From: Michael Hamilton (thethemichael@gmail.com)
Date: Wed Jun 15 2005 - 17:21:48 BST
Hi Scott, Bo, Allen and, hopefully, some others!
Thanks for the pointer towards Pirsig's comment on Oriental philosophy,
which in turn has led me to investigate the Upanishadic period. Google threw
up an extremely useful page straight away:
http://members.tripod.com/~INDIA_RESOURCE/upanishad.html
I think I'll have a lot more to say about this example of alternative
intellectual patterns - Bo, that's all I meant by that phrase. I think you
may have misunderstood my use of the word "alternative"? I merely meant it
in the sense that Buddhism is an alternative religion to Christianity, or
that curry is an alternative food to fish and chips, or that the Indian
elephant is formed of alternative biological patterns to those that form a
red squirrel. In the same way as different parts of the world have bred
different biological/social patterns, they also may have bred different
intellectual maps of reality. You may be correct that all such intellectual
patterns must follow the same rules, but at this stage I'm far too ignorant
of foreign intellectual traditions such as the Upanishadic perdiod to enter
into debate about what these rules might be.
Allen, while I agree whole-heartedly with your emphasis on harmony, I get
the impression that you are trying to protect me from Bo's "heretical"
suggestions. Please stop. I know ZMM and Lila fairly well, and while I
appreciate reference to to them, I think this forum has a higher quality
purpose than dogmatic inquiry into these two texts. While I don't
necessarily agree with the SOL, I appreciate that Bo is attempting to refine
the MOQ, not to overhaul it. Bo opposes the anti-harmonious nature of SOM as
much as any of us, which is one reason for his insistence on what he sees as
the only way to prevent SOM from polluting the MOQ. So there's no need to
carry on with this witch-hunting attitude. Such antagonism is _not_
conducive to productive debate.
I notice that only Scott has responded to what I really wanted to point on
when my post, which was the part about static latching. (Those were
fascinating comments, Scott, and I'll certainly bear in mind the dynamic
nature of intellect along with the static.) The alternative-culture stuff
was more of an afterthought, although apparently a fertile one. I've had
some more thoughts about the static-latching part of my earlier post, which
might help to clarify it a bit:
We can easily locate the social level by thinking of language. We can easily
locate the biological level by thinking of DNA. We can easily locate the
inorganic level by thinking of atoms and molecules. These are all examples
of high-quality static patterns on the said level, that constitute the
parameters or building blocks for the next level. Because there is no "next
level" after intellect, there are no static parameters on the intellectual
level by which we can locate and define the intellectual level. Since my
last post I realised that this may mean that we can only locate the
intellectual level by observing its conflicts with the level below, i.e.
social value. This suggests rather vague definitions such as "questioning of
authority and individual search for truth", which satisfies me well enough,
but the debate rumbles on...
Anyway, this was something of a stop-gap post. More to come, I hope!
Mike
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