Hi Lithien and Squad,
Lithien said:
>mary:
>you seem to spend a lot of time being confused. maybe if you finished
>reading the book or the articles and then came back with some dialectical
>questions (not the ones you pretend to have ) but some specific ones from
>the articles or the book, then your confusion would disappear.
Lithien, I'm not sure what you meant by questions I pretend to have. My
questions were not meant to be facetious (is that what you meant?). I asked
them because there are at least 2 divergent camps on the Squad, one
subscribing to mysticism and another arguing everything logically. Neither
side is of more or less value than the other, but neither side seems to be
able to understand the other's points either. I just think before we
proceed further into the argument we should define our terms. How can we
have a calm and reasonable debate without an understanding of what we are
debating about? BTW, I have read the article and am almost finished reading
the book. It's slow going though, because Pirsig gives us so much to think
about.
Lithien said:
>i do not pose questions in order to correct anyone. when i introduce a
>subject, i truly want to discuss it.
>diana sent the zombie articles because she saw the controversiality in
them.
>i find them fascinating and irresistible and wonder how we can equate them
>with Pirsig's MOQ. that is all i wanted to discuss.
Lithien, my request for corrections was directed at the Squad as a whole. I
guess that wasn't apparent, though. That's the trouble with email!
You've raised a number of challenges for me in your recent posts. I'm
working hard to overcome my prejudices about mysticism. That's why I want
so much for others to tell me how they would define it. Currently, I value
logic very highly and hold mysticism suspect. Perhaps if I reveal my
underlying thoughts against it you and others will be able to straighten me
out.
Mysticism is grounded in nothing more than hopes and fears. To me, it's
just so much wishful thinking. Its a stage in human development that logic
has superseded. We used to have all sorts of gods and goddesses we
beseeched to help us overcome our problems. We used to all pray for rain,
good crops, the curing of disease. Now we have science to tell us when it's
probably going to rain, agricultural engineering to improve our crops, and
medicine to cure disease. We no longer need mysticism to get through the
day.
At the time mysticism was developed it was a great help to us because we
didn't understand anything about why thunderstorms occurred, why the stars
seemed to move in predictable patterns across the sky, or why there were
things like eclipses. With no understanding and no logical scientific way
to figure out what was going on, we invented mystical explanations for
almost everything. We invented imaginary personages more powerful than
ourselves because we felt so powerless. I'm not saying we were stupid, just
that we didn't have any tools to work with to help us overcome our
powerlessness.
Then came a new way of thinking. Logic. Logic was the next ratcheting up
on the intellectual static scale. We now acquired a tool, and the more we
used it the less powerless we became. But as with all ratchets, the old one
(mysticism) was still there. Mysticism was a lower level static value that
suddenly found itself in opposition to - being attacked by - logic.
Mysticism as a static value with the rights of existence accorded to every
other static value tries to defend itself against logic to this very day.
But logic is a higher static value and resists.
I'm opposed to defining Dynamic Quality as God because I think DQ is much
more than mysticism.
Peas,
Mary
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