Re: MD Intellectual level - New letter from Pirsig

From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Sat Oct 04 2003 - 18:32:55 BST

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    Hi Rich

    Thanks for the historical analysis but I've been reading
    philosophy for over 20 years, with 5 years formal
    training, and I can assure you that there is alot
    more to philosophy than materialism and idealism.
    Try pragmatism, phenomenology and anything else
    called post-modern. The deepest thinking holistic philosopher
    in the western tradition is probably Heidegger. But Rorty is the
    easiest way in to post-modernism approaches to holism -I feel.
    So looks like I'm putting off growing up for now, thanks for the
    consideration though!

    regards
    David M
      ----- Original Message -----
      From: Richard Loggins
      To: moq_discuss@moq.org
      Sent: Saturday, October 04, 2003 4:17 PM
      Subject: Re: MD Intellectual level - New letter from Pirsig

      David Morey,
      I was differentiating between Dynamic Quality which is the pure experience and static quality, the lowercase, adulterated, after-the-fact kind of Quality. The idea of the human form being static quality is not nearly as offensive as it being matter, but we should not be so blinded to think that the MOQ is any more or less holistic than scientific materialism. There are really only 2 philosophies, materialism and idealism, dressed up in many different variations, and it is impossible to fall outside either of their traps. The sooner you realize this the faster you will grow up.
      Rich

      David MOREY <us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
        Hi Rich

        I do not like this, and a lot of people here seem to like it.
        What you seem to be saying is that there is this concept
        called quality, that is experienced by human beings but is
        impossible to define. I buy this much. Heidegger calls it Being,
        or later on Being under erasure. But then there seems to be a gang
        of you that says there is human being or thinking or whatever
        that is different from Quality. This is a trap. Heidegger tries not to fall
        into this trap, so does Pirsig, but a few people at this site seem to
        be embracing it. Quality is a holistic concept. You cannot say quality here,
        man there, or quality there, thinking here. Quality is never absent. Therefore
        what it is to think or be human involves quality. This is what Pirsig to break away
        from, the atomism and fragmentation of SOM, and we do not want to let it back in again.
        Quality helps us to put together a conception of what it is to be human, we can suppose
        that it has been around prior to human beings, but we cannot imagine a human being
        or thinking (& to Platt I say both SQ and DQ) without quality. I grant that it is hard to
        talk holistically rather than dualistically but can we please attempt try to quastion
        fragmentary notions on this site? Some people see to be associating being human with
        the borders of the body, in quality experience rather than a SOM reduced experience
        where could you possibly start drawing lines between the self and the experience?

        regards
        David Morey

        regards
        David Morey
          ----- Original Message -----
          From: Richard Loggins
          To: moq_discuss@moq.org
          Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 5:26 AM
          Subject: Re: MD Intellectual level - New letter from Pirsig

          Hi Sam,
          The common sense answer is that an intellectual person does the skillful manipulation, and the MOQ goes along with that. But the MOQ goes further and recognizes it is from Quality that we get our skill and our humanness, and that what the MOQ stresses above all is that the skillful manipulation of abstract symbols - the satisfaction if brings - is the pure experience and Quality which comes before the symbols, before ourselves, and before anything else we can name.
          Rich.

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