From: Richard Loggins (brloggins@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Nov 03 2004 - 14:32:06 GMT
msh,
I don't understand what you want reconciled. I'm sure it can be agreed that Pirsig does the best he can with the language avalable to him. He cannot explain Quality directly in words but he shows us examples of Quality and our common shared response to it. This is the fullest extent to which he uses metaphor.
The point is that Pirsig is dead serious and quite literal when he says that Quality PRECEDES subject and object and in fact is the SOURCE of them. This is a philosophical assumption, yes, but not a painted metaphor that suggests something contrary to the brute directness of these words. To insist that such a claim is itself a metaphor for a truth in some other sense is to misunderstand it.
Rich
Mark Steven Heyman < > wrote:
Hi Rich,
Nice to hear from you, I think.
How do you reconcile Pirsig's claim that Quality exists, but that is
the only thing we can say about it, that, in all other ways it must
remain undefined, with all the things he says about it in order to
jump-start the MOQ?
I'm suggesting that what you guys see as divine guidance and
intervention is really just philosophical assumption, painted with
metaphor, for the purposes of deriving a useful metaphysics.
Thanks,
msh
-- InfoPro Consulting - The Professional Information Processors Custom Software Solutions for Windows, PDAs, and the Web Since 1983 Web Site: http://www.infoproconsulting.com "Thought is only a flash between two long nights, but this flash is everything." -- Henri Poincare' On 2 Nov 2004 at 16:15, Richard Loggins wrote: MSH, You are wrong and Platt is right. Pirsig SURELY means that Dynamic Quality LITERALLY creates subjects and objects. He says it in several places as Platt quotes from and several more he hasn't. Pirsig ain't no poet. He'sa plain talker. Any other watered down interpertation of his writing is horribly mistaken. Pirsig's bold strokes is what gives his philosophy originality,power, and genius, even if that is not completely understood. Mark, I see a similar milk toast interpretation of Christianity coming from you - that if Jesus didn't really raise himself from the dead it woouldn't matter much to most Christions. This would be laughable if it weren't so belittling. People would abandon Christianity in a few heartbeats if this was so, and then it might morph into an organization likethe Red Cross. Its the divine that attracts people toChristianity and its the divine that attracts people to the MoQ. You need to go back and re-read his books with this new perspective, for you have filtered Pirsig through your ordinary glasses and come away with little of the intended message. Man, you really missed it Rich Mark Steven Heyman wrote: On 2 Nov 2004 at 16:08, Platt Holden wrote: You may if you wish consider Pirsig's description so much poetic license and thus not the way it actually happened. If so, the MOQ would be just another bedtime story. msh says: I think taking him literally in this regard belittles Pirsig's intellingence and imagination. The literal interpretation of this part of the MOQ is the bedtime story, I'm afraid. Best, Mark Steven Heyman (msh) -- InfoPro Consulting - The Professional Information Processors Custom Software Solutions for Windows, PDAs, and the Web Since 1983 Web Site: http://www.infoproconsulting.com "Thought is only a flash between two long nights, but this flash is everything." -- Henri Poincare' MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org Mail Archives: Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/ Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html MD Queries - To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at: http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org Mail Archives: Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/ Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html MD Queries - To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at: http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com/a MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org Mail Archives: Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/ Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html MD Queries - To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at: http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
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