Murdock, Mark (Mark.Murdock@Unisys.Com)
Tue, 18 Nov 1997 03:12:39 +0100
snip
> I suppose I'm suggesting that there is another "irrational" level
> above
> the "rational" level of the intellect. But I have to say I'm not at
> all
> sure about this. Perhaps Pirsig did intend that all thought and ideas,
>
> rational or otherwise, be considered intellectual value. He doesn't
> really spell it out in Lila. I'd appreciate more opinions.
>
>
> Diana
/snip
Diana et all,
Hi, I'm new so please be patient with me!
At the level above Intellectual Value, Dynamic Quality, ideas are
neither rational or irrational, rather both exist simultaneously like a
quantum particle before observation. Ideas are then crystallized from DQ
and labelled rational or irrational through the process of
intellectualization. Remember from ZMM that the Quality event precedes
the intellect. Thus intellectualization is always in the past. The
importance of this particular intellectual value cannot be overstated.
In it is the wisdom that we can never intellectualize Quality. It
cannot be defined. It can, however, be felt. It is by this feeling,
and only this feeling, that we experience the unfolding of "reality."
Pirsig was wary of intellectualization for this reason, I believe.
We should be too, when it comes to the goals of growing MoQ.
Intellectualization is important, but only to bring us to the pool that
is reality, the edge of a metaphysical diving board. At some point we
must dive free from these rational thoughts and feel. A codification of
MoQ must construct this diving board for its students. It is the pot at
the end of the FAQ rainbow. I favor a broad, loose, fluid FAQ - start
with "an" answer and leave a portion below it for a "better" answer.
How do we know if it's better? Not through dialectic arguments, but by
feeling. Need we anyone, Phaedrus, to tell us what is good? MoQ must be
open-ended in this way, lest it die on the vine, strangled by its own
dogma.
Lila was a caveat to ZMM. Lila tells us that not all feelings are
equally good, that morals fall within a hierarchy. Lila was an
introduction to and recognition of the importance of static qualities,
not a denunciation of them (as some ZMM readers concluded). Lila was
itself a reflection, an intellectualization - an important one indeed -
but not capable of standing apart from the broad reality described in
ZMM. Any attempt to carve Lila from ZMM is illusory. It's SOM with
different definitions.
Like Pirsig, I fear that an MoQ dialectic dual with SOM intellectuals
can never be "won." We seek the Good, which is not necessarily true.
We're Sophists, out to better humanity, not chase the ghosts of reason.
MoQ does wonders for those attempting to better understand quantum
physics. I applaud you folks. I'd like to know if there are LS'ers
interested in threads which explore the original goals of the Sophists?
For example, are the values and morals of capitalism the best we can do
for humanity? Are corporations moral? How can we better understand
the environmental movement with MoQ? Ozone depletion for example. For
years our society did little about the problem because "not all the
facts were in." Science was unprepared to rule on it. Yet most of us
FELT that the hole in the ozone was wrong, didn't we? We should have
acted from that feeling rather than wait.
Anyone resonate with anything I've said?
M.
> --
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>
>
>
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