From: MATTHEW PAUL KUNDERT (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Thu Sep 11 2003 - 18:34:27 BST
Bo,
Bo said:
A child is an autonomous individual even if it is from a set of parents? But will - even if living to be a hundred - remain their child. Also, it may enter a career that is different from - even damaging to - the family tradition? Isn't this a valid analogue?
Matt:
I have no problem with the parent/child analogy insofar as it would seem that Pirsig would take it to mean "each higher level is built on a lower one," and I don't think Paul has a problem with this either. I don't think that is what's at issue. The issue is not where the child/level originates from, but how it originates. The parent/child analogy works for your interpretation because the child, for the first nine months, is an extension of the parent before it becomes (biologically) autonomous. However, I'm not so sure that that is what Pirsig has in mind. The "it is not an extension of that lower level" addendum on the aforementioned quote would appear to favor a discrete origin. You say, "any point of departure will never be determined," but, again, I'm not so sure.
I'm not sure about Pirsig, but the issue between Paul and Bo is that Paul is interpreting a "leap" and Bo a "muddle". Bo sees a gestation period in which a potential new level is fairly indistinguishable from the old level until suddenly *pop*, out it comes. Paul sees a sharp line, a launching pad where the level leaps off from.
Matt
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