DaPhred and squad,
You are absolutely right that my posting was a matter of my own
interpretation. Rather than probe into the esoteric points of Pirsig's
every uttering I would prefer that the squad take every chapter of ZMM and
Lila that are not purely narrative and discuss their overall meaning.
Except for the one quote in Lila that I have not found yet I see none of
your quotes from either ZMM or Lila that is at variance with my ideas. I
will go through the books again with an eye to our differences but I think
that we are reading Pirsig differently. It is true that he was forced to
include mysticism in a definition of Quality but I interpret that to mean
that they are just not knowable. The origin of Quality is mystical because
we don't know where it came from or what caused it and DQ is not knowable
because it happens subliminally. In both cases we are able to understand
their function and think rationally about them.
DaPhred:
"His Quality was a metaphysical entity, not a mystical one. Or was it?
What
was the difference? He answered himself that the difference was one of
definition. Metaphysical entities are defined. Mystical ones are not. That
made Quality mystical, no it was really both.
Ken:
I define Quality as the organizing force that drives the universe. Once
Quality was established and the resulting fundamentals of the universe were
in place the entire operation of the universe became rational. We are
incapable of following the details after a while because of complexity but
that does not mean that those details are not theoretically capable of
being followed.
DaPhred:
Reaching from mystery into deeper mystery it is the gate to the secret of
all
life.
Ken:
I do not equate a mystery with mystical. Many things are a mystery to me
that are not mystical.
DaPhred:
"Phaedrus hoped this Quality metaphysics was something that would get past
the immune system and show that American Indian mysticism is not something
alien from American culture. It's a deep submerged hidden root of it."
Ken:
As I read this he simply means that Indian mysticism was absorbed into
American culture. I am not arguing that mysticism does not exist. Only that
it is not a necessary or desirable thing.
DaPhred:
I just feel strongly that ultimate wisdom cannot be achieved through
rational means alone.
Ken:
Does this mean that there must be a healthy dose of irrationality to
achieve ultimate wisdom? I suspect that we are not defining mysticism in
the same way.
I did not deal with one of your quotes because I could not immediately
find it.
Is it dark up there Fred? :>) Ken
MOQ Online Homepage - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Unsubscribe - http://www.moq.org/md/index.html
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:03:04 BST