Glove
> Your phrase "conceptually infinite" is worth further exploration I think.
> "Infinite" comes from the latin "infinitus" < in- not + finis- limit >
> meaning literally "not limited". Can we use a term like "conceptually" to
> describe that which is without limit? Look at the difference in the way
> Pirsig uses "conceptually" in his SODV paper. He calls Dynamic Quality the
> "Conceptually Unknown". Pirsig is implying that the "Unknown" is beyond
> conception while you are implying "infinite" is a conception. Do you see
> what I mean?
Dave
Right, it would have been better if I'd said something like tippy cup
illustrated the concept of infinity. And thanks for the reminder that time is
a convention (intellectual pattern) forgot my Einstein. But not sure that time
is the key to unlock this circle.
Glove
> This circle is easy to get locked into if time is considered as a principle
> of an independently existing external reality. What I sense Pirsig is
> getting at in his quotes is that the intellect level is not bounded by our
> linear sense of time. Time is not a principle, rather it is a conceptual
> agreement.
Dave
I'm starting to think rather the either, both is more appropriate. That when
dealing with the levels the Realist's are more closely right on 1 & 2. while
the Idealist's are more closely right on 3 & 4.
> Dave:
> >If metaphysics is a map, Why do I want one that leads me in circles?
>
> Glove:
> Why do you want one at all?
Dave
Good one! I haven't had one for over fifty years why start now? Pragmatists
and other schools of various stripes got along without. After Pirsig dangled
the bait, Rand hooked me with her Philosophy, Who Needs It? essay/speech with
this one:
"As a human being, you have no choice about the fact you need a philosophy.
Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious,
rational, discipled process of thought and scrupulously logical
deliberation-or let you subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted
conclusions, false generalizations,undefined contradictions, undigested
slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but
integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy..."
after that it seemed worthwhile see what was in my junk pile.
Pirsig, p 26 lila
"He'd found over and over again that the JUNK pile is a working catagory. Most
slips died there but some reincarnated, and some of these reincarnated slips
were the most important ones he had."
then started to do a little scrap picking..and here I am.
Conclusions to date: I can articulate a little better what I think about these
issues. Philosophy is both a problem solving and problem creating tool. The
majority of all people fall into Rand's junk pile. Maybe Pirsig could help dig
them out.
Glove
> And so is the squirrel running in circles? The squirrel, having successfully
> eluded the man, may come to sense of itself as having some greater Purpose
> that has allowed it to escape the clutches of the potentially squirrel-stew
> making man. Would the squirrel be wrong in assuming this? And with this
> new-found sense of Purposefulness, is this squirrel still the same squirrel
> as before the man-encounter?
The problem with metaphoric illustrations is sometime they're just too obscure.Sorry.
The point I was trying to get to was: If intellect comes before the external world
and the squirrel seems to be aware, not just of the man, but a multitude of
other things in the external world. Must the squirrel then not have intellect?
And if a squirrel why not a cell? Or is that the whole point of MoQ?
Sweet dreams
Dave Thomas
MOQ Homepage - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
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