RE: MD The Intellectual Level

From: Ian Glendinning (ian@psybertron.org)
Date: Sat Jul 26 2003 - 17:28:00 BST

  • Next message: Ian Glendinning: "RE: MD The Intellectual Level"

    Thanks Platt.

    Interestingly, prompted by those passages in Lila, I've been reading James
    recently. I don't want to go off down the caveats around pragmatism just yet
    (but I will come back to this I'm sure.)

    More importantly here ... your last point about Pirsig "escaping" the
    recusion argument - I simply interpret differently - I think he's saying
    that the fact of the recursion is a strength, and not a problem, not that it
    doesn't exist.

    Ian

    -----Original Message-----
    From: owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk
    [mailto:owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk]On Behalf Of Platt Holden
    Sent: 26 July 2003 16:44
    To: moq_discuss@moq.org
    Subject: RE: MD The Intellectual Level

    Ian,

    > No putdown intended, just wanted to flush out starkly, that the "MoQ as
    > universal bootstrap" was indeed what certain members are seeking. Call me
    > impatient if you like, but whilst I genuinely find the whole enchilada
    > interesting, I need to be able to segregate that search from more
    immediate
    > pragmatic value.

    Thanks. I get you point. But, watch our for those pragmatic values. Pirsig
    gave this warning in Lila, Chap. 29:

    "The Holocaust produced a satisfaction among Nazis. That was quality for
    them. They considered it to be practical. But it was a quality dictated by
    low level static social and biological patterns whose overall purpose was
    to retard the evolution of truth and. Dynamic Quality. James would
    probably have been horrified to find that Nazis could use his pragmatism
    just as freely as anyone else, but Phaedrus didn't see anything that would
    prevent it."

    I recall reading somewhere that "efficiency is not a moral value." I don't
    think it was Pirsig, but it did make me stop and think.

    > Having said that, my view of any meta-physics is that it will always be an
    > "intelllectual pattern", even if it purports to describe the world beyond
    > (and including) that pattern, so I cannot see how the argument will ever
    > not be recursive. (Perhaps I should read Rick's latest.)

    No doubt the MOQ is an intellectual pattern. But I think Pirsig escapes
    the recursive argument. In his SODV paper he writes:

    "Finally, though it may be argued that a metaphysics that incorporates a
    central term that isn't defined (i.e. Dynamic quality) isn't a real
    metaphysics, it can also be argued that the strength of the MOQ is its
    ability to incorporate the indeterminate divine within a coherent and
    logical paradigm."

    Platt

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