Mary, Ken, Bodvar and all truth threaders:
(Roger: Glad you're going mystical. Now just step into the light ! )
(Mangus: Explain the meaning of Morality=Reality=Quality is your
suggested first topic? Way way way too big! Nothing in "Lila" could be
excluded from that discussion. Please, pick a small section of the book
and let us explore the meaning of that. A few paragraphs or pages should
do it. I'd suggest the ritual scene or something in the Zuni conflict.)
I just subscribed to the squad, although I''m not sure what to expect.
I also read the bios and was disappointed to find so few with a
Humanities background. It looks like the squad is dominated by
scientists! Maybe its just a feature of internet culture. Guess I 'll
have to live with it.
On a related topic, its no wonder the conversation on evil turned to
physics. No wonder the conversation on mysticism and on the levels
turned to physics. Seems like every topic turns to physics! I read A
Brief History of Time, The Tao of Physics and the Dancing Wu Li Masters.
I've got no problem with physics, but lets have a little respect for
RELEVANCE !! Is what you're saying relevant to the topic or are you
just squeezing your favorite topic in where it doesn't belong? Be
honest.
Struan? You've been awfully boring and irrelevant lately. What's the
deal?
I re-read the section on "many truths" as Ken suggested. Page 99-100 in
the hardback edition) I hope to jump in on that thread. Its related to
Bodvar's post to Mary, where he defends a postion of mine. (Thanks Bo,
you saved me some labor.)
An ignoramus I once knew was fond of saying "Philosophies are like
assholes, everybody's got one and they all stink", except he spelled it
all wrong. I know it's vulgar. My point is that this dismissive attitude
is not at all related to the meaning of Pirsigs many truths. He doesn't
mean to suggest that all ideas are equally valid. The MOQ does not imply
mere moral relativity or situational ethics. In the section he is
comparing SOM to the MOQ and insisting that he has no intention of
destroying or replacing SOM. He says that would be like picking one
painting in the gallery and saying "this is THE true painting and all
the others are false". Obviously, that would be absurd. He suggests that
even something as rational and complicated as a metaphysics is just
another form of expression.
Pirsig repeatedly uses maps as an analogy for metaphysical systems. Some
maps work better than others. If you're at the north pole longitude has
little meaning and is hardly useful. One could pivot a foot on the pole
and be at all longitudes at once. Different kinds of maps are
appropriate for difficult and unusual situations. Its no accident that
Pirsig talks about the high country of the mind, the high valley beyond
and the north pole. Its because his map, his metaphysics, is of a
territory that few people ever visit. When a person does go to that high
country, the MOQ is a much better map than SOM.
Which brings me to Bodvar's Q-Intellect or Faculty X. I believe he is
talking here about the capacity to pick the appropriate map. It may seem
like an extra-intellectual faculty would be needed to choose from among
various intellectual systems or maps, but I'm not so sure. Certainly the
individual involved in such a choice would need to understand several
different metaphysical systems, or world views. So ignorance would
prevent such an ability. But don't squad members switch back and forth
between SOM and MOQ? I can still remember holding that bible-belt map in
my mind. I guess its a highly developed form of intellect that can play
with the various maps, but its still just intellect. I can see why it
seems beyond the intellect, but maybe its below instead. That would
eliminate the need to add to the MOQ.
Part of what CS Peirce suggests is that each level has its own form of
awareness. Each of the levels is in touch with reality in its own
particular way. Switching to a SOM map, you could say each level has its
own subjective reality. Its my belief that information from other levels
comes to the intellect through the subconscious and is percieved as
instinct, intuition and insight. We know more than our intellect does
because we are a symphony of value patterns from all four levels.
Faculty X is a highly developed intellect that gets clues from its
ground of being? It knows which maps are best at any given time.
David
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