On 25 Apr 2002 at 3:15, Dan Glover wrote:
> Hi Bo and Magnus
> I don't see anywhere in Lila that RMP refutes Descartes other than to
> add a line to his famous one before calling it correct. I'm not sure I
> am seeing the problem here other than the common misunderstanding RMP
> tries to correct in his annotations pertaining to what he means by the
> social level. It hurts a bit to hear RMP's statement called dubious,
> boring, and un-called for. I find it fascinating. Hopefully Marco will
> find some value in it as well.
Hi Dan
I really feel bad for for writing things like 'dubious' and 'un-called for'
about Pirsig's statements and realize that it may sounds like I have
joined the critics, but NO! I am amazed by the MOQ to the point of
obsession and it has been a fascination since I learned to know it.
At this point I thought of continuing ...... that I react even when Robert
Pirsig don't act up to his own great insight ... but that would be adding
insult to injury, so I'll just say that MY utterings were un-called for.
The Quality idea is REVOLUTION and in order to find the isthmus
between it and the SOM Pirsig uses arguments from the latter. This I
have defended because figuring this "Flying Dutchman" back in the
early eighties hammering away at his book in the cabin of his boat not
knowing if one single person in the world would understand the first
thing. He just HAD to make concessions to the ruling world view - to
SOM - but now in twothousandandtwo when he has listeners, he should
speak from the MOQ only, but - again - this fool could have expressed
himself more carefully (Angus said I was dandy regarding respect, so
maybe I tried to sound less so :)
> The MOQ allows us a more expanded point of view, yes, and it doesn't
> contradict science, but it doesn't concede there is a reality without
> people.
Allow me Dan. The subject-object view of reality presents an objective
reality out there and a subjective reality in our minds. The trouble with
this view is that (from SOM's own premises) its easy to prove that
everything is in our minds. This fact is swept under every rug there is
and called for the lunatic bin only. Science which represents the
objective side doesn't give a damn and only keeps the subjective as the
swamp it heroically has managed to lift mankind from.
But the relentlessly analytic ZAMM P called the science bluff and saw
that science is as deep in the mire as everything else (here it is
important to understand that he was a SOM analytic at that stage) and
he went mad from this "disappointment". God, you know this story, it's
longer more complicated, but from the no-man's-land of insanity he
discovered that the Quality Insight was valid and it brought him back
alive, and he started to develop it - first the prototype of ZAMM later the
full-fledged version of LILA.
I could have gone on, but what I try to convey Dan is that from a SOM
point of view the MOQ can be said to be "subjective" and only
concerned with the human experience (the "no reality without people"
you mention above). That can't be otherwise because SOM is a
metaphysics and covers all experience, BUT AFTERWARDS THIS S/O
ARGUMENT HAS NO RELEVANCE FOR THE MOQ because its
starting point is something that is prior to both subjective and objective!
I am not angry or anything, but just frustrated that this basic assertion
never seems to take hold ......and that even P. spoils it somewhat by
using the "in our minds only" argument.
> That is what science assumes and is RMP's point when he says
> the MOQ is truly empirical where science is not.
I guess everyone claim to be empirical - science most of all - but all
this: Empiricism, James, Northrop ...etc has little relevancy for those
who have entered the MOQ in earnest.
> As for re-introducing
> SOM, doesn't your S-O logic as the Quality intellect level do that
> too, Bo?
Pirsig says that S/O is subsumed by the MOQ and his way is the
known, while I have this idea that the Intellectual level is the S/O but in
either way it is no longer a S/O METAPHYSICS, but a mere subset of
the MOQ.
> I really don't see how the MOQ can get away from SOM without
> becoming a school of thought that requires years to master. I think
> RMP's point is that it doesn't matter as long as we remember SOM is a
> sort of short-hand for describing reality.
This is just right!
A humble
Bo
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