From: storeyd (storeyd@bc.edu)
Date: Fri Apr 16 2004 - 19:12:17 BST
Greetings all, I am new to the discussion ring, so excuse my eruption. I am
currently a senior philosophy major at BC, about to enter a PhD program at
Fordham (i know, philosophology beware!); rest assured, i'm not an SOM acolyte
nor a Catholic devotee--the system has treated me well and opened up doors
that a secular insittution believes no longer exists. I read ZEN about a year
ago, and Lila several weeks ago. I am confident that, barring some slight
conflations and underdeveloped aspets, the MOQ is, well, a qualitative
improvement on most traditional metaphysical frameworks; it is a step in the
right direction, and that direction is nothing less than the revival of
metaphysics, which overleaps all the "second-order" questions of 20th century
philosophy (aside from montrous playtpi, i'm talking about linguistic theory,
deconstruction, etc.), or, more correctly, it situates them in a larger
framework; it reveals the pragmatic value of such disciplines, but shows their
utter partiality. Pirsig picks up and adumbrates a lot of crucial
philosophers who have been neglected in the western tradition, or rather, who
have not been highlighted enough (the process theorists, bergson, whitehead,
and most importantly, Schelling, whose unparalleled genius was unfortunately
overshadowed by Hegel's crystal palace of reason); the point is that all of
these theorists i just mentioned either presupposed, demanded, or elucidated a
theory of emergent evolution, something Darwinian natural selection could
never brook. Unfortunately, it took science around a century to realize this
shortcoming; in other words, the sciences BELOW biology--namely and
especially, physics--had to demonstrate emergent properties--and that is
precisely what quantum mechanics, Heisenberg, and Bell's theorem delivered.
As such, the stage was set to properly account for macro-evolution...or more
specifically, to fully round out the obnoxious fact that Darwin's theory could
never account for it. Then and only then was it possible to talk about an
emergent humanity in a socially respected context (that is, once the biologial
and physical sublevels were negotiated), and that brings us to where we are
now. I must say I was struck, reading Pirsig's system, by it's undeniable
similarity to another contemporary thinker whom i've studied in depth, and who
is likewise scoffed at and ignored by mainstream academia...which brings me to
my reason for writing:
Have any of you ever heard of Ken Wilber?
He's an indepdent thinker, written about 20 books, raised holy hell from
berkeley to boulder, and detailed a pretty awesome theory of evolutionary
metaphysics which bears amazingly close resemblance to the MOQ. They also
recognize the cruciality of mysticism (Wilber's theory is, in my opinion,
superior to Pirsig's, because it more clearly differentiates the levels of
value, in an impressive framework called the four quadrants, which charts the
evolution of consciousness from matter to life to mind to spirit) If you like
Pirsiq, Wilber will blow your mind. I am very interested to try and discern
whether either pirgiq or Wilber had knowledge of or influence on each other.
Do any of you know or communicate with Pirsiq directly? I'd be interested.
By the way, don't worry, I am not to be chewed up in the labyrinthe of
philosophology...it i can't beat, i wont' join em. I'll just leave.
I'd be delighted to hear from any of you, been looking for the like-minded for
quite some time. Best,
-Dave Storey
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