Re: MD Is Morality Relative? (or "Is there anything out there?")

From: Phaedrus Wolff (PhaedrusWolff@carolina.rr.com)
Date: Wed Dec 22 2004 - 23:48:54 GMT

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    Ian) - It works. End of story. Spread the word.

    Hi Ian, Rich, and all,

    I like this idea "Spread the word."

    My dentist asked me what I was reading a few visits back, and it was about investing. I commenced to tell him of my investing strategy, and it changed the way he looked at investing.

    Today, he asked what I was reading, and it just happened to be "Lila." After telling him what it was about, and asking him if he remembered the word 'Value' in my investing strategy, he got excited, and said he must read the book. I offered the idea that it may be better to read ZMM first, as ZMM offers a better understanding of what "Lila" was all about.

    I would ask, am I right in my thinking? Has anyone read Lila before reading ZMM? I'm wondering if Lila might be confusing as a 'Stand alone' reference to MOQ? Should ZMM be a prep course taken before Lila's MOQ?

    Chin

      ----- Original Message -----
      From: Ian Glendinning
      To: moq_discuss@moq.org
      Sent: Wednesday, December 22, 2004 4:30 PM
      Subject: Re: MD Is Morality Relative? (or "Is there anything out there?")

      Rich,

      I recognise that passage, but do not see it as that literal or conclusive ...

      (Not that I'm actually all that interested in labels of schools of philosophy, you understand)

      He actually says ... "MIGHT be a sound logical position"
      As I mentioned in a related thread, in many parts of ZMM he is really stating the problem, not his metaphysical answer, that came in Lila.

      More sense / more digestible / less far fetched - these are the reasons I see him as pragmatic (not a pragmatist with a capital P necessarily)(that's me being pragmatic). He's looking for what works, call it rhetoric if you like. IE it's what get's the common-sense message across - to millions of disaffected, confused and frustrated post-hippy baby-boomer readers, and now to post-dot.com, post-millennial, post-9/11 readers - not to professional philosophologists.

      It works. End of story. Spread the word.

      Ian

        ----- Original Message -----
        From: Richard Loggins
        To: moq_discuss@moq.org
        Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 2004 2:57 AM
        Subject: Re: MD Is Morality Relative? (or "Is there anything out there?")

        Yes, Mark, Pirsig is a philosophical Idealist and a Radical Empericist both. I thought everyone here, especially those who post a lot and seem to know what they are talking about, knew that. lol. I hope you are not disappointed. You did read his books? This from zamm, for example:

        "This refutation of scientific materialism, however, seemed to put him in the camp of philosophic idealism...Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Bradley, Bosanquet...good company all, logical to the last comma, but so difficult to justify in "common sense" language they seemed a burden to him in his defense of Quality rather than an aid. The argument that the world was all mind might be a sound logical position but it was certainly not a sound rhetorical one. It was way too tedious and difficult for a course in freshman composition. Too "far-fetched." "

        The MoQ is Pirsig's attempt to make philosophical Idealism, which makes abundent more sense then scientific materialism, more rhetorically digestable. A less 'far-fetched' sounding kind of idealism, to be sure, but idealism thru and thru. I suppose that your not picking up on this until now is testiment to Pirsig's skills in this regard. - Rich
          MSH said:
          Yes, this comment has always troubled me. "The world has no existence
          whatsoever outside the human imagination." Is Pirsig an Idealist or an
          empiricist or what? I can see how the laws of nature and logic might be
          said to exist in our imaginations, but everything? Is this just some
          poetic enthusiasm from way back, near the beginning of ZMM, to support
          the ol' ghosts around the campfire setting? What do y'all think he
          means? Is there something OUT THERE, or not?

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