Hi John B:
Your post of July 23 comes under the category of "I wish I had said
that." I couldn't agree more. It's worth repeating, so I will.
Platt
> Squonk: "I have a feeling that in the work of Bo, John B and others that
> there is a fundamental problem in what they are saying and reflecting.
> The problem is that they very often take a highly Human centred view of the
> MOQ, and an extremely Human centred view when wandering into SOM territory.
> I understand this is habitual conditioning of culture and language - we all
> have the same cage to escape from."
>
> JB: This whole business of locating our language in discussion is very
> complex. My argument is as follows.
>
> 1 I am a human, therefore I 'know' what I know only from the perspective of
> a human. The dynamic quality I encounter in the universe is encountered as
> an embodied human being.
>
> 2 The MOQ is NOT dynamic quality. It is a metaphysics, an intellectual
> construct which seeks to make sense of the universe. But Pirsig is the first
> to admit that it is degenerate, since it is by nature static, not dynamic.
>
> 3 The ultimate basis for any point of view is not a metaphysics, not
> science, but rather my individual experience of quality. Pirsig says this in
> a famous letter which seems to cause much concern to some members of this
> forum. (perhaps someone could give a link to this letter, written, I think,
> after the Einstein meets Magritte conference). Pirsig also acknowledges in
> Lila that it takes an individual to experience dynamic quality.
>
> 4 In Elaine de Beauport's fine phrase, "We speak to the cognitive
> intelligence". We cannot discuss anything, without entering the limited
> realm of the cognitive. This is fine when we are discussing ideas, but gets
> very complicated when we attempt to discuss the higher dimensions of
> experience, where language and the cognitive realm are just inadequate to
> the task.
>
> 5 So to communicate 'spiritual' realities we end up talking in parables, and
> usually in paradoxes. Our words are only effective insofar as they operate
> as fingers pointing to the moon. Sadly, communication will not occur at all,
> or be seriously distorted, if the communication is between people at quite
> different levels of personal development. This seems inevitable.
>
> So, putting all this together, I am quite comfortable speaking in a human
> centred way, and must place my human experience of quality at the centre of
> my arguments, always. Nothing Pirsig says or writes is superior to my own
> experience. Therefore it is a terrible thing to "accept" the MOQ, as you do
> Squonk. The quality of the MOQ is a form of static quality. My lure is
> always to dynamic quality, which emerges fresh and unpredictable.
> Insofar as I find dynamic elements in the MOQ, it is fine that I integrate
> these with all the other dynamic insights I have ever encountered. If the
> experience of doing this is itself dynamic, as writing ZMM was for Pirsig,
> even better. But it all becomes static, inevitably. Hence the degeneracy.
>
> Consciousness may indeed not be centred in individual human beings, and
> Penrose for one argues just that. But my experience of consciousness is
> indeed centred in just one human being - me. And until I have been
> transformed by sustained meditative practice, I can say no other. "Truth is
> a pathless land" said Krishnamurti, meaning no one, not even Pirsig, can
> show us the truth. It is hard won, experientially. I can only speak from my
> experience as a human being. If one day I am 'enlightened', I will speak
> differently, or perhaps not at all.
>
> John B
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