From: ant.mcwatt@ntlworld.com
Date: Thu Nov 06 2003 - 16:11:47 GMT
Dear Joe, Sharath and Glove,
Thank you all for your feedback.
It was especially a pleasure to hear from Sharath as Indian philosophy provided much of the inspiration for the MOQ. I always wonder whether I am representing Eastern philosophy accurately in my writings so such feedback is particularly valuable. It’s a pity we don’t hear more from people in the Far East but I guess the language barrier isn’t conducive for this.
The spelling of Rg Veda that I used in the textbook was the spelling used by Radhakrishnan in his book though I do note Sharath that the spelling you suggested (“Rig”) is also widely used by academics. My guess is that there isn’t an exact correspondence from the Sanskrit to English. Unfortunately, I don’t have an online version of the Vedas (other than a page here and there) though there is a phonetic transliteration (by the University of Iowa) that you might find useful at:
http://www.philosophy.ru/library/asiatica/indica/sruti/rgs/
Joe, that was an interesting story from George Gurdjieff about the beginnings of Greek philosophy with migrant fishermen. It wouldn’t surprise me if such an account was true.
Your opinion that freedom and mechanical behaviour are at odds was one of the main problems that Pirsig attempted to address with his division of reality between Dynamic Quality (freedom) and static quality (order). The MOQ was supposed to address more than just freedom as you assert. As Pirsig (1991, p.124-25) notes:
“Static quality patterns are dead when they are exclusive, when they demand blind obedience and suppress Dynamic change. But static patterns, nevertheless, provide a necessary stabilizing force to protect Dynamic progress from degeneration. Although Dynamic Quality, the Quality of freedom, creates this world in which we live, these patterns of static quality, the quality of order, preserve our world… A tension between these two forces is needed to continue the evolution of life.”
However, I don’t know if the MOQ does address Gurdjieff and Ouspensky’s “mechanical behaviour” trap so (if you can face de-lurking so soon again) maybe you could expand on this.
Finally, Glove and Hemingway’s Challenge. The more I think about it, Glove, the more I think Bart Kosko should have called it Kosko’s Challenge. This is because Hemingway is essentially talking about solving writer’s block by breaking it with the technique where you write one sentence that you just know is right. As Pirsig would say, writing a sentence that is artistically true; as shown in many of Hemingway’s descriptions of Paris Life in “A Moveable Feast”. They just have this feeling of rightness, the same feeling you felt with the title “Lila’s Child”.
As you infer, Glove, Kosko is talking about something else altogether (the failings of the correspondence theory of truth) hence one of the reasons I removed Hemingway’s photograph from this section of my textbook. I don’t think he’d necessarily be smiling about it.
Best wishes,
Anthony.
-----------------------------------------
Email provided by http://www.ntlhome.com/
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu Nov 06 2003 - 16:13:35 GMT