Hello everyone
Dave Thomas wrote:
>>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.
Glove:
You have a very valid point worthy of pondering. Please tell me more of your
thinking along these lines.
>
>> 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.
Glove:
I would say that you have formed conceptual agreements that allow you to
better communicate in an unambiguous fashion.
Dave:
> Philosophy is both a problem solving and problem creating tool.
Glove: No argument here.
Dave:
>The
>majority of all people fall into Rand's junk pile. Maybe Pirsig could help
dig
>them out.
Glove: It's been my experience that most people are simply too busy to delve
very deeply into Pirsig's work or into any metaphysics for that matter. When
one is worried about meeting a deadline (in an endless stream of deadlines)
or risk getting canned from the only job that will provide a means to
substain the lifestyle one has grown accustomed to, metaphysics is the
furthest thing from one's mind. When I asked "why do you want a
metaphysics?" it was partly rhetorical and partly sophistly punnish, but
isn't that a question that we all really have to ask ourselves?
I am interested in metaphysics because I have time to be interested. I am
indeed lucky because most people I know, time has them and they rarely have
time. It's too bad because life goes by so quickly! And all the money in the
world will not buy a single second of time back that was spent making it
when everything is all said and done. I am not saying we should all quit our
jobs and take up pondering metaphysics full-time, but I am saying that one
should realize what a precious thing time is and perhaps adjust lifestyles
to allow more time to care about things as ethereal as metaphysics, furry
cats and grandbabies. I want a metaphysics because not wanting would mean I
didn't have the time to care about if the path I am on has heart or not.
>
>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?
Glove:
If we view the external world as something separate and apart from the self
then we will argue endlessly over whether or not a squirrel, a cell, an
atom, etc., has intellect. When it is realized that the external world is
not separate from self, then the intellect question never arises.
Best wishes,
glove
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