Hello everyone
Richard Budd wrote:
>
> Dan:
>
> RICK:
> I believe (like Struan) that Pirsig asked one very
> > > important question (What evidence do we have that Quality=Reality?) and
> > > answered another rather innocuous question (What evidence do we have
> that
> > > value is real?).
> >
> DAN:
> > Now it seems to me both questions are basically asking the same thing. If
> we say something is "real" then it is really part of reality.
>
> RICK:
> I don't think they are... Asking whether something is a part of reality is a
> far cry from asking whether that something IS reality. If the two questions
> above are asking then samething then anything that can be proved to be real
> IS reality itself.
Hi Rick
Well, I am not sure anything can be proved to be absolutely real, but
isn't this how we perceive reality? I remember seeing a tv commercial of
a man on a sunny sandy beach with a beautiful babe by his side and he
tells her, "pinch me, I must be dreaming." And he wakes up screaming in
the middle of an office cubicle! What is reality? It IS what's real.
There is no difference.
Don't know if you're into Castaneda but I recall reading how the brujo
don Juan would hang a piece of cloth in a bush where Castaneda didn't
expect it then tell him to gaze at it without trying to figure out what
it was. He explained a brujo used the inconsistency between something
that just couldn't possibly be with the "rest" of reality to shift the
attention and expand the perception of reality. By breaking the
attention with the cloth all reality shifted.
>
> DAN:
> A person dying of thirst in the desert or freezing to death in the cold
> may experience vivid hallucinations and end up committing some very
> bizarre acts that hold no value in our agreed upon reality. And value is
> considered synonymous with Quality in the MOQ. Pirsig calls it the
> Metaphysics of Value early on in Lila. So how do we know value (Quality)
> is (equals) real (reality)? "By the harmony it produces."
> The dude swallowing sand in the desert may believe it is the nectar of the
> Gods
> he is drinking down but unless he receives some help very soon his
> harmonious life will end. There is no harmony in such acts.
>
> RICK:
> Very tricky indeed Dan.... "value(Quality) is (equals) real (reality)".....
> You have equivocated between "real" and "reality". Let me explain... When I
> ask if Santa Claus is real I am not asking if Santa Claus = Reality.
> Rather, I am asking whether Santa Claus is actually a part of reality. Your
> example (like Pirsig's recent excursion into economics) proves only that
> value (quality) is real (an actual part of reality). Of course, the man
> drinking sand in the desert (or anyone for that matter) could not be in a
> low quality situation if quality weren't real. That is, if quality weren't
> an actual part of reality.
Let's examine your Santa question for a minute. Santa belongs to a very
specific part of reality and yet if one really believes in Santa that
specific reality is all there is, for that individual and any others who
also believe in Santa. So when we assert to ourselves that something is
real we are not only asserting the realness of the object in question
but the realness of our reality in its entirety.
> Having fun,
> Rick
Great fun! Thank you for your comments.
Dan
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:00:50 BST