From: Patrick van den Berg (cirandar@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Nov 11 2002 - 12:20:36 GMT
Hi fellow philosophers,
Erin wrote:
> Okay i do have a passage that i want to hear other people's
> interpretation. If this passage is too straightforward I can
> expand my specific question concerning it.
> But since its supposed to be just passage interpretation
> I will leave it alone for now.
>
> p.229
> "At this moment, asleep, "Lila" doesn't exist anymore then a
> program exists when a computer is switched off. The intelligence
> of her cells had switched Lila off for the night, exactly
> the way a hardware switch turns off a computer program."
I wonder what your specific question is. I looked up the context of this
passage in a German copy of Lila. Read it a few times... stared at the
above passage again... well, if I would ask a question concerning this
passage, it would be: How can the program Lila (or Phaedrus or Robert)
know the hardware?
Ah... here's the passage I'm aiming at, two pages before your qouted
passage. Robert is lying close to Lila, who is asleep, and looks at her
and his hands. What created them, was the same as the sexual instincts
that drove Robert and Lila together. (translated from German:) "They
were the leaves of a tree and knew as little as these leaves, why their
cells that had created them or why they created them so similar." I
believe this is a Kantian thought: There are conditions that enable us
('I's) to be here, but we can't fully know these conditions, as a matter
of principle...
I'm not sure, however, if the comparison between (I believe) Kant and
Pirsig is correct. But I think it isn't that farfetched: Pirsig admits
that Quality can't be defined, and that therefore no rational analysis
(which hings on definitions) can capture Quality (or Experience) itself.
Every rational theory, which for instance divides everything in subjects
and objects, or divides everything in four levels and DQ (like Pirsig
does), cannot fully iluminate our selves. Of course, this is a rather
fundamental thought, but once one acknowledges this, it can be quite an
interesting, usefull etc. intellectual indeavor to see how far the
theory of the 4 levels and DQ can explain and illuminate things. That's
the pragmatical value of the book Lila: Okay, creating metaphysics is a
degenerate activity, but no mind that, let's just do it!
And as for me, I now have good reason to continue my studies right now
;-)
Friendly greetings, Patrick.
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