SINCE NO DOG IS BARKING UP MY TREE, I FEEL LIKE GOING AND AWAKEN SOME SLEEPY
DOGS WHO DREAM ABOUT GHOSTS
[I like the idea of these headings roger, nice idea].
> PLATT:
> I'm looking forward to your summary of "Flow" (from the
> book of the same name by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi I presume),
> which emphasizes "quality of life" and how to achieve it. This sounds
> like the sort of practical, down to earth "everyday Quality" viewpoint
> that I'm trying to attain without having to inject drugs, meditate for
> years, be born again or face near death. :-)
>
AVID:
Nice idea. very good, lets look for some real DQ flow in normal life. Don't
worry I will not give you the mystical flows of Karmic experience but
something that even Mr. Bush jr. can agree with. Have you ever heard about
energy? Energy has only two possible states, either it is still, or it is
active, dynamic or static, stuck or flowing. If I will [stupidly] try to
focus you on the inorganic plain, you would probably hit me with theories
about photons etc., so I want to avoid that. On the biological plain you
will say that you never heard about Bioenergy before [unless you are a
mystic, a weirdo like me], so let us hit the social plain. There you will
see I'll show you some very solid ground for our flow.
Well, what's the name of Social energy management, right, economics, and the
flowing object would be.....
CURRENCY
Hard solid $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
And why do we call it currency, or cashflow etc? BECAUSE THE FLOW IS
IDENTICAL [mostly] WITH QUALITY. So the world can be seen as a continual
flow of energy [the source] and even you must agree that we can manage see
feel this current at least on the social plain [I am sure we will find it in
other plains too, but on the social plain it is accepted even by SOM].
NOW.....
It is not an object, it is not a subject, it is potential, it is energy, it
cannot stand alone, it transacts between social institutions [a citizen is a
part of a social institution too]. Am I right or am I right?
> ROGER:
> I started some sketchy ideas on the LS forum a few weeks ago. My only
post
> for the month (keeping within the theme of this post, the LS has turned
out
> to be a regular ghost town -- rumor has it the denizens were strangled).
AVID:
Right, and why? Low quality. Not enough flow. In economic energy management
it would be called recession, in mental energy management it would be called
depression. Why is that? Too many laws make flow impossible, to little laws
make flow directions, and therefore impossible too, you choose.
> ROG PREVIOUS:
> I believe it would be more accurate to say that I believe DQ (or
> Direct Experience) is Base Reality, and that David believes that
> there is a base reality other than DQ and Direct Experience.
> PLATT:
> And here I've been laboring under the impression all along that
> Quality (or Direct Experience) was Base Reality and that Quality or
> Direct Experience included both DQ and static Quality--the first cut.
> Wonder where I got that idea. Hmmm. Looks like I have to come
> down on David's side after all.
AVID:
Why not call it "base experience" and close that argument?
> ROGER NOW:
> Silly, silly boy. Sq does not get counted as Direct Experience. SQ is
> derived from DE in the Quality Event. I of course agree that sq is
essential
> to reality as we know it. In fact it is reality as we know it! But
reality
> as we know it is "ghosts". The base reality is preconceptual DQ. Check
my
> posts for numerous quotes of Mr. P saying exactly this. Here are two new
> ones from ZMM.......
AVID:
Roger, I think you are wrong. I agree that " Sq does not get counted as
Direct Experience. SQ is derived from DE in the Quality Event". But so is
DQ. IT IS THE OUTCOME OF OUR CUT INTO REALITY. After we cut the experienced
DEoQ [Direct experience of quality] into SPQ we have an undefinable rest
which belongs in every experience, which is a wild card, a joker, DQ. But it
is as derived from the experience as SPQ is, BUT IN A NEGATIVE FORM.
GHOSTS ARE NEGATIVE FORMS TOO, they suggest nonmaterial beings [no positive
definition possible]. DQ IS A GHOST.
> PIRSIG ON 'GHOSTS':
> "It's completely natural," I say, "to think of Europeans who
> believed in ghosts or Indians who believed in ghosts as ignorant. The
> scientific point of view has wiped out every other view to a point where
> they all seem primitive, so that if a person today talks about ghosts or
> spirits he is considered ignorant or maybe nutty. It's just all but
> completely impossible to imagine a world where ghosts can actually exist."
AVID:
If I may translate this to MoQ language it will say that western society's
immune system rejects the idea of ghost after embracing materialism as its
identity, in the form of identifying of such believers as holders of low
quality [primitive = low quality, because western society identifies itself
with progress, meaning advanced = high quality].
PIRSIG [continues]:
> John nods affirmatively and I continue.
AVID:
This is a nice touch. I don't care for this little aside because most of you
ignore me anyhow so I might as well enjoy myself]. In Socratic or Platonic
[name them as you wish] dialog the role of the other is agreeing or asking
questions that clarify the matter even more [to Socrates/Plato
satisfaction]. This secondary role, totally not having an identity of its
own, serves as dialog function only, and therefore could be seen [here
john] as a ghost.
PIRSIG [continues]:
> "My own opinion is that the intellect of modern man isn't that
> superior. IQs aren't that much different. Those Indians and medieval men
> were just as intelligent as we are, but the context in which they thought
> was completely different. Within that context of thought, ghosts and
spirits
> are quite as real as atoms, particles, photons and quants are to a modern
> man.
AVID:
In MoQ language it would suggest that a society labeling different SPQ
[cultural/Intellectual] as holding different quality, as part of the social
immune system, is a major setback in allowing those cultural SPQ to coexist
as rival theories [see: Karl Pooper on this one]. This is a good reason for
cultural SPQ to break loose from their social smothering.
PIRSIG [continues]:
In that sense I believe in ghosts. Modern man has his ghosts and
> spirits too, you know."
>
> "What?"
>
> "Oh, the laws of physics and of logic... the number system... the
> principle of algebraic substitution. These are ghosts. We just believe in
> them so thoroughly they seem real."
>
> "They seem real to me," John says.
AVID:
Here are ghost in a negative NON MATERIALISTIC definition. You can also look
up Claude Levy Strauss on the non materiality of the system of Magic.
PIRSIG [continues]:
> "I don't get it," says Chris.
>
> So I go on. "For example, it seems completely natural to presume
> that gravitation and the law of gravitation existed before Isaac Newton.
It
> would sound nutty to think that until the seventeenth century there was no
> gravity."
>
> "Of course."
>
> "So when did this law start? Has it always existed?"
>
> John is frowning, wondering what I am getting at.
>
> "What I'm driving at," I say, "is the notion that before the
> beginning of the earth, before the sun and the stars were formed, before
the
> primal generation of anything, the law of gravity existed."
>
> "Sure."
>
> "Sitting there, having no mass of its own, no energy of its own, not
> in anyone's mind because there wasn't anyone, not in space because there
was
> no space either, not anywhere -- this law of gravity still existed?"
>
> Now John seems not so sure.
>
> "If that law of gravity existed," I say,"I honestly don't know what
> a thing has to do to be nonexistent. It seems to me that the law of
gravity
> has passed every single test of nonexistence there is. You cannot think of
a
> single attribute of nonexistence that law of gravity didn't have. Or a
> single scientific attribute of existence that it did have. And yet it is
> still 'common sense' to believe that it existed."
>
> John says, "I guess I'd have to think about it."
>
> "Well, I predict that if you think about it long enough you will
> find yourself going round and round and round and round until you finally
> reach only one possible, rational, intelligent conclusion. The law of
> gravity and gravity itself did not exist before Isaac Newton. No other
> conclusion makes sense.
> "And what that means," I say before he can interrupt, "and what that
> means is that that law of gravity exists nowhere except in people's heads!
AVID:
In MoQ language that scientific SPQ are of the cultural order and exist in
the intellectual level, but not only there. How? [here I suggest Pirsig is
wrong for all who didn't understand me yet], it has to do with the
connection between the layers [A beautiful antelope is about to run through
that forest too, soon].
PIRSIG [continues]:
> It's a ghost! We are all of us very arrogant and conceited about running
> down other people's ghosts but just as ignorant and barbaric and
> superstitious about our own."
AVID:
BANG! Did you pay attention? Suddenly ghost DON'T EXIST, and WE ARE IGNORANT
BARBARIC AND SUPERSTITIOUS to believe their existence. MAJOR
glitch...........
PIRSIG [continues]:
> ..."The problem, the contradiction the scientists are stuck with, is
> that of mind. Mind has no matter or energy but they can't escape its
> predominance over everything they do.
AVID:
Mind is a platypus of SOM. in what ORGAN, do I do the thinking? Subject or
object it doesn't matter, it is not where logic happens. Logic happens
between statements of thought as an intellectual SPQ.
PIRSIG [continues]:
Logic exists in the mind. Numbers
> exist only in the mind. I don't get upset when scientists say that ghosts
> exist in the mind. It's that only that gets me. Science is only in your
mind
> too, it's just that that doesn't make it bad. Or ghosts either."
AVID:
The only bugs me too, I would prefer 'mainly' [or in an autonomic mode of
the cultural SPQ called LOGIC, for those who sniffed at my first antelope].
> AND LATER:
> "Precision instruments are designed to achieve an idea, dimensional
> precision, whose perfection is impossible. There is no perfectly shaped
part
> of the motorcycle and never will be, but when you come as close as these
> instruments take you, remarkable things happen, and you go flying across
the
> countryside under a power that would be called magic if it were not so
> completely rational in every way. It's the understanding of this rational
> intellectual idea that's fundamental. John looks at the motorcycle and he
> sees steel in various shapes and has negative feelngs about these steel
> shapes and turns off the whole thing. I look at the shapes of the steel
now
> and I see ideas. He thinks I'm working on parts. I'm working on concepts.
>
> ...That's all the motorcycle is, a system of concepts worked out in
> steel. There's no part in it, no shape in it, that is not out of someone's
> mind... I've noticed that people who have never worked with steel have
> trouble seeing this -- that the motorcycle is primarily a mental
phenomenon.
> They associate metal with given shapes -- pipes, rods and girders, tools,
> parts -- all of them fixed and inviolable, and think of it as primarily
> physical. But a person who does machining or foundry work or forge work or
> welding sees 'steel' as having no shape at all. Steel can be any shape you
> want if you are skilled enough, and any shape but the one you want if you
> are not. Shapes, like this tappet, are what you arrive at, what you give
to
> the steel. Steel has no more shape than this old pile of dirt on the
engine
> here. These shapes are all out of someone's mind. That's important to see.
> The steel? Hell, even the steel is out of someone's mind. There's no steel
> in nature. Anyone from the Bronze Age could have told you that. All nature
> has is a potential for steel. There's nothing else there. But what's
> 'potential'? That's also in someone's mind!... Ghosts."
AVID:
Last small remark
Phaederus sees the high quality of the motorcycle, John sees its low
quality, its "bugs". There is no perfect motorcycle, but in order to improve
it you need John's eyes. I hope I didn't ruin any Dingoes slumber. Sweet
dreams
and don't forget to be gentle
Avid
icq 6598359
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