From: Scott Roberts (jse885@earthlink.net)
Date: Mon Aug 16 2004 - 02:51:13 BST
David M,
[DM said}
> I understand what you are saying but are
> you being entirely fair to Pirsig?
> Pirsig explains what he means by SQ.
> SQ belongs to the finite world of
> repeating patterns. Clearly aspects
> of SQ can be called intellectual and are
> part of finite world rather than anything
> transcendent. So he says something about how
> intellect works in this world. You point to the
> possible connection between DQ and that force that
> enables the world to Become. You are happy to call
> this intellect.
I think that Pirsig does a disservice to intellect by seeing it *only* as
static pattern, and therefore ourselves as only static pattern. This is --
of course, in my view -- bad metaphysics, and has bad consequences.
Intellect, even common everyday intellect that has not been transformed to
Intellect, is a much more significant development than just being a fourth
level of SQ, for it is what allows a human being to detach him- or herself
from all SQ, including limiting intellectual static patterns (e.g.,
materialism). That is, detachment *is* intellect -- the ability to reflect
on something rather than be compelled by it. Pirsig, on the other hand,
promotes "pure experience" and sees intellect as covering it up, as if
intellect itself were not experience. Which is contradicted by his own
experience (eg., his excitement in ZAMM on his metaphysical breakthroughs),
or his account of Poincare.
I might add that without this view of intellect, the MOQ's only
justification for claiming that the intellectual level is morally superior
to the social is that it comes later and is built on top of the social.
Clearly awareness/DQ have deep connections.
> The thing I think Pirsig fails to discuss is how SQ is possible.
> What lies behind any SQ/return/same again occurrance?
Concur. For that one needs the logic of contradictory identity, or
something similar, like Coleridge's polarity or Cusa's coincidentia
oppositorium (or Cupitt's Be(com)ing? I'm not sure, haven't read how he
uses it), which as I see it, cannot be finessed into the MOQ. Because of
this, the MOQ has no chance of providing a philosophy of mind, which makes
it incomplete. Philosophy of mind is where materialism fails, and so does
the MOQ, since neither can make any sense of consciousness.
- Scott
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