ROGER STAGGERS BACK INTO THE
RING FOR ANOTHER GO AT IT
Great discussion guys. Stick with me and keep an open mind while I clarify
my position. You guys are starting to hit below the belt, so allow me to
toss a few knuckle sandwiches....
ARE YOU READY TO RUUUUUUUMBLE!!!!!!
Let me start with Bodvar, who has the 'huevos' to suggest we discuss the end
of ZMM, but then dismisses every quote from this source (that disagrees with
his pet theory) as New Age Solipsism on a motorbike. PLEASE! I gave an
exhaustive list of quotes right out of ZMM that clearly answers that concepts
and metaphysics and such are creations of the intellect. The only response
from Bodvar is that this book is "childs play."
Of course, I did give some quotes from Lila. What does Bo say here.....
BO QUOTES ME QUOTING ZMM:
>"To take which has caused us to create the world, and include it
>within the world we have created, is clearly impossible. That's
>why quality can't be defined....."
THEN BO ADDS:
>only the above is Pirsig. The rest:
>"The MOQ's fundamental division of reality, the first cut of the
> intellectual knife is not between your static reality and
>intellect.It is, as Roger and Denis state, between dynamic,
>flowing, undefined quality and ....etc."
>is Parker. The DQ/SQ division is not done by ZMM's mind-intellec's
>knife, but by something that desperately wants to free itself from
>the SOM-intellect. See below.
ROG:
Oh is it? Actually I took this from the OTHER BOOK.
As I referenced on page 417 of Lila (which I believe IS on your approved
reading list ;-)), Pirsig deals exactly with this issue when he discusses the
correlation between the MOQ and Radical Empiricism: "Subjects and objects
are secondary. They are concepts derived from something more fundamental
which [James] described as 'the immediate flux of life which furnishes the
material to our later reflection with its conceptual categories'."
Pirsig continues quoting James:
" 'There must always be a discrepancy between concepts and reality, because
the former are static and discontinuous while the latter is dynamic and
flowing' Here James had chosen exactly the same words Phaedrus had used for
the basic subdivision of the Metaphysics of Quality."
Could you all please read and reread these lines? Neither Pirsig nor Denis
nor I are denying reality. We are saying the concepts used to describe it
are inadequate. And my 'first cut' and RMP's 'basic [conceptual]
subdivision' are virtually identical.
BO CONTINUES:
Don't think for one moment that I don't understand your position.
The ..everything has no existence outside the human imagination,
it's all ghosts... is WATERPROOF. To prove that everything is in
the mind is child's play - from a SOM point of view.
ROG:
Ouch! Not only am I a child, but an SOM child! Speaking of SOM children, go
to the second half of Chapter 9 in THE GOOD BOOK and read how the static
patterns emerge from a deductive process.....
BO:
It is as David
says the famous Kantian cul de sac. This insight brought P of
ZMM to the asylum because he had not left the SOM world view
(where you are supposed NOT to think its tenets to their full
consequences. If you do you are mad!). How, could he, the MOQ
wasn't conceived yet.
ROG:
At least you admit that the levels were CREATED...CONCEIVED (Though per
Glenn, below, you are confused)
BO:
The new P of LILA, however, said: OK, everything is mind (or
language) let's see how a totally new metaphysics with that AS
THE STARTING POINT looks like. Hence the MOQ where general
"everything" is DQ while appearances are SQ.
ROG:
As I quoted Pirsig numerous times, the essence of reality is Quality. You
say appearances are SQ, I would say concepts derived from DQ are sq....but
close enough. I agree with you. Let's kiss and make up.
BO:
The monster
platypus of SOM is thus made into a new world order, but -
afterwards - to introduce one of the static appearances (Intellect)
as containing "everything" once again, is to restore the SOM.
ROG:
But Pirsig clearly states in LILA that the levels 'are capable of containing
the other without contradiction.' He even gives an example of the same.
Would you like the specific reference page? Bodvar, are you serious in this
argument?
AND IN THIS CORNER WEARING WHITE TRUNKS
IS A SOUTHPAW FIGTIN" AS "GLENN"
Next, on to Glenn who in two posts incredibly managed to PROVE both sides of
the argument. ;-) Glenn really seems to believe that the levels are
creations up until the time that they become widely believed, then they will
magically jump over to the discovery category. Pirsig specifically and
explicitly denies that gravity, the laws of nature, and even time were out
there to be discovered (and has done so post Lila) , but Glenn is still
willing to believe that the MOQ suggests otherwise for its own levels.
But his major argument was based on this seeming paradox of Horse's.:
GLENN QUOTING HORSE:
"Intellectual Value is one of the 4 levels. But if the levels are a creation
of Intellectual value then how did Intellectual value appear?" Only if the
levels were discovered can you avoid this paradox.
ROG:
GEE NOW....LETS SEE..... Let's say that you were born and your parents
didn't name you. At age 18 you decide to name yourself "Glenn." BUT
WAIT!!!! You can't name yourself, because until you are named you don't
exist yet!!!! OH NOOOOO! (and you certainly can't name your parents, can you?)
Nobody ever denied reality exists or existed. We (RMP, Denis and I ) have
been stating that reality is more than the static intellectual slices that
name it and differentiate it and in the process reduce it to a pale shadow of
its self. The 'social level' is a pale conceptual model of a particular
intellectual distinction of Quality.
GLEN ON BO:
Bo actually answered "no, created" but I think this is a problem with the
word "created" and it can be traced back to Pirsig's use of it.
ROG:
Huh? (You see, since I am outnumbered I am trying to seed disarray amongst my
enemies....hee hee)
GLENN:
Roger thinks all reality is a dialectic invention. I answered with him but I
don't agree with this. I answered the question from the world's perspective.
The world has not accepted MOQ (yet), so MOQ is provisionally a creation.
ROG:
I do not. Have you read my stuff? I think dialectic inventions are a pale
shadow of the undefineable experience that we agree to reference as Quality.
I know of two good books that say the same thing about a hundred times.....
Glenn concludes that the group that actually references Pirsig's numerous
'creation' statements is confused and/or lying to themselves. But then
again, I am sure he will prove the opposite position tomorrow......
AND HEEEEERES JOHNNY
JOHN:
So what is at issue here is 'grounding out'. David, in my view, is arguing
that there is
'something' upon which the metaphysical knife operates, and while the knife
can be used in
different ways, to produce different outcomes, they are not all equal. That
is why it makes
sense to talk about skill in using the knife.
ROG:
Actually, you are giving my position here. The something is of course
Quality. I gave virtually this exact argument in my first set of
quote-responses to David. David called the intellectual knife explanation
"solipsism".
JOHN:
According to Roger, as I read him, our only contact with the
'landscape' is through our dynamic encounter with it. The moment we start to
discuss it we
have left the dynamic for the static, and our discussion is inherently in
terms of static,
conceptual patterns which are a convenient fiction. (Roger) "The world has no
existence
whatsoever outside the human imagination.It's all a ghost...The whole blessed
thing is a
human invention." David, though, is not willing to accept this. To him
inorganic reality can
and does exist independant of our conceptualizations of it. I think it is
necessary to leave
Pirsig for a while to seek a resolution of this impasse.
ROG:
I guess so, since those were PIRSIG's words not mine.
JOHN:
J. Krishnamurti, in his book "The Awakening of Intelligence", discusses the
nature of
intelligence with physicist David Bohm, and Bohm points out that the word is
derived from
'inter' and 'legere', with the root meaning 'to read between'. To read
between the lines is not
only the basis of intelligence, but is essential to all communication of such
arcane matters as
metaphysics. What is remarkable is that the imperfect forms of language
impinge upon the
consciousness of individual human beings, who take and make meaning from the
words and
show, by their own language and behaviour, that a message has been
transmitted, perhaps
imperfectly, but because of the nature of intelligence, often with startling
clarity. For
intelligence is not like thought, which is time-bound, mechanical,
changeable, and able to be
modified or expanded; intelligence is at the intellectual level that primary
encounter with
'what is' which is self validating because it is primary experience. It is
the 'aha' experience.
"Thought can function as the pointer to intelligence, and then its
contradiction doesn't
matter", says Bohm.
What I take this to mean is that there is a dialogue between the dynamic and
static forms of
quality, such that static formulations may be tested against dynamic
experience, including
that dynamic experience in the intellectual domain which Krishnamurti calls
intelligence. If
this was not so, then metaphysics would simply become assertion, and your
assertion would
be no better and no worse than mine, because all are arbitrary. But the knife
must be used
with skill, and what is unskillful will jar with intelligence. It is not just
a ghost, for the work of
the intellect must past the test of intelligence, which is outside of the
intellect.
ROG:
I agree as best I understand everything you just wrote. This exactly matches
what William James has written and with my interpretation of the MOQ. The
test of intellect is defined by RMP virtually the same way on the last page
of Ch 29 in Lila. (Remember, Pirsig never denied ghosts.)
JOHN:
In my view David is right. I think the total divide between static and
dynamic that Roger
presents is ultimately nihilistic.
ROG:
Odd that you support my argument over his and give new references with which
I agree, but then suddenly jump to his position....? My position is exactly
the same as Krihnamurti as best I can tell. Was he a nihilist?
Sorry for having so much fun with this. Denis has seemingly left me here to
get tag teamed by ya'll and I have been clothes-lined and body slammed.
Luckily it is all for fun and intellectual stimulation. (or is it?)
Love you all,
Roger
PS -- By the way, I could always be RIGHT too....nah? ;-)
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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