Bo and others,
BO: My "you never seem to get it right" quip was for John B.
Bo, I appreciate that you have seized upon something in the MOQ that is
'right' for you, and possibly for some others. It may even be that this is
what Pirsig was intending to convey to us all. But I am concerned that I am
receiving messages from you ( and Squonk) which in effect say "You're wrong,
go away."
There are a few things I want to say in response. You say "....If Pirsig
claims that SOM is wrong - and we declare that his ideas are valid - then
the somish mind notion must go." First, SOM thought is not 'wrong', just
inadequate. I think this is Pirsig's view, though I haven't taken the time
to look up references. He certainly argues that there are varieties of
metaphysics which we can choose between on the basis of the quality we sense
in each, just as we are free to choose artworks that appeal to us on the
basis of their quality. I am choosing the ideas that appeal to me. If they
upset you, as they appear to, it may be because we are viewing them from
different perspectives, or if Wilber is right, from different levels. Each
of us is of course prone to suspect that our own perspective or level is
'best', and so it is, for each of us at this moment, for we are not
deliberately choosing a low quality option.
Now there may also be a meta-valuation which asserts that apart from our own
sense of value, which Pirsig says is fundamental, there is a metaphysics
which is 'better' than other metaphysics. In my opinion this understanding
is dependant upon a Wilber-like view of things, and is not fundamentally
consistent with a Pirsig-like view. Pirsig argues that we experience
'quality' directly, and that the static quality of a metaphysics is only the
statically latched residue of dynamic experiences of value which cannot be
expresssed in words. There is no way, in a Pirsigian world, for a
metaphysics (as a pattern of ideas) to take precedence over the dynamic
experience of quality. When you tell me I am wrong, you imply that when I
use what you see as SOM language or concepts that I am somehow perverting
the truth according to Pirsig. I assert that I am in fact more attuned to
Pirsig than you in this regard, in that I am responding to quality where I
find it, whereas you are telling me that if I experience it or describe it
in terms you judge outside the MOQ I must be wrong.
I find a great deal of value in Wilber, and I am annoyed by your ad hominen
attacks on him as somehow New Age, and therefore discredited. I can assure
you that most New Age people, if I can be allowed to generalise, are very
unhappy with Wilber, who gives them a very hard time.
The second point I wish to make is that all language is by its very nature
from the SOM level. A noun is a word used to identify a discrete object or
concept, etc (it 'refers to a person, place or thing', says my dictionary).
It implies boundedness. Nouns are constructs of our minds, which are
themselves fashioned within our cultures and languages. This does not make
them 'wrong', (after all, "Good is a noun"), but it is important to exercise
care with them. I loved the quote from Wittgenstein, 'philosophy is the
fight against the bewitchment of minds by language', that Angus provided
recently.
This makes writing about 'quality' very difficult, in that Pirsig rightly
asserts that the Quality he is talking about is unbounded, indefinable, and
hence not graspable in language. Actually, all language shares this problem,
but ignoring that for the moment, Pirsig is struggling with the same problem
experienced by mystics, (of which he may or may not be one,) which is to
convey experience in words. As Wilber points out, the problem is not
inherent in the words, but in the mismatch between different person's
experience. Pirsig himself does not seem to have a clear position on whether
there is an ultimate quality to which we all make our varied ways, or if,
rather, each of us finds a different quality that is in part shaped by our
varied experiences, etc. Wilber is much clearer here. He argues that quality
is layered, organised holarchically, and that we all pass through similar
stages in a direction that does tend towards increased depth and quality.
Where Pirsig uses the word quality, Wilber would use consciousness, which
seems to upset you, but I can't see why it should.
Phaedrus, you say, "understood that the void is QUALITY. It's so easy to
interprete this the way that everything is subjective/mind and that we"
(with our minds) create reality ... the usual newage rubbish, but that is
not the MoQ." I agree that this is not the MOQ. But neither is saying 'the
void is quality'. All words act to point towards experience; in my favourite
analogy, words are fingers pointing to the moon. But the moon is not
experienced only, or primarily, in words. They come later, the static
latches provided by language and culture, which enable us to hold on to a
residue of experience, and manipulate it to our advantage. But they can so
easily bewitch us, and so I find my task is constantly to check what the
words mean, and how well they resonate with my experience of quality. Now if
this is unacceptable behaviour on this forum, and does not fit your version
of the truth according to Pirsig, so be it. The words will always and
unavoidably be SOM in style. Just accept that. But use your intelligence,
which as Bohm points out, literally means to 'read between the lines', to
look for the meaning and the fit with experience that is, against all the
odds, conveyed by language. I often get the feeling with you that a word
like 'consciousness' has been demonised. Step back a bit, and allow the
ideas to emerge, if you can.
And now for your CREDO! At last I have some idea of what you have been
asserting for years, though not in a way I could take on board. It seems to
me you are saying that the intellectual level is inextricably subject/object
bound. So far so good. But you say more than this, vis "this value level is
merely the S/O DIVIDE". Now you lose me again. I am not sure what you are
implying by using the word 'divide' to refer to the whole intellectual
realm. If you are merely pointing to the inescapable subject/object nature
of language, and intellect, as it has evolved with language (I agree with
whoever has been suggesting that language is the 'machine language' that
facilitates the emergence of the intellectual level), then I must agree.
This is what I have also been stating above.
But I go beyond you when I assert that language is not mired in objectivity,
but is actually able to transcend it, provided there is shared experience
between those using the language. This becomes quite evident when you
examine how each of us learns language. Helen Keller learned her first word
when her teacher held her hand under the tap and then tapped out on her arm
a code which became Keller's word 'water'. Even blind and deaf, she could
link the experience with the symbol, and use it in future in novel
situations. I wonder how long it took her to find that by tapping this code
she could get a drink of water? We read between the lines. And one way in
which we do this is by reading Pirsig. How does one comprehend the MOQ,
which purports not to be SOM bound. By reading between the SOM lines. By
grasping the idea that resonates with my own experience of quality, which is
not divided between subjects and objects, but is prior to both.
Pirsig asserts that the dynamic is not confined to the intellectual level,
but transcends it. I agree. Is there then a level above the intellectual,
which can form a static latch for the awareness that experience is not
fundamentally divided in the way language seems to imply? Of course. It's
been around for thousands of years, and Pirsig seems to have an ambivalent
relationship to it, but to his credit he does not minimise it. It is what is
generally known as mysticism. It is, as Wilber asserts, thoroughly
experiential, and as reality based as any science. It requires an education
over long periods of time to thoroughly grasp what it is about, as is true
of any field of science. And while there are many disagreements over detail,
as also occurs in science, there is a broad concensus as to what is valid
and what is not, and this wisdom resides in a community, which tests new
formulations against the common wisdom, again something true of science.
When you say it is "an illusion in which existence has been suspended ever
since ...until Pirsig came along that is", you ignore this strong and
durable tradition. Pirsig offers a particular westernised view of the mystic
understanding, but it is not novel, except in its phrasing. Many people have
attempted to make the transition from Eastern or religious versions of
mysticism to a form which can be grasped by western, scientifically oriented
people, including Chogyam Trungpa, Jeremy Hayward, Aubrey Menen, John
Wren-Lewis, Ken Wilber and Hameed Ali, to name just a few I am familiar
with. Whitehead came close, though from the other direction.
The error I sense to be quite common on this forum is to assume that the
mystic level is somehow to be grasped intellectually rather than
experientially. While there is actually no problem with discussing non-dual
mystic experience in Cartesian language, language is inadequate to convey
the reality of the experience, in a way which is not true, for example, when
reading a motor-bike manual. This is one reason I am very suspicious of
those who proclaim thay have the 'truth'. Of some levels of experience "I
must needs be silent". When I actually quizzed members of this forum as to
their mystic credentials a year or two ago, very few were prepared to say
they were 'enlightened' (a word I hate, but it serves as code), though some
certainly spoke of experiences, often associated with drug use, that
convinced them that there was another unified dimension to reality. I
suspect this is close to Pirsig's position, too, though he remains
ambivalent.
Now I am quite clear that I have few mystic qualifications. I am less
influenced by mystic experience than weary with intellectual experience, and
I have found that the reintegration of the body with the mind as practiced
in, for example, Gestalt therapy, while helpful, does not go far enough.
What has been invaluable for me, experientially, in doing Gestalt work, has
been the progression from novice to practitioner, where what was once
doubted is now integrated and part of everyday reality. I suspect the same
will be true of the path to mysticism, though it also appears a more
difficult path, for reasons I will not go into here.
Pirsig reminds us that the motorbike we work on is called 'myself', and that
is my first priority. I enjoy arguing on the internet, and it fits my
personality. But at the end of the day, Pirsig's ideas are of value only
insofar as they assist me to work on myself. That is why I often regret that
he wrote a metaphysics and not a workshop manual.
Regards,
John B
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