From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Jul 27 2003 - 22:39:47 BST
Matt and all:
Matt said:
I agree that creativity isn't rendering the "same truth" in new forms. When
DMB starts talking about corresponding to the "cosmic order of things," I
see that as a remenant of Platonism, of the appearance/reality distinction.
I have no truck with corresponding to anything already pre-given. I most
certainly do not see us as having an intuitive perception of DQ. As I've
said before, I see DQ as a compliment we pay to something only after the
fact.
dmb says:
I knew your alarms would go off about this one, but I'm glad you posted.
Naturally, we disagree about this too. I'm still not sure what you're
talking about or what Plato has to do with anything, but let me respond
anyway. I think you are misreading me and, much more importantly, you're
mis-reading the MOQ. Your pragmatism doesn't allow you to accept Pirsig's
assertions about DQ. He associates DQ with religious mysticism. In the quote
posted by Platt yesterday Pirsig calls it "the indeterminate divine". He's
says its the source of creativity, evolution and the central reality. Not
too easy to dismiss such a thing - or demote to a compliment paid after the
fact. This undefined mystery is fairly central, but your pragmatic approach
says you have to extract that core from the scene. That's why you saw words
like spirituality and religion in my assertions about the "cosmic order". I
mean, I'm discussing something you've already rejected and dismissed. We
should talk about that, because you don't know what you're missing. I'd bet
a buck that mysticism isn't quite what you imagine. Anyway, there is no rule
that every serious person has to accept such things, but surely you can see
that Pirsig's MOQ is not even close to the same without it.
As I've suggested
Matt said:
....I don't see this as corresponding to some cosmic order that always had
held that the individual should have a private life that is separate from
state intervention, but as the shunting away of an older, now obsolete way
of looking at things. It was the creation of new truths.
dmb says:
I don't see that kind of correspondence either. I don't even see how such a
thing could be possible. The "cosmic order" is not some blueprint for
reality's fate. This is exactly the kind of misconception that will
repeatedly arise when a pragmatic materialist reads about matters mystical.
Also you seem to be putting "creation of new truths" as some kind of
opposite from 'correspondence' to the cosmic order. In an evolutionary
metaphyiscs, there is no contradiction between the two. It can't be a
foundation with which our perceptions correspond because DQ is not as a
thing at all. Its more like invisible infinite potential. In fact, that's
kind of how I imagine it. Imagine DQ forever pouring out new static forms.
Everything that ever could or ever will be is presently in the process of
pouring out. Imagine that everything, you, me, the galaxies, every
civilization, every speck of dust is a partial reflection of that infinite
potential. Every little thing is a particular and specific inflection of
that invisible source. Every bit of it. That's my poetic notion of how
static quality relates DQ on a cosmic scale, how the many proceed from the
One. (Obviously a rip-off of Eastern images.) And the idea that all static
forms are only a finite manifestation of an infinite reality, I think, is
the same sense in which the world, as they say in the east, is an illusion.
These static forms have a certain temporary reality. But it tends to hide
more than it reveals, most especially when seen as the most real things,
such as scientific materialism does.
Tanks.
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