Joao and Foci.
JOAO wrote
> After reviewing my post, I feel it should be in the TRASH pile of
> slips... I'll try to remember its meaning, and remove it from the
> TRASH pile (to another pile or to the recycle bin).
No, no trash at all, but forgive me if I chose not to comment it in
any detail other way than referring to general outlines of this
month's discussion. And please don't take my "holy anger"
personally.
This time (!) the concept "time" and "gravity" have been up for
scrutiny, but from your last line about us being "suspended in
language" I see that any word could have been the topic, because
we are back to the language problem itself.
This "language only" argument is meant to take all with their heads
in the clouds down a peg or two: It's all hot air, signifying nothing!!!
Again and again people come to this forum declaring that Pirsig
has forgotten this most obvious thing, either in this "only words"
(Joao) form or in the "observing mind" (Jaap) form and the veterans
never come to MoQ's rescue ....no, they don't because they are
mired in the same bog: What goes on in the Q-intellect is just
...something "representing" something in the real world "out
there". Good old SOM has invaded the MoQ with the intellectual
level as "subject/mind" and the rest of the levels as
"object/matter". Voila!! Nothing gained.
That new-comers don't see is understandable, but that the
"grnders" haven't got this sorted out surprise me greatly. Look,
the "everything mind/everything language/everything just
representation ...etc - is the what the Quality idea claim is SOM
and goes beyond. This is stated already in ZAMM. Remember that
Phaedrus of that era only had had a vague notion of Quality's
importance, but basically he was a SOMist and the question
posed by his teacher colleagues (if Quality was subjective or
objective) seemed valid and the fact that value weren't objective
looked as if making it subjective.
OK, he takes the plunge ...
> And finally: Phaedrus, following a path that to his knowledge had
> never been taken before in the history of Western thought, went
> straight between the horns of the subjectivity-objectivity dilemma
> and said Quality is neither a part of mind, nor is it part of matter.
> It is a THIRD entity which is independent of the two (ZAMM page
> 231)
...a path never taken before in the history ....contemplate the
enormity of this and imagine this lone wolf in a school in Montana
in USA in the fifties having this insight. He didn't have one single
listener or friend and started to doubt the sanity of it all (this is the
dreaded solipsism from a SOM point of view) and his doubt finally
broke him and sent him into the no-man's-land of insanity ...from
where he saw the subject/object myth from the greater QUALITY
context.
OK, those who reads ZAMM or LILA may refuse to take the Quality
position serious; see it as a proof of Phaedrus' insanity and leave it
as fast as h.... This can't be avoided and even Struan Hellier's
crusade to show the gullibility of the moqists is fair enough, but
after having found the MoQ good .....and then return to this central
element and go on about "everything-in-the-mind" or "suspended in
language" .....well, it's old-fashioned IMO.
My point is that MoQ's INTELLECTUAL LEVEL has nothing
whatsoever to do with SOM's mental/mind/representation/
psychic/..etc. It is another value step, no more special, no less
special than the previous steps.
Not a bit as grumpy as I sound.
Bo
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