From: Steve Peterson (peterson.steve@verizon.net)
Date: Mon Jan 19 2004 - 17:17:34 GMT
Hi Jordi, Dan, all,
Jordi Soldevida wrote:
>> ... I’ve got a
>> doubt on the comprehension of a term in a phrase of the book, namely in
>> the page 252 (chapter 20). The fragment in wihich this word is included
>> is the following:
>>
>> “Phaedrus remembered Hegel had been regarded as a bridge between Western
>> and Oriental philosophy. The Vedanta of the Hindus, the Way of the
>> Taoists, even the Buddha had been described as an absolute monism
>> similar to Hegel’s philosophy. Phaedrus doubted at the time, however,
>> whether mystical Ones and metaphysical monisms were introconvertable
>> since mystical Ones follow no rules and metaphysical monisms do. His
>> Quality was a metaphysical entity, not a mystic one. Or was it? What was
>> the difference?”
>>
>> I think, thanks to the context (cause i can’t find the meaning of this
>> adjective anywhere) that this phrase means, more or less, that he
>> doubted whether mystical Ones and metaphysical monisms were the same.
Dan said:
> It's nice to hear from you. So far as I know there's no such word as
> "introconvertable." I believe Robert Pirsig meant "interconvertable" which
> as you have surmised from the context means interchangable.
Dan must be right about this being an error. But I wonder if there is some
subtle difference between saying that the two are the same as Jordi
suggested, that the two are interchangeable as Dan suggested, and that they
are "convertible the one into the other" as dictionary.com defines it (see
ref. Below). I imagine that if Pirsig meant interchangeable he would have
used this word rather than than the more esoteric interconvertible. It
seems to me that Pirsig favors using language that people understand.
Recall that he criticizes "technicians" for this kind of thing. Can anyone
shed any light on why Pirsig would choose this word?
Thanks,
Steve
Dictionary.com provides this definition:
"interconvertible
\In`ter*con*vert"i*ble\, a. Convertible the one into the other; as, coin and
bank notes are interconvertible.
Source :Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc. "
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