Hello John, Platt, Gerhard, Bo and All!
First of all:
Therefore, Pirsig is a bunch of patterns: Patterned Pirsig, or, 'Pirsig the
patterned one' if you prefer? Those patterns which happen to comprise Robert
Pirsig, etc. His patternedness. He of the patterns.
As such, these patterns evolve in a response to DQ.
The patterns mediate DQ; in order to mediate well one has to dissolve into DQ.
(Think of surgeons - novelists - sportspeople - musicians - anyone who
cultivates a, 'Zone' or beginners mind.)
Therefore Pirsig's novels are the static product of a Dynamic relationship.
It begins to look as though this makes Quality (DQ) a noun does it not?
And that was supposed to be the thrust of your recent essay?
Squonk.
I should still like to hear if you feel this approach does indeed address
your recent essay John?
This has important consequences for consciousness i feel - so please respond?
In a message dated 7/24/01 2:11:49 PM GMT Daylight Time, pholden@sc.rr.com
writes:
<< Subj: Re: MD Consciousness Explained
Date: 7/24/01 2:11:49 PM GMT Daylight Time
From: pholden@sc.rr.com (Platt Holden)
Sender: owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk
Reply-to: moq_discuss@moq.org
To: moq_discuss@moq.org
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.
Nope. DQ is not of the mind.
>
> 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.
Yes, but DQ remains as it should be and is central to the Metaphysics.
>
> 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.
I am familiar with the excellent letter you refer to.
I have no problem with the letter at all.
Experience of Quality involves experience of something not of mind.
Therefore, quality events are an indication that individuals are not all
there is to experience.
>
> 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.
David Bohm in his wonderful book, Wholeness and the Implicate order, suggest
that we may develop the Rheomode - a language transcending some of the limits
of speaking to the cognitive.
>
> 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.
As things stand now, yes i agree.
(see below).
>
> 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.
Static quality is what you speak of.
DQ is not of the mind. Not Human centred.
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.
Your experience involves Pirsig's writings.
How would you be without those experiences?
Better or worse for the lack?
If worse then Pirsig's experiences have raised the quality of your own
experiences?
I should rather live in a quality/moral/value centred world than a SOM world.
To suggest that it is a terrible thing to wish for quality is one of the most
ridiculous things i have ever read with regard to intellectual debate.
To give you the benefit of doubt, i feel you are emphasising DQ rather than
static patterns.
But the MOQ as a static pattern constantly tells me to value Dynamism over
stasis.
SOM as you know is dreadfully static.
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.
Your writing does not reflect this dynamism.
I feel your Human centred approach to quality limiting and static.
>
> 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.
How can you say this?
Quality is pre-intellectual, so the static statement above is a contradiction.
Your experiences are of quality, and quality is uncaptured so how do you know
where it is centred?
And until I have been
> transformed by sustained meditative practice, I can say no other.
Pirsig was once asked when he meditates and he replied that he was meditating
now.
"Truth is
> a pathless land" said Krishnamurti, meaning no one, not even Pirsig, can
> show us the truth.
Truth is an intellectual invention.
Quality is not.
The MOQ is an intellectual invention of very high quality - and i accept it
as such.
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.
Drop looking for the truth then, and experience quality.
And your may be correct to say that you may not speak at all.
At least the libraries of the world will be much thinner, and contain more
value?
>
> John B
>>
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