Scott,
That's the trouble with email, hard to recognize
subtle distinctions of intent. It didn't make sense
that you would intend an insult but couldn't figure
out what you were implying. I understand now what you
were trying to convey.
I was using the Talmud as a metaphor and thus was
thinking not of the detail of the process but in the
overall process of taking a text and trying to put it
into specific applications, comparing authors language
to discern an absent author's intent, using text to
analogize into new circumstances or simply to apply
author's general principles, etc. All of what we do
here is the general process of what the Rabbi's were
doing. We and they both have authors who are not
available to question and have left general principles
which we are trying to apply. The general process is
seems similar.
I am waiting for your further response. I'm hoping Bo
and John will also put in their "two cents". I write
with conviction in the hope of getting clarity and
challenging thinking back at me. The give and take of
the process brings us to clarity of our opinions even
if not bringing agreement.
My assertion of mind=4th level is based on a brief 1
hour effort to see if I could find language by Pirsig
that defines the 4th level. My investigation was not
definitive but was illuminating. Hence my tentative
assertion of a conclusion. It does make sense to me.
Gary
Scott: > I did NOT say or imply that the Talmud is
grotesque.
> My opinion is very
> much the opposite, I think it is a magnificent
> achievement. What I
> consider grotesque is the idea that we should apply
> the same extremely
> painstaking inquiry into the writing of Pirsig as
> the Talmudists did to
> the Torah and Oral Law. To be that painstaking
> toward writing considered
> divine and infallible makes sense. Not so with
> Pirsig. Yes, we should
> make an effort to paraphrase him (or any one we are
> talking about) as
> well as we can, but -- like I said -- I've done all
> the "what did Pirsig
> *really* mean" argumentation over this issue that
> I'm going to.
>
>
> - Scott
>
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