Hello Platt, and everyone.
Platt is correct. What was it about the Sophists that Pirsig said?
They taught rhetoric!
Why rhetoric? No it was not to win arguments by resorting to "specious"
techniques
of debate.What is rhetoric? An appeal to emotional vrs. logical sensibilites?
NO! The essense of the rhetoric taught by the sophists is the same as the
stories told
by Pirsig about sitting on the stove, etc. These stories, parables,
analogies, have been
used for ages by those who wish to convey the essense of indescribable
experiences. In other words the failure of logic leaves one no other choice
if your intent is to accurately pass on the knowledge of those experiences
to others and future generations. Therefore those teachers often used
paradox and logically absurd statements to point the student in the
direction of Truth.
The genius of Pirsig/Phaedrus in ZMM is to recognize the truth behind
apparent paradox and seeming absurdity that is the true ground upon which
any metaphysic must be lived.Generally speaking, Truth cannot be grasped
directly but must be glimpsed out of the corner of your eye as you circle
around it. More often than not if you get to close, like the moth to a
flame you get burned, i.e.,you cannot see the forest for the trees. Pirsig
SAW THE FOREST IN ZEN, the TOA,
the QUALITY that permeates all things. Reread ZMM Chapter 20(particularly
pp.246-248 in my 1979 printing) then Chap.21(p.250) Where he states,"What's
important is the relevance of such a discovery..." What is that relevance?
" The Mythos is insane."(chap.28,p.346). Why? How did this happen? Where
did we go wrong? Pirsig's tale of the triumph of Phaedrus(which to the
'insane'
masses appeared as madness itself) is perhaps the most remarkable
intellectual journey undertaken since The work of Carl Jung during the
first half of this century. Jung sought to redress the terrible evils
within the human heart that resulted in this century being the most bloody,
murderous,and war-torn time in human history;Phaedrus sought to innoculate
our hearts from the other great evil of our time: Nihilism. Chapters 29 and
30 are the quintessential
documents of what must become a new mythos, a new constitution of a new
world, a new declaration
of independence from decaying diseased dogmas and the malaise of a
meaningless myopic mythos.
It is with sadness unto tears and weeping that one learns during the course
of the book how
Pirsig the survivor abandoned Phaedrus the 'brave-hearted', choosing to
"pander"(p.363)to the CoR(Church of Reason)rather than stay in the trenches
and fight for the future! I know I risk
excommunication by the following But it must be said: PIRSIG! FREE
PHAEDRUS! BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE! I'm truly sorry but "Lila" is a 'panderer',
a 'harlot', whom leads not to freedom from
the deadly dogma but only strenghtens it by diluting the truth even
further.DQ Vrs.SQ will never change a single life from the dis-ease.
Chapters 29-30 of ZMM have and will as long as its kept alive by those who
understand.
Hail Phaedrus,
Tom
Platt:
>Looks like we’ve run smack into a wall of logical absurdity
>
>PIRSIG:
>Duality is indivisible, undefinable and unknowable in the sense that
>there is a knower and a known, but a metaphysics can be none of
>these things. A metaphysics must be divisible, definable and
>knowable, or there isn't any metaphysics. Since a metaphysics is
>essentially a kind of dialectical definition and since Quality is
>essentially outside definition, this means that a "Metaphysics of
>Quality" is a logical absurdity. (LILA, Chap.5)
>
>ROGER:
>I am trying to conceptually explain the preconceptual and screwing
>everything up in the process. Rich's post highlighted some of the
>difficulties as well.
>
>PLATT:
>Not only difficulties, but impossibilities. That's why Pirsig took pains
>to acknowledge the futility of presenting a logical MOQ. But then he
>said, “Ahh, do it anyway. It’s interesting" and goes on to define
>Quality as best he can.
>
>PIRSIG:
>Quality doesn’t have to be defined. You understand it without
>definition, ahead of definition. Quality is direct experience
>independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions. (LILA, Chap. 5)
>
>PLATT:
>After saying Quality doesn’t have to be defined Pirsig defines
>Quality as direct experience prior to intellectual abstractions. He
>contradicts himself, but that's the name of the MOQ game. You can't
>say what Quality is without smacking into the wall of logical
>absurdity. Nor should this be surprising because all philosophy
>eventually comes down to an inexplicable "black box" of obscurity,
>that ultimate, mysterious place about which Wittgenstein said,
>“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must silent."
>
>RICH:
>I offer this:
>
>1)Reality is Quality. Unpatterned, Undefinable, Undivided, God, Tao,
>Brahman, etc.
>
>2)Reality is Value. Patterned, Definable, Divided, Earth, Maya,
>‘Concrete’ things and thoughts, etc.
>
>3)No words apply to Quality, being the generator.
>
>PLATT:
>Rich runs into the same wall as Roger, Pirsig, Platt and everyone
>else. "No words apply to Quality” is contradicted by saying "no
>words apply to Quality" because these are words being applied to
>Quality.
>
>How do you describe Quality without using words? Logically you
>can't. Quality transcends logic, reason and words.
>
>But that doesn't mean Quality doesn't exist. You know it by being it--
>direct experience. And by being it, there's no way to get outside of it
>so you can define it.
>
>Pirsig's time honored "Zen" solution to this dilemma is to offer us
>stories--stories of jumping off a hot stove, of hearing a great song
>for the first time, of having a heart attack, etc.
>
>For me, these stories tell of experience broken down into two parts:
>sensations and conceptions. Sensations are Dynamic Quality,
>conceptions are static Quality.
>
>Or, a more sophisticated breakdown of experience is to divide it into
>four parts: 1) Prehensions (awareness without content), 2)
>Sensations (awareness of generalized content), 3) Perceptions
>(awareness of identifiable content) and 4) Conceptions (awareness
>of symbols of identifiable content). Under this breakdown, Dynamic
>Quality is 1 and 2 while static Quality is 3 and 4.
>
>But, I could be wrong, even though, for now at least, the static
>conceptual pattern of:
>
>1) DQ = sensations
>2) SQ = conceptions
>3) Quality = experience
>4) Experience = what I am
>
>appears good to me.
>Platt
>
>
>
>
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