From: Allen Barrows (allen_barrows@yahoo.co.uk)
Date: Thu Jun 23 2005 - 12:01:54 BST
Paul: I think Pirsig is saying that the manipulation of
abstract symbols is to intellect as DNA is to biology. DNA is the
"mechanism" by which the biological value of life is asserted and
maintained. The manipulation of abstract symbols is the "mechanism" by
which the intellectual value of truth is asserted and maintained.
Hello Paul and Mike, i threw out the harmony take on this if you will, but i have been considering just how close this fits with what Paul says and it fits very nicely it seems to me. I have been putting it under test and it comes out very well.
There is massive textual support in ZMM and Lila for harmony being a valued indication of intellectual quality - many thinkers attest to it. I could post the relevant examples, but i am sure they are familiar to those who have read ZMM and Lila.
Paul: SOL also allows nothing other than SOM to exist in the
intellectual
level, whereas Pirsig's MOQ allows Indian philosophy and the MOQ itself
and
therefore must identify something more elementary to intellect than
SOM.
Hence, the similarity between what happened in Greece and what happened
in
India is that abstract generalisations (e.g. objects, existence,
reality)
began to appear in texts, most notably in the Upanishads. The
subject-object duality was indeed something of huge import, but even at
this
stage, was seen as contingent upon language and not a universal matter
of
fact.
"People persistently hold to the idea of unreality i.e. duality. But
such
duality does not exist. One who has realized the absence of duality is
not
born again, since there remains no longer any cause for his birth."
[Upanishads, Mandukya Upanishad, Ch IV, 75]
"Vedanta recognizes the ordinary state of waking, in which duality,
consisting of objects and the idea of coming in contact with them, is
admitted. It also recognizes a purer ordinary state i.e. the dream
state, in
which is experienced duality consisting of objects and the idea of
coming in
contact with them, though such objects do not exist." [Upanishads,
Mandukya
Upanishad, Ch IV, 87]
"The wise recognize another state, in which there exist neither objects
nor
ideas regarding them." [Upanishads, Mandukya Upanishad, Ch IV, 88]
Allen - The degree to which Indian philosophers had already rehearsed what those in the West would do hundreds of years later is a remarkable feature of Eastern intellectual tradition. Here i agree with Paul and see that the intellect can assert duality but duality is not fundamental to the intellect.
Paul: But SOM or SOL is not the sole custodian of the value of truth,
and
"truth" and "objective truth" are not synonyms. Only the
correspondence
theory of truth is strictly bound to SOM. In the MOQ, "truth"
describes
patterns of high intellectual quality and that quality is not at all
dependent on the existence of independently existing objective states
of
affairs to which they must correspond or try to accurately represent.
Allen - Indeed, truth in intellectual terms is the degree to which harmonious relationships are elegent and aesthetically valued. I may be banging on about harmony allot, but so does ZMM!
Socially valued truth can be easily mistaken for intellectual aesthetic it seems to me. The Bible may assert that the word of law is the truth, but this has no intellectual value.
Thank you,
Allen
---------------------------------
How much free photo storage do you get? Store your holiday snaps for FREE with Yahoo! Photos. Get Yahoo! Photos
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu Jun 23 2005 - 12:07:38 BST