From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Aug 03 2003 - 22:50:32 BST
Rick and all MOQers:
Rick said:
I think Bo makes a great point DMB. You have made yourself a defacto
defender of the SOLAQI by declaring that LILA doesn't participate in
intellectual patterns because she is not "an intellectual". Please clarify
your position in regards to Bo's comments.
dmb says:
Because she's not an intellectual? I hope you're only mocking me and don't
really think that's my position. (Please see the "does she or not?" post I
sent earlier today.) ... I'd like to clarify things with regard to Bodvar's
comments, but there is a little problem. I've been openly scoffing at the
"manipulation of symbols" thing, the "socially repetative behaviour" thing
comes from Wim, I think, and I've openly criticized that too. The bit about
math, while I have some sympathy with it, is not mine either. I think Bo has
me confused with at least three other people. On top of all that, I honestly
can't make any sense of what Bo's saying.
Rick said:
To make a second point, I would ask you to respond to these quotes:
"Insanity on the other hand is an intellectual pattern (LILA ch26 p377)."
dmb says:
Oh, that tactic again. I know, he used the word "intellectual" to describe
insanity. Lila is insane. Therefore Lila is intellectual. I see the logic,
but I think its very weak. I think it makes you a victim of that dreaded
hobbgoblin, foolish consistency. It just isn't enough to extract a word or
phrase from a context where he is making a seperate point on a different
topic - and then use that to conclude that he didn't mean what he said when
he was on the topic. That's what I mean by weak. If he had said nothing at
all and we had to guess, I might go along with something like that. But this
is not the case. To be more specific about this whole context thing...
The context of those remarks reveals why he has to talk that way. Its about
the standard view of insanity (SOM's view). He's saying that insanity is not
biological and complains about psychiatists acting like intellectual preists
or cops, trying to get you to accept "objective reality". Well, here....
I'll just pick up the quote where you left off. (emphasis is Pirsig's)
"Insanity on the other hand is an intellectual pattern. It may have
biological causes but it has no physical or biological reality. No
scientific instrument can be produced in court to show sho is insame and who
is sane. There's nothing about insanity that conforms to ANY scientific law
of the universe. The scientific laws of the universe are INVENTED by sanity.
There's no way by which sanity, using the instruments of its own creation,
can measure that which is OUTSIDE itself and its creations. Insanity isn't
an "object" of observation. Its an ALTERATION of observation itself. There's
no such thing as a "disease" of patterns of intellect. There's only heresy.
And that's what insanity really is."
dmb continues:
I get the distinct impression he's talking about his own insanity. Certainly
he's talking about it in general. But if I had to describe Lila, I'd say he
was on a spiral downward. When she failed as a mother and wife, she turned
to sex and booze and such. Now that her looks are starting to fade, trouble
sets in. Right before she really starts to loose it her old pimp doesn't
seem interested in her anymore, she has trouble staying dry, warm and fed.
Even the most basic creature comforts seems to elude her. She is breaking up
because the patterns just weren't working. She was suicidal and nearly
incompetent, close to death. She was at a point where she needed to change
or she would die. The doll. The doll put her back where the spiral downward
began, as if she wanted to take it all back and start over. (And that's
pretty much what electricity through the brain will do for you too. Wham!)
Rick posted:
"He wasn't going to send her to any hospital. He knew that now. At a
hospital they'd just start shooting her full of drugs and tell her to
adjust. What they wouldn't see is that she *is* adjusting. That's what the
insanity is. She's adjusting to something. The insanity is the adjustment
(LILA ch30 p425)."
dmb counter-posts:
"But what she hs to do now is take a vacation from ALL patterns, old and
new, and just settle into a kind of emptiness for a while. And if she does,
the culture has a moral obligation not to bother her. The most moral
activity of all is the creation of space for life to move onward."
Rick says:
It would seem to me that if Phaedrus thinks insanity is an adjustment of
intellectual patterns, and if he thinks that Lila is insane, then it is
pretty indisputable that he MUST think she has intellectual patterns. Care
to dispute???
dmb says:
I just did.
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