From: skutvik@online.no
Date: Sun Feb 22 2004 - 07:04:55 GMT
Paul and Apostles.
On 17 Feb 2004 at 17:08, Paul Turner wrote:
> I am open to correction here, but Shankara, Ramanuja and Madhva seem
> to be the three most influential Vedantic philosophers, each
> forwarding a different understanding of the nature of reality. Broadly
> speaking, Shankara emphasised oneness and the identity between self
> and world (Dynamic Quality). Ramanuja accepted this ultimate identity
> but recognised the reality of "conditioned" difference (static
> quality). Madhva emphasised ultimate difference between self,
> nothingness, and the world. From what I have read, all three systems
> strike me as being as equally intellectual as a lot of western
> philosophy.
All these quotes and philosophy history stuff you dig up is "pearl
before swine" ...with me the swine. Even if all this is correct the
point is that religious thinking isn't intellectual value.
> Paul:
> Well, this is obviously what is required for your theory, but
> according to Pirsig, it is not so.
It becomes difficult if this distinction is brushed off as "your
theory". The social level is what really sets the MOQ apart from
all "mind from biology" theories.
> He clearly states in his letter to
> me that he considers the Upanishads to be part of the intellectual
> level which is consistent with the line in Lila, "Following the period
> of the Brahmanas came the Upanishadic period and the flowering of
> Indian philosophy. Dynamic Quality reemerged within the static
> patterns of Indian thought." [Lila p.438]
It does not say ...re-emerged within the static INTELLECTUAL
patterns of Indian thought. And in the very same letter he
ridiculed "thinking" as a criterion of intellectual. So I think it's "a
draw".
> So, to be clear on this, are you disagreeing and saying that the
> Upanishads do not signal the emergence of an Oriental intellectual
> level?
First, "...an Oriental intellectual level" sounds peculiar. Would it
be possible to speak of "..an Oriental social level"? Clearly not.
Thus intellectual value must be identical wherever. Maybe one
may say that the Oriental culture started the intellectual process,
but it stalled ..luckily for them.
> You're starting to fudge your theory in the face of contrary evidence.
> You now have to qualify your previously held view, "philosophy is
> intellectual," with, "western philosophy is intellectual."
I haven't used the "philosophy" term until you began wielding it,
but again: Thinking - be it about how God has arranged things or
"(Paul)..... to understand fundamental relationships between self,
world and nothingness.
is fundamentally different from intellect's SKEPTICAL
OBJECTIVE approach to reality.
> This was
> precisely the narrow definition of intellect that I questioned in my
> letter to Pirsig which led him to answer, "The argument that Oriental
> cultures would not be classified as intellectual is avoided by
> pointing out that the Oriental cultures developed an intellectual
> level independently of the Greeks during the Upanishadic period of
> India at about 1000 to 600 B.C." Your SOLAQI interpretation is taking
> you further and further away from Pirsig's statements about the
> levels.
I know, but Pirsig's letter went FROM the "thinking" definition
TOWARDS that of intellect emerging with the Greeks
...something that automatically makes it the S/O. The Oriental
question is MU!
> And now you are moving from flawed premises through to flawed
> conclusion. Oriental culture has now been restricted to prehistoric
> social patterns.
Prehistoric? Social value is as present today as it ever was, and
that of social era (when it ruled) people as senseless beasts is
your delusion. Oriental culture may be social-value-based but
fully capable of understanding and exploiting intellect's "virtues"
... their technological ingenuity has demonstrated that.
> I think you've argued your way into a corner. The way I see it, the
> "profound achievement" of Vedantic and Buddhist philosophy that Pirsig
> talks about in Lila was precisely to resolve the Dynamic-static
> relationship within its static intellectual patterns. Regarding dharma
> being social, you are correct in that dharma was taken from the social
> patterns of Vedic "rta," but it doesn't end there. Pirsig has this to
> say in Lila, "Within the Hindu tradition dharma is relative and
> dependent on the conditions of society. It always has a social
> implication. It is the bond which holds society together. This is
> fitting to the ancient origins of the term. But within modern Buddhist
> thought dharma becomes the phenomenal world-the object of perception,
> thought or understanding." [Lila p.439]
It's no use going on about "their intellectual patterns" when the
thinking so obvious was religious - nothing like the Semitic theism
- but still in the social segment of the MOQ. Don't you think that
other people - ALL PEOPLE - have made up complicated
theories of everything?
> You now define intellect as "western, non-religious philosophy," which
> rules out much of idealism and medieval philosophy, including
> neo-platonism, as well as people like Barfield, Coleridge and
> countless others.
Stop your distortion, I have never used "philosophy", "Western"
or "non-religious" as definitions of intellect, but merely say that
MOQ's intellectual level is described as the coming of SOM in
ZMM. About Barfield & Co they have developed their own
descriptions of the "Fall from Grace" ..and how to remedy it, but
MOQ is best.
> Furthermore, in eastern culture, I believe one cannot draw such a
> sharp line between philosophy and theology.
If that line is blurred the power of the MOQ is gone.
> However, this does not
> prevent their systems from being rigorously logical and empirical -
> indeed some would argue that they are more logical and empirical than
> much of western philosophy.
What world view isn't/wasn't "empirical"? The Norse myth was
built on sense observation: When lightning blinded and thunder
rumbled it was the God Tor who struck his hammer; that was
rigorously logical.
> When your religion simply points to
> immediately apprehended aesthetic experience as the presence of the
> divine and your metaphysics points to immediately apprehended
> aesthetic experience as the source of phenomena which we study then
> the two are not in opposition.
This is moq-talk applied to Eastern Culture, nor had they anything
called "religion" different from "metaphysics", that's Q-intellect
looking back on history. This retrospect is legitimate, all great
theories "reconstruct" the past, and my point is that we must
reconstruct consequently, not stop halfway between SOM and
MOQ..
IMO
Bo
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