On 18 Aug 2002 at 10:46, Gary Jaron wrote:
> Hi Bo
> Actually I have been reading and re-reading your posts and agreement
> between us is so tantalizing close. I think the difference between us
> is on the focus of the questions we ask. This was how I stated it to
> a reply to Platt: ....snip ....
Dear Gary.
When I read your letter to Platt it was exactly that question I zoomed in on
....and was about to enter the dialogue when I found that you had written to
me too. But first I must thank Platt for an excellent input on the empiricism
issue, I am a bit slow when it comes to find the correct quotations but I knew
that there was something there, besides it was your exchange with Scott
and my capacity is limited.
You said (to Platt):
> I believe this is all true. I am interested
> in asking the question: How do you come to know the structure of
> reality?
OK, this is the very opening of the ZAMM and what brought P. to the brink
and beyond ...and made him conceive the Quality Idea in the first place. I
am not going to reiterate that book solely from its own premises, but from
the MOQ's too, and naturally from my SOL interpretation of it (SOT for
Scott).
> That question yields a map of reality that focuses on the
> process of gaining knowledge.
Pirsig starts his story about Phaedrus by telling how : "...he had spent his
entire life pursuing the ghost of rationality", and rationality is THE objective
approach, nobody will deny that? Later in the book he gives his description
of how this attitude came to dominate Greek culture, and as "subjectivity"
follows "objectivity" slavishly, that was the coming of SOM.
Enter the MOQ and the static levels. The Sophists are in this retrospect
seen as representatives of social value (Protagoras' "man the measure of all
things" sentence its essence) and as the quest for objective truth (SOM)
came to replace this, it is just as clear that SOM is the value level following
the social one; In other words Q-Intellect is the value of the S/O divide! It's
just written all over Pirsig's work.
Now - finally - your inquiry can be addressed: After the coming of the
intellectual value level, all quests for knowing "the structure of reality" have
necessarily been "maps" because the map/reality is the very essence of the
S/O-intellect! The mythological (social) reality before intellect had no such
divided attitude, there were no "sceptics" who said "...listen folks, those
Gods are just "maps" of reality ....in your minds ...of no external reality
..etc."
> Thus my map builds out from inside a
> mind.
Subject/Object's first-born child is the mind/matter dualism in S/O-intellect's
point of view all maps "build from inside a mind" ... invariably!
> My map focuses on internal/external, private/public,o
> words/things, maps/territory.
Now you try to make it look like there is a MAP/map-reality map, and that
game can be played unto exhaustion, but it springs from the same S/O
source.
> What I am doing is re-arranging the
> parts of Pirsig's map in order to answer a question other than the one
> Pirsig asked and answered. I never intend to violate the rules of MOQ
> I just am shifting its focus."
The MOQ can't be violated if seen this way (nor can you re-arrange it for
your own purpose), but if not seen this way it falls like a house of cards
before the least blow. For what can't avoid the "map", "description only" or
"just words" objections? Come to think of it, not even the objections which
are "just maps" too!
> When I was replying to Scott I gave an analysis of how a book can be
> examined using MOQ. Again, I use terms such as private/public,
> internal/external, mind/matter. How would you do the same analysis of
> how a book is created and then used using your model of MOQ? If you
> could do this without reference to the terms internal/external ,
> public/private, mind/matter I would drop my language and use yours!
I would - as an opening - say the now I am in intellect-mode (a kind of
Husserlian "bracketing" of reality) and go on about mind/matter,
internal/external, private/public ...etc. to my heart's delight.
> When you do such a process MOQ analysis things get awfully complicated
> and messy! That is because we are engaging in taking a dynamic living
> non-linear process and rendering it into a static dead linear
> description. Please, please take the time to describe a book as I did
> in my august 16th 7:42 pm post.
Well, if you see it as messy it can't be helped, I see it as the greatest
liberation that has come my way, I was as terrorized by rationality's ghost as
Phaedrus once.
> Just work on that and send it. I
> believe it will be extremely important to you and to me. It could
> help me to understand your position. If you can do it with out
> mind/matter, Internal/External, public/private terms then you will
> truly enlightened me!!!
I will when you direct me at it, found no book review in the said post. But I
really think all you need to understand my position is in this message.
Bo
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