Wim and Gang.
On 26 Aug you wrote:
> Wow... Don't forget the third option: do read (but selectively and
> react even more selectively) and occasionally publicly concede that
> you don't know yet what to think about a subject. That might prevent
> the impression on others both of dropping out (when taking a rest) and
> of 'droning on' (when again and again trying to convey to others the
> meaning to you of your experience).
Thanks for the good words and advice, but forget about my antics and go
directly to the ZAMM/LILA comparison (below) because it was what
indicated that SOM is the Intellectual value level of the MOQ. I am very
interested in your evaluation of it.
Bo.
**************************
At the end of ZAMM is the account of how the subject/object metaphysics
came to be (starting on page 365 in my Corgi Paperback) I can't point to
Pirsig using that phrase, but I guess it's obvious and also that it was
gradual. With Socrates: Truth (that which is independent of what anyone
thinks about it) versus the Sophists. With Plato: Ideas/Shadows and even
with Aristotle it had only reached the Substance/Appearance form, but it had
started on the development that - after a long hibernation through the Dark
Ages - became our Mind/Matter world-view - the SOM!
It's equally clear that Phaedrus' sympathy is with the Sophists because he
had found that the Areté that the former preached was identical to Quality
(On page 368 P. says about Protagoras' "Man-the-measure-of-all-things"
sentence that it is what he himself is saying about Quality). The impression
one is left with after finishing ZAMM is that Socrates and Plato are the
villains that managed to eradicate quality from existence.
Before entering LILA it must be pointed out that the MOQ hadn't reached its
final form in ZAMM, thus the development is not seen as a level shift, but
listen to this passage (368): " ...Plato abhors and damns the Sophists
without restraint, not because they are low and immoral people ..he damns
them because they threaten mankind's first beginning grasp of the idea of
truth ....if that idea had been allowed to perish unrediscovered by the
Renaissance it's unlikely that we would be much beyond the level of
prehistoric man today. THE IDEAS OF SCIENCE AND TECNOLOGY ARE
DEAD-CENTERED ON IT. IT IS THE NUCLEUS OF IT ALL". (my capitals)
Now superimposing LILA on top of ZAMM this picture emerges: The
Sophist were the defenders of social value. Protagoras' sentence is it's
essence: What mankind (society) accept as reality IS reality! Then, as
Socrates and Plato ..etc. promoted the new objective approach against this
subjective threat - and succeeded - it indicates that the S/O divide isn't
merely another intellectual pattern, but the intellectual level itself. The whole
development can also be seen as a movement from the old mytological past
(Myths the social reality according to David Buchanan) and thus confirms
the same view.
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 25 2002 - 16:06:23 BST