Jonathon and my fellow Squadies,
Hmm, A danger of LS becoming a discussion group on slow reading itself
rather than on lila so I'll out leave any responce on whether or not
my views were compatible with the slowing reading idea.
[Jonathon]
>Actually, I think we can see an ANTI-solipsist position from that
>opening sentence.
Solipsism has never been a popular philosophy as its adherents have
naturally tended not to have any interest in recruiting and so have
not popularised their theories to a non-existent audience. Most
metaphysical theories therefore reject solipsism and could be described
as anti-Solipsist. One can indeed deduce that Pirsig isn't a Solipsist
from this but is that what the author was seeking to communicate? Simply
writing a book indicates he isn't a Solipsist.
[Jonathon]
>Why "Lila" - Pirsig spent several years studying at Benares, and surely
>didn't pick the name accidentally. The Lila of Hinduism is the "play of
>God" that gives the illusion of everyday reality. One can therefore read
>the first sentence to mean that the "play of god" goes on irrespective
>of the presence of "HE" being there to perceive it - an anti-solipsist
>position.
Yeah I'd noticed that, the beginning of the book seems a good point to
consider quite what Pirsig meant by 'lila'. The Tantric connection would
fit with the challenge to objective western views, the Aristotelian views
that he had addressed in ZAMM. Solipsist or not aside the opening sentence
might indicate that the question of perception is going to be important in
this book, how we perceive things or fail to perceive them. I'm a bit vague
about Hinduism but isn't lila also about the relative universe as manifest
in
time and space? This book is going to challenge many people's views of
metaphysics and indeed that metaphysics at a time when Logical Positivism or
similar theories is popular amongst academic philosophers so perhaps he is
warning us of this.
Lee,
lee@aspin.co.uk
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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