Re: MD Re: Fractal metaphysics

From: Yale Landsberg (yale_landsberg@yalelands.com)
Date: Thu Sep 11 2003 - 01:18:16 BST

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    Thank you, Patrick. I had just about given up on someone here carefully
    reading my fractal philosophy paper and giving me an idea of the
    similarities and differences of it vs. MoQ. Regards, Yale

    ---- Original Message -----
    From: "Patrick van den Berg" <cirandar@yahoo.com>
    To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
    Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 1:48 PM
    Subject: MD Re: Fractal metaphysics

    > Hi YL,
    >
    > I wrote a reply on your post two days ago, but wasn't able to subscribe
    > (again) to the list. Here it is anyhow:
    >
    >
    > Can anyone here answer this question:
    > It is my belief that the creation or recreation of a fractal
    > philosophy as
    > found at http://yalelands.com/frph.pdf is consistent with Persig's
    > MoQ. Am
    > I right or wrong about that? YL
    >
    > Dear YL,
    >
    > The pdf-file was interesting, although the ego-blown style of the author
    > irritated me. It does have similarities with Pirsig seeing Lila. In the
    > café he notices she notices that he is watching her, and she notices
    > that he notices that she notices he is watching her, etc. ad infinitum.
    > Like standing between two mirrors, you have a reflection of a reflection
    > of a reflection. The fellow of this pdf-file applies a similar strategy.
    >
    > Two things I found particularly interesting:
    > The first is that he uses a mathematical metaphor of the seemingly ease
    > of going away from a spot: Any direction is adequate, north, west, south
    > or inbetween. Finding a good alternative narrows you options
    > considerably, however. The place you want to go is either north or south
    > or another particular direction. What Pirsig says about the
    > hippie-movement is that the hippies were good at walking away from the
    > center of the western culture of the sixties- they didn't, however, know
    > where to turn to. That's why the movement virtually bleeded to death.
    >
    > The second thing I found interesting was the notion of aming at turning
    > towards turning towards something. It has a relation with the concept
    > of free will. What does it mean to turn your attention to something (to
    > will something)? In order to do that, you have to change your thinking
    > from this to that (to the topic you want to focus on). And how do you
    > initiate this change? By accelareting from some zero-point, so that you
    > can accomplish an amount of changing your attention. But how do you
    > start to accelerate? By starting to accelerate you acceleration. This
    > leads to an obvious paradox. How is it ever possible to turn your
    > attention towards something? How is free will possible? (This is a
    > version of psychology's homunculi, by the way)
    >
    > The notion of a fractal philosophy is quite big and interesting.
    > Relating such a big idea to the whole edifice of the MoQ seems to me
    > daunting. Nevertheless interesting. Maybe cartesian philosophy (SOM)
    > tries to zoom in on a fractal- hoping someday to see the ultimate
    > building blocks! Pirsig would say: Hey, you're just going in one
    > possible direction. There are others, not only by 'zooming in' but by
    > staying at one level and walk around there, or better: zoom in a bit but
    > going to the 'left' simultanously. (Fits into another metaphor of
    > Pirsig: His idea of a chaqautua meaning to deepen the riverpaths of our
    > behaviors, instead of creating new ones only to end up in one shallow
    > homogenous river.)
    >
    > Let's see if I can post this, Patrick.
    >
    >
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