I doubt if you would support this inversion. It need not have meant a detraction if LILA had contained a "guide" to how ZMM were to be seen in the MOQ hindsight. SOM replacing Aretê becoming intellectual aretê emerging from social aretê. The Sophists no longer defending Quality itself, but the subjective side of the emerging intellectual S/O value. This would have made the two books one smooth development, as it is they are totally isolated, alienated even. All because of MOQ's misconceived intellectual level that totally blocks the MOQ from throwing its weight in ... but of course of no interest to you. > [Case] > First Taoism is a metaphysic in way that Zen and Buddhism are not. Zen > is Buddhism infused with Taoist metaphysics. It makes up for or >e compliments the lack of sound metaphysics in the religions of India. > It is the Buddhists who profited from Taoist metaphysics. Taoist > gained little from Buddhist mysticism. You are a Tao scholar (no sarcasm) and this is useful information. The yelping about Zen and mysticism never had much appeal for me. I remember ONE thing that I understood from Watts' about the interaction between Confucianism and Taoism. The former being a social taming of the "born wild" human and Taoism repairing the inevitable damage of "breaking in". Any comments? > If you understand Quality as Pirsig lays it out in ZMM that is the > > Tao. Even Pirsig says as much in one of his letters to Ant. I see > > significant differences in Pirsig's formulation of the Tao from my own > > but his is much more influenced by what I consider to be the > mystical > corruption of Zen. The Quality-Tao likeness is only revealed in the last phase of ZMM when P. starts to break up, thus the book looks is no introduction to Oriental philosophy, rather about Phaedrus way to the Quality epiphany and its later development. > By using the term Quality and centering on Values Pirsig emphasizes > one aspect of the Tao. What he sees as critical is the perception of > rightness expressed in Lao Tsu. He wants to incorporate this inner > sense of rightness with morality and to identify codes of morality. P. returned from India completely disillusioned, without having understood the first thing so neither Buddhism nor Taoism had anything to do with his Quality idea. Only when his nerves started to give did he grab this straw, and what is a help in a dire moment one never forgets, hence the Eastern mysticism references. > [Bo] > This is the biological level's "sense value", the second stage of the > value hierarchy. >a [Case] > Biological is the sense that they are perceived by an organism but > night and day, plus and minus, north and south, motion and stillness > do their dance regardless of how they are perceived. The fundamental > units of physics are particles and waves, matter and energy. The biological value LEVEL is not just organisms perceiving by senses, but the magic of transforming inorganic patterns into SENSE experience. That particular molecular configurations becoming smell or taste, bands of the electromagnetic spectrum becoming colors, and air pressure waves becoming "sound". And so upwards through the static hierarchy, the next level transforming the patterns of its "parent" to new heights of value. I know no world view as power- and beautiful as this. > [Case] > Yes. Pirsig comments on this when he talks about the mystics' distain > for metaphysics. The moment you start to describe it, you are > quantifying it. You are making up rules. Your struggle to set up a > hierarchical structure and put everything in its proper place is an > example of this. No world view can do without metaphysics/description/language. An Indian ascetic doesn't say much admittedly, but he is part of the Indian culture's immensely long history of philosophical discourse. 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/
