Hi Platt,
Thanks for the info about Stove, I'll check it later (Christmas wrapping and
all that... :).
> > Then perhaps a little more caution in the phrasing will make it more
> > palatable to you : "it seems impossible to prove anything that's not
> > tautological."
>
> Well, you can't prove it by me. :-) You seem to be saying what the post-
> modernists say, "It's a fact there are no facts."
In fact, what I'm saying is more in the line of : by SOM's own rules, the
truth SOM's trying to find seems logically unreachable. If you follow SOM's
logic to its bitter end, the vaunted "promised land" of Truth seems ever
more distant. I'll check out what Stove has to say on the matter before
coming back to this one, though.
> > From Struan's side, the *truth* of Pirsig's claims is beyond reach, and
> > therefore without value. From your side, Platt, this is a moral judgment
> > about truth and the MOQ, and therefore it conforts the MOQ. From your
> > respective sides, you are fully supported by your respective systems of
> > thought. You could try to outflank one another like this for ages
without
> > anything being ever resolved. One system cannot be judged from the other
> > side.
>
> The key word above is "judged" in the last sentence. No matter which
> way you slice it, judgements enter the picture . . .some things are better
> than others . . . and you're still in morality land.
What I wanted you to see, Platt, is that if you get out of any kind of
intellectual "first division" and/or preconception, there are no more
reasons to decide that "to judge" means "better/worse" than "true/false".
The choice is one of preference.
Struan cannot see your point of view, but you do not seem more able to see
his. If you could see both, and think as both a MOQist and a SOMist, you'd
understand that to choose the MOQ is still just a choice of intellectual
tools. The MOQ says that any metaphysical system is really a system of
*beliefs*, but it includes itself in that statement.
You cannot put any certainty under your choice (unless it's in a very
personal way). You're still acting as a degenerate for the mystics, still
sullying with words what should be lived through. I believe Pirsig made the
right decision when he wrote the MOQ, because the western intellect was ill
and needed to be replaced with a more inclusive intellectual framework. And
the MOQ provides the seeds for such a system.
But this system will only be superior to the previous ones if it does not
forget its roots : pure, undefined, undiluted, undivided Quality, the
pre-intellectual awareness of reality which is Reality itself. If we forget
the *moment* when we CHOOSE to divide it into DQ, SQ and the levels (or any
non-SO system we'll choose in the future), and the reasons why we did this,
we will lose the most precious part of Pirsig's vision.
Do not forget the high country of the mind, with all those different valleys
under your gaze. In this rarefied air lies the most beautiful prize of all :
the end of slavery to mere IDEAS. True freedom from any preconceptions, any
absolute.
Do not forget this freedom.
Denis
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