From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Sat Jan 03 2004 - 17:03:37 GMT
Hi Anthony
thanks for post, useful info.
You say: Ultimately, static forms in the MOQ are thought to be essentially
intellectual constructions applied to a Dynamic ever-changing reality.
DM: I have a problem with this. And it is the thing I most felt reading your
PhD paper. I am very keen
to get DQ recognised, I am quite happy to say ultimately everything is
subject to change and
dissolution, but SQ has to have a stronger basis than the above.
Intellectual constructions of what?
You have to be latching your constructions onto some form of patterns that
are actually occuring.
I do not what to invoke any notions of causality or substance but yo have to
recognise that the cosmos
loves its patterns, that it loves a good cycle, that it is worth going
around and around again, just for the hell of it.
This is the wonder of something rather than nothing. Otherwise the cosmos
would dissipate off back to nothing
without the trip to complexity and back. So why is this? Why is there not
only DQ where every activity is only
ever tried once and shrugged off? Perhaps this is where value begins: that
was good, lets do it again. Is SQ not the withdrawal of DQ? If DQ did not
withdraw, every activity/process would be new/creativew/original everytime.
SQ is the sacrifice of DQ for the sake of and value of SQ. DQ allows itself
to be bound and limited for the sake of
being/finite existence. If DQ did not allow SQ there would be nothing rather
than something. World=finite=withdrawal
of DQ to allow reality of SQ. Hence all the talk in physics about absent
possible world, this is physics realising that DQ
has withdrawn, is absent, has allowed there to be an actual pattern of the
'now' at the expense of all the possible 'nows'.
Is freedom anything more than the presence of 'many futures'/'many worlds',
only one of which will become actual. And it is the cutting edge of the
possible futures against the changeless realisation of the static past that
is the 'clearing' where 'man' meets 'god' meets 'earth' meets 'sky' meets
'language' meets DQ meets SQ.
regards
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: <ant.mcwatt@ntlworld.com>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2004 3:42 PM
Subject: MD intellectual level
Re: The intellectual level
Bo said:
We know what philosophers Pirsig refers to in his work and (your) Whitehead,
Bergson, Heidegger are not among them. And if existentialism can be said to
be a parallel or forerunner for the MOQ ...maybe?
Matt said:
Pirsig does refer flatteringly to Whitehead in his reference to Whitehead's
"dim apprehension" and I thought Pirsig referenced Bergson once (possibly in
his line-up of philosophers that other people said he sounded like).
Ant:
I also thought Pirsig made a direct reference to Bergson but it isn't in
ZMM, SODV or LILA. However, this idea might have arisen as Doug Renselle
has a number of articles (at www.quantonics.com) comparing Pirsig and
Bergson. For example:
"Pirsig vis-à-vis Bergson. Perspectives of Monism vis-à-vis Pluralism"
"A Topical Review of Henri Louis Bergson's Time and Free Will", and;
"A Topical Review of Henri Louis Bergson's Creative Evolution."
------------------------------------------------------------
The reference to Whitehead is made by Pirsig on page 119 of the 1991
hardback UK edition of LILA:
"When A. N. Whitehead wrote that 'mankind is driven forward by dim
apprehensions of things too obscure for its existing language,' he was
writing about Dynamic Quality. Dynamic Quality is the pre-intellectual
cutting edge of reality, the source of all things, completely simple and
always new. It contains no pattern of fixed rewards and punishments. Its
only perceived good is freedom."
Moreover, (probably more for David M.'s interest) there is an M.A.
dissertation comparing the MOQ with Whitehead available on microfiche from
any University library. Its details are as follows:
Sneddon, Andrew George (1995). "A Process Analysis of Quality: A. N.
Whitehead & R. Pirsig on Existence & Value." University of New Brunswick,
Canada.
I also refer to this (though only in passing) in Section 2.5 of my PhD
textbook. See below:
------------------------------------------------------------
As noted later in Chapter Four, Whitehead shares many of the same concerns
of Pirsig's with SOM. Sneddon (1995, p.76) notes further that Whitehead and
Pirsig reached similar conclusions concerning the process nature of reality
though from diametric starting points:
"Whitehead thought that the world could better be described as being founded
in events of experience; the universe fundamentally experiences itself.
This creative activity incorporated the human experience, value-laden as it
is, nicely. Pirsig, wrapped up in examining value-differences, eventually
arrived at the idea of a universe in process."
Though, it could be said that Whitehead and Pirsig are both process
philosophers, Whitehead seems to suggesting (as per Plato) that there is a
reservoir of forms to which the realm of actuality has access while Pirsig
does not recognise any such realm (Sneddon, 1995, p.81).
Ultimately, static forms in the MOQ are thought to be essentially
intellectual constructions applied to a Dynamic ever-changing reality.
------------------------------------------------------------
From what I remember, I thought that Bergson seemed very "Pirsigian" when I
read him a couple of years ago and, as with Whitehead, would make a good
candidate for academic comparison to the MOQ.
Best wishes,
Anthony.
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