From: Scott Roberts (jse885@cox.net)
Date: Fri Jul 15 2005 - 17:35:12 BST
Arlo, Erin et al
[Arlo had suggested]
> Above the doors to every church, every synagogue, every mosque, every
> university, every museum, should hang these words: "All this is just an
> analogy". If THAT were understood, we'd be well on our way to true
> MOQ-progress.
[Erin replied]
> I am having trouble reconciling this side of Pirsig (which I like) with
> his
accusation of "willingness to believe in falsehoods." What does willingness
to
believe in falsehoods mean exactly if "All this is just an analogy".
[Arlo responds]
My take is, because one HAS to have analogies to function. This is my take
on
his statement "The mythos is a building of analogues upon analogues upon
analogues. These fill the collective consciousness of all communicating
mankind. Every last bit of it."
I think Pirsig would say that the Intellect is built upon these analogues.
There
is no way around that. But, I think the key is, to not think we can simply
"dismiss the analogies", but to always remember that that is what they are.
We've created them, and now they, in turn, create us (this is what he means
when he talks about the "collective consciousness of all communicating
mankind").
Scott:
While I for the most part agree with this, it overlooks something, namely
how there could be an analogy in the first place. Also, it is given, I
believe, with the assumption that if all human beings were to vanish, there
would be something left, on which analogizing has been a-building, but which
is not itself analogy (though any attempt on our part to think about it
would be analogizing). Shades of Kant, and a lingering remnant of S/O
thinking.
Both problems are overcome by treating analogy (or more generally, semiosis)
as all there is. God (analogically speaking), as well as humanity, creates
by speaking analogically.
[Arlo said:]
These analogies are dialectically related to us. THIS is a good way to think
about how our cognition is shaped by the analogies we internalize (through
experience in a culture). Indeed, a "culture" could be defined as a
"accepted
set of analogies".
The trouble starts when we somehow start believing that these analogies are
"truth". Then we get into static social battles; with religion, for example,
the Hindi Gods or the Christian God, the Jewish God or the Sioux Gods.
Endless
social static bickering because we forget that these are analogies.
Scott:
While it is true that societies battle and suppress freedom in the name of
religion, the theologians (religious intellectuals) have never forgotten
that all their talk of God is analogical. Indeed, the notion that truth
about reality could be definitely established through logic and/or science
is a modernist notion.
- Scott
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