From: Joe (jhmau@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Mon Nov 10 2003 - 07:01:00 GMT
On 06 Nov 2003 8:11 AM Anthony writes to Sharath, Joe and Glove:
>snip<
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.
Hi Anthony and all,
joe: i wrote hastily. I am a disabled, retired plumber, not a philosopher.
I changed the subject line to Mechanical Behavior.
IMO Gurdjieff is a contrarian. When something new appears in history it is
all shiny, and works properly. After much use it becomes battered and
doesn't work well. He suggests by his stories to look at something when it
first appeared in history.
Unconscious behavior is mechanical behavior. Conscious behavior is for want
of a better word 'sentient' behavior. The moral order proposed by Pirsig
needs conscious behavior for the sentient being to absorb and utilize the
tensions created between Dynamic change and static patterns.
IMO your essay "MISLEADING USE OF THE WORD 'QUALITY' WITHIN THE HIGHER
EDUCATION SYSTEM" highlighted for me the unconscious behavior of university
administrators. Good students produce 'quality' work. Unconsciously
employed 'quality' needing to be assessed by testing and other top down
measures may or may not produce good students.
I know of one web site devoted to Gurdjieff's works and some writings of
people he has inspired. www.gurdjieff.org
Here are a couple of quotes from ALL AND EVERYTHING BEELZEBUB'S TALES TO HIS
GRANSON:
"So, my boy, in view of this the Most High Commission then decided among
other things provisionally to implant into the common presences of the
three-brained beings there a special organ with a property such that, first,
they should berceive reality topsy-turvy and, secondly, that every repeated
impression from outside should crystallize in them sensations of 'pleasure'
and 'enjoyment'." p 87-88
"In order, my dear Hassein, that you should meanwhile have an approximate
representation also of just how far that function called 'the instinctive
sensing of reality,' which is proper to every three-brained being of the
whole of our Great Universe, is already entirely lacking in the presences of
the three-centered beings breeding on the planet Earth, it will be enough,
to begin with, I think, if I explain to you only about how they understand
and explain to themselves the causes why there periodically proceed on their
planet those cosmic phenomena which they call 'daylight,' 'darkness,'
'heat,' 'cold.' and so on." p 134
One character I appreciated was Mulla Nasr Eddin. He was ever so much
kinder that Mulla Omar of the Taliban.
Joe
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