clark (clark@netsites.net)
Fri, 14 Nov 1997 01:32:25 +0100
Good Morning Bodvar and the Lila Squad,
Bodvar, I just picked up your message in reference to the possible
mummified caucasians in China dated to about 2000 BC.
I probably should wait until I have my thoughts organized and a well
thought out answer for you but I don't like to think that way. I prefer to
ruminate publicly with the knowledge that I may have my opinions altered as
I learn more. If you can accept this I will proceed.
When I made the statement about subject-object metaphysics being a fact
from the dawn of awareness I was not thinking of Pirsig. I simply meant
that when burial became formalized(?), that is, when burial sites began to
reveal artifacts and weapons, I interpreted that to mean that a stage had
been reached when humans began to believe that they were somehow immortal
and would not utterly disappear from the world stage upon death except in
the memories of their acquaintances. If one is going to the happy hunting
grounds one will need his weapons. To my mind this is one facet of SOM.
This is what I meant when I said that SOM had been around from the dawn of
awareness.
As I said, I prefer to think in generalities and the bit of mummy (by the
way, I always wanted to go to Egypt because thats where my mummy came from)
information caught my attention.
If you think of the origins of the worlds religions you will see that
there seems to be a synchronicity in their development. Judaism and
Hinduism around 1500 BC, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Mohammedism roughly
around 500 AD. Christianity sort of arose by itself but that was probably
from a political impetus. A change forced by the Roman occupation. You
could probably pair Pantheism in Greece and Egypt with a bit of fiddling.
One wonders if all of this was just the result of a general increase in the
level of awareness in humanity or was there some sort of cross
fertilization going on. The megalithic period also seems to be a general
development. A reaching out into the heavens. The 25th of December is about
the first day that a close watcher can be sure that the Sun is going to
move back north and bring another repetition of the seasons.
We have wandered a long way from Pirsig and yet I think that this sort of
speculation dovetails nicely with Pirsig's system of thought. I think that
he has made an amazing contribution and has given us a way to free
ourselves from the crushing burden of immortality.
I was powerfully attracted to ZMM because he gave us free will in a
deterministic universe and freed us from jealous Gods. I believe that he
wrestled mightily with morals and values and "the good" in Lila but I am
still wrestling with those ideas myself. I see that some of the others of
LS are doing the same thing. When one injects Good and Morals into the
equation it becomes much more complicated. In particular, I am hung up on
the interaction between the Biological level of value (Quality?), and the
intellectual level. It seems to me that the intellectual level does not
value the biological level very much judging by the drift of civilization
and societys attitudes through the millenia.
Enough of this for the moment. By the way, several years ago I wrote a
paper to myself in an attempt to sort out these ideas and place myself in
my correct position in the operation of the universe, as I said somewhere
before, nothing chintzy about me. Both Diana and Martin have a copy of the
paper.
I am going to need some help with the static levels of value. Looking
forward to your take on these ideas. Ken Clark
-- post message - mailto:skwok@spark.net.hk unsubscribe/queries - mailto:diana@asiantravel.com homepage - http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/4670
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu May 13 1999 - 16:42:13 CEST