Hello everyone
This is to Walter, Roger, Magnus, Dave Thomas, Kevin, Platt, Rick and any
others who I have missed and who are interested in the discussion. I would
love to address all the posts individually but I am feeling a bit
o'erwhelmed right now and so I had better just bring myself back to center.
I want to thank everyone whos posted. There are so many brilliant people
here that I really feel honored being a part of this discussion group. I
myself always write from certain centers, I guess you could say, and in that
fashion seek to limit the ambiguity of my writings. In other words I don't
contradict myself, hopefully. Here are some of my centers:
Any theory of consciousness must start with an observer. This is center. We
experience reality by remembering it, not by experiencing reality directly.
This is center. Static quality patterns of value are all that we can be
aware of. This is center. Dynamic Quality appears as inconsequential
irrelevancies between static patterns of value. This is center.
The question I am wrestling with is whether static quality and Dynamic
Quality can be used in a simultaneous fashion? Static latching would seem to
be the mechanism by which Pirsig unites the two in the Metaphysics of
Quality, but if the four static quality levels are exhaustive and contain
everything we know, are we not precluded from acknowledging Dynamic Quality
altogether? I believe the answer is that this is Pirsig's controlled folly.
I guess what we've all really been asking is whether it is proper to view
external reality as existing independently of the self. If one says that
"yes", there is a sound in the forest when the tree falls with no one
around, that person believes in an external reality apart from self. If one
says "no", there is no sound, that person believes that there is no reality
apart from the self. Obviously the Metaphysics of Quality encompasses both
views. This much I can see.
But have we solved anything by stating both views are correct? I would
rather put it that while both views are correct, one offers a more expanded
explanation of reality as we understand it. By stating that there is no
sound in the forest when a tree falls with no one around, and applying that
point of view to the Metaphysics of Quality, a wider point of view opens up
for us.
A hint: The deep focus of the koan is "sound". A koan has many depths, just
like the Metaphysics of Quality, and some can be plummed deeper than others.
What amazes me is just how weird reality really is!
Best wishes to all,
glove
MOQ Homepage - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:02:55 BST