Re: MD Experience before intellect

From: MarshaV (marshalz@charter.net)
Date: Sun Oct 02 2005 - 10:49:16 BST

  • Next message: Platt Holden: "Re: MD Katrina - Thousands Dead ?"

    DM,

    I have been thinking about this labeling of things good or bad. Who
    is it that is making such assignments? How narrow or vast are these
    proclamations?

    Alan Watts suggests that the self is a reverberation, or echo, of all
    that is related to the individual.

    Anyway, I think this is a very interesting post, and I tend towards
    agreeing with you.

    Marsha

    At 02:32 PM 10/1/2005, you wrote:

    >Pirsig write in Lila:
    >
    >Quality doesn't have to be defined. You understand it without
    >definition, ahead of definition. Quality is a direct experience
    >independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions.
    >
    >Let me interpret. Experience is not voluntary. We cannot avoid being
    >aware of the experience that is ours. Our awareness of it takes the
    >form of quality, this quality always has a value, either good or
    >bad. You cannot
    >choose to value it as either good or bad, it is already valued (you
    >could see this as a causal relationship) .
    >
    >Trying to make sense of these experiences of what is good and bad
    >(pleasure and pain -in all its forms, eg the pleasure of 'yellow',
    >the anxiety of 'black') is undertaken by forming concepts. Pirsig
    >here introduces the term intellectual. Intellectually we have a
    >choice about how to take things. Prior to reaching this human realm
    >of experience the cosmos has already made many choices about what is
    >good and bad and what should endure. This of course determines what
    >us human beings find to be good and bad in our experience (our
    >bodies em-body all this knowledge and choice already), to this
    >extent, as Scott points out, their is something active-intelligent
    >about all the SQ created proir to the human moment. Pirsig simply
    >calls this activity DQ and reserves the term intelligent for human activity.
    >
    >This seems a worthy choice to me because to confuse the human form
    >of activity with the activity priorto humans would be lisleading.
    >But as Scott argues it is equally misleading to see these activities
    >as unrelated and fundamentally rhe same. It is only because of DQ
    >that it is possible for humans to be intelligent and active.
    >
    >Agree/disagree?
    >
    >DM
    >
    >
    >
    >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

    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 : Sun Oct 02 2005 - 10:54:37 BST