Hello everyone
Dave Thomas writes:
>Glove, Walter
>
>About gravity
>
>> Pirsig does say that gravity is a pattern of value in addressing a
paradox
>> that Anthony Mcwatt and Eric Priezkalns bring up in their paper The Role
of
>> Evolution, Time and Order in Pirsig's
>> "Metaphysics of Quality".
>>
>> Anthony writes:
>>
>> >Anyway,
>> >here's Pirsig:
>> >
>> >----------------------------------------------------------------
>> >
>> >"The section in chapter 3 (in ZMM) about gravity points out
>> >that the body of knowledge we call science is in fact
>> >subjective. The law of gravity exists only in the minds of
>> >modern-day people, who can change this law any time new
>> >information shows that a higher quality law of gravity can
>> >be constructed.
>
>> >....both the "law of gravity" and "gravity" are
>> >intellectual static patterns, but gravity (when you take
>> >the quotation marks off) is said, in a very high quality
>> >interpretation of experience, to be an external reality."
>> (Correspondence from Pirsig to McWatt)
>
>Or as Pirsig puts it on page 298 of Lila " Gravitation is an inorganic
pattern
>of values"
>A key point to extract from this and the McWatt correspondence is an
>indication that Pirsig while hedging his bet with "said..to be" still seem
to
>fall on the side of patterns of value external to the mind. (external
>reality). Pragmatic realist, not idealist, Walter.
>
>Dave Thomas
Hi Dave
So nice to have you join the conversation! I have always liked your essays
in the forum, and there are several points you raise that I have always
wanted to discuss. Perhaps at some point in the future we can do that.
I didn't extract the same "key point" that you did from the Pirsig quotes,
for I focused on this
from Pirsig:
>But this highest quality intellectual pattern itself comes
>before the external world, not after, as is commonly
>presumed by the materialists.
This seems to be a bit of a puzzler to me, taken in the context of what
"before" means in everyday reality. And his use of the word "materialist"
would seem to be synonomous with "realist", would it not? If that is so, can
you really label Pirsig a "pragmatic realist"? Perhaps we should ponder on
this more.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Best wishes
glove
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