Hi Andreas, Dan, and All,
Andreas wrote:
"I think Mr. Pirsig tries to reestablish a partly covered
and hidden way of realizing sensations by reminding the
reader of the essential beauty experienced, when embracing
the moment with all of her senses."
MB:
Yes, this sounds like ZAMM's classic/romantic split: by
breaking out of subject/object dualism through our
'mindless' attention to real world experiences, abstract
thinking 'shuts down' and metaphors are dissolved. But
there may be a problem with 'reminding the reader' of this,
one of re-admitting intellect in 'through the back door'.
Like for example in ZAMM whenever Pirsig draws Chris's
attention to some particular sight of nature, the essential
beauty of the moment is in danger of being lost (in
threefold abstraction: Pirsig-Chris-Reader).
ANDREAS:
"I took a walk and found something which I would like to
put on this long and nice round wooden table in our GREAT
HALL. I took some notes and the first is the question: "
What is a metaphor ?" Well in german we have a beautiful
word for this: " Sinnbild ". Composed of two parts: 'Sinn'
which might be translated as sense or meaning."
MB:
Nice metaphor! (Does the table have a crack running along
it?) Here's our English translation of 'Sinnbild'...
metaphor:
Etymology: Middle French or Latin; Middle French metaphore,
from Latin metaphora, from Greek, from metapherein to
transfer, from meta- + pherein to bear
bear:
Etymology: Middle English beren to carry, bring forth, from
Old English beran; akin to Old High German beran to carry,
Latin ferre, Greek pherein
meta-
Etymology: New Latin & Medieval Latin, from Latin or Greek;
Latin, from Greek, among, with, after, from meta among,
with, after; akin to Old English mid, mith with, Old High
German mit
1 a : occurring later than or in succession to : after
<metestrus> b : situated behind or beyond <metencephalon>
<metacarpus> c : later or more highly organized or
specialized form of <metaxylem>
[extracted from an online Websters]
The etymology of the term metaphor ('carrying beyond')
suggests that it was constructed originally as an analog of
the practice of utilizing one concrete object for a
different purpose (e.g. using charcoal to draw) to describe
how we constructed metaphors by carrying concepts of things
beyond their original place: the hands of the human body
were transfered across to those of an analog clock (from
one concrete place to another). Then perhaps later still,
entities were 'carried' into the 'mind', with words being
transfered into pre-established 'mind' metaphors-
"I SEE what you mean." (mind as visual field)
"HOLD ONTO that thought." (mind as hands)
"Don't be so BROAD-minded." (mind as space)
"BEAR it in mind." (mind as container)
But perhaps the most significant metaphor in terms of the
development of self-consciousness is that of the analog
'I'.
"There are of course many uses for such an analog 'I'. We
imagine 'ourselves' 'doing' this or that, and thus make
decisions on the basis of imagined 'outcomes' that would be
impossible if we did not have an imagined 'self' behaving
in an imagined 'world'." (Jaynes, OCBCD, Ch2)
Last week DAN wrote:
"The embodied metaphor of language cannot be analyzed
further, for who is it that can step outside of language to
do the analyzing?
Therefore, it would seem any hope of uncovering a catechism
of the MOQ in this intellectual fashion is doomed to
failure."
I responded:
"I think we can indeed analyze metaphor further, and can do
so 'inside of language', which was the crux of my own topic
suggestion for this month."
DAN:
"Yes we can make the attempt... but:
"...It wasn't that the question wasn't answerable. It was
answerable but the answer went on and on and you never got
done." (Lila, paperback page 159)
It would seem that this is what Niels Bohr was describing
when he talked of "word pictures which may not be analyzed
further." As soon as a catechism of quality is devised it
becomes something other than what it professes to be. The
answer keeps going on and on; formless until encountering
form then shifting into new forms, spontaneously."
MB:
I accept this- and so in theory while one may, through
linguistic analysis, uncover metaphors' concrete origins,
the further one delves, the further one abstracts. But this
type of intellectual practice might be a suitable western
alternative to koan study. Also, I'm thinking that by
increasing one's understanding of language in this way, the
languager might be better equipped to prefer those lexical
terms which most closely represent the concrete reality
being intellectualized. ('that choice which is more
Dynamic...')
Last week I asked:
"(1) How are the intellectual patterns we call metaphors
generated in MOQ terms?"
DAN answered:
"In MOQ terms, metaphors value preconditioned cultural
agreements. In
other words, metaphors are not so much generated as they
tend to
spontaneously appear when conditions are right."
MB:
Hmm, let's take for example Andrea's excellent metaphors of
(1) MF as "long and nice round wooden table", and (2) MOQ
as "GREAT HALL". What are the 'preconditioned cultural
agreements' valued by these metaphors? Real life
discussions are often held at large conference tables, and
a GREAT HALL suggests an entry into a grand house, a way
into Quality. So, yes, I think you have put this
beautifully, DAN.
Regards,
Mark B
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