From: david buchanan (dmbuchanan@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat Aug 20 2005 - 02:34:27 BST
Sam. JC, Marsha and all MOQers:
Sam said to dmb:
...you might just open your mind up and entertain the possibility that
mysticism isn't what you think it is, and start to explore outside the
narrow box of SOM dominated descriptions of the religious way.
dmb replied:
...I certainly was operating on the assumption that we are discussing
mystical experience within an MOQ context. ...Its more than a little bit odd
to imagine that Pirisg's view of enlightenment is all wrong because of SOM.
Isn't it SOM's inability to deal with the mystical experience one of
Pirsig's main objections to SOM? The vision recieved in Native American
mysticism is neither romantic nor classic, remember? Plus it defies his
central copernican revolution, remember?
"This means Quality is not just the result of a collision between subject
and object. The very existence of subject and object themselves is deduced
from the Quality event. The Quality event is the cause of the subjects and
objects, which are then mistakenly presumed to be the cause of the Quality!"
[ZMM Ch19]
For the accusation that mystical EXPERIENCE is a Modernist SOM fiction, we
would have to be talking about a subjective experience. But that's exactly
what we ARE NOT talking about....
"In a subject-object metaphysics, this experience is between a preexisting
object and subject, but in the MOQ, there is no pre-existing subject or
object....So in the MOQ experience comes first, everything else comes later.
This is pure empiricism, as opposed to scientific empiricism, which, with
its pre-existing subjects and objects, is not really so pure." [LILA'S CHILD
p548]
dmb now adds:
Sam, you persist in making the assertion that Pirsig's ideas about mysticism
are polluted by Modernity and SOM. And yet the quotes that I provided here
AGAIN, the ones you convieniently ignored in your response show that this
idea is doesn't even come close to making sense. The only way one could
assert that SOM influenced Pirsig's view of mysticism would be to explain
how mysticism is the number one thing that led him to reject SOM. Instead of
addressing this point you simply posted some old thing from the archives
that re-asserts this nonsense. That's why we never get anywhere, you know.
Plus, you still have not shown me anything like mysticism in the church.
Maybe there is some connection in your mind, but all that talk about souls
and God as love means nothing to me. If you want to talk about such things
you're gonna have to do better than that because I don't know what in the
world you're talking about. We do agree on one thing, this is really getting
to be a bore. And its moves like this that make it nearly impossible for me
to take you seriously.
Elsewhere, Sam said:
Firstly, for the record, might I state (if anyone had any doubt) that I
believe in God, I pray to God, I worship God, etc etc. It's the defining
feature of my life. My relationship with God runs deeper in me than any
thoughts or perceptions or considerations that might otherwise emerge. I am
absolutely certain of the reality of God. Indeed, if that certainty were to
fail, I would check myself in to a psychiatric unit, as I would have no
other conclusion to reach than that my mind had failed. The reality of God
is more firmly rooted in me than any sense of self, so if there is a
conflict, its the sense of self which is suspect.
dmb says:
Absoultely certain? Deeper than any thoughts or perception or
considerations? Then there is no real point in discussing anything with you,
is there?
Disappointed but not surprized in the least,
dmb
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