[MD] Reading & Comprehension

[skutvik at online.no]

Krimel 

To Bodvar:
> The mess is obvious from that fact that this discussion continues.
> Your response leaves open the question why. I would think the only
> point of agreement we might have is that Pirsig is the one who created
> much of the mess. But SOM and MoQ are certainly not the only options
> on the table.

To himself?
> Excellent point and one that has been made to Bo many many times. But
> just to belabor it; since Bo seems to thrive on repetition and Mary
> and Marsha seem to miss it altogether: Pirsig claims that the MoQ
> arises out of the static dynamic spilt and that this split supersedes
> the subject object split.

Pirsig's claim is that Reality = Quality and that the MOQ is some 
arbitrary arrangement of this Quality Reality, hence his Quality/MOQ 
meta-metaphysics that undermines the MOQ. I claim that  the MOQ 
constitutes the Quality Reality, its Dynamic/Static split and static levels 
makes for the ultimate flawless metaphysics.     

> But Pirsig is not the first to make this spilt by any means. Lao Tsu
> around 500 B.C. talked the Tao from which Pirsig derived his notion of
> Quality and in Lao Tsu Tao is seen as the source and resolution of all
> such binary divisions. The static dynamic split was made by Taoists in
> the Han dynasty around 200 B.C. In their additions to the I-Ching they
> called the active or dynamic force Yang and the passive static force
> Yin. The fact the Pirsig or at least his anointed do not understand
> this is an ongoing source of irritation to me. But that is off the
> subject of Bo's BS. 

No objections whatsoever, the Tao may well correspond to Quality, I'm 
no fundamentalist here, my point however is that all such "Reality = X" 
immediately requires a counterpart, so why not start with the dualism 
right away? One dynamic, active ...etc. source that causes static, 
passive ...etc. fall-outs. And now Krimel I ask you to concentrate on 
this single issue:  

If Tao is the source then IT must be the Yang Tao that spawns Yin 
Tao, there is not a super-TAO that accidentally spawns Yang &  Yin, 
but just as well could have spawned X & Y . This is so crucial for the 
pesky Quality/MOQ issue that I stop here. What do you say?

Bodvar




   



































> 
> The early Greeks around 500 B.C. dealt with the same issues in a
> slightly different way. The school represented by Parmenides thought
> the world was ultimately divisible into atoms (SQ) and the void (DQ).
> Heraclitus also around 500 B.C. thought the world was entirely
> continuous and indivisible (DQ). In any case these concepts pre-date
> or are entirely independent of the Greeks. This particular controversy
> among the Greeks has been at least as long lasting and contentious
> among western philosophers as the much rehashed mind matter split.
> This controversy culminated in Zeno's paradoxes in which he argued
> that motion was impossible and the world was entirely static. This
> argument was so difficult to dismiss and yet so clearly wrong that it
> took more that 2,000 years to straighten out. William James gave a
> good account of the problem, without mentioning Zeno, in one of his
> last books "Some Problems of Philosophy". There he argued that reality
> or at least our perception of it is continuous but that our concepts
> about it are discrete. 
> 
> Furthermore SO as Mary talks about it did not originate with the
> Greeks. It originates in biology. Even single celled organisms that
> form together in colonies can detect and are guided by the distinction
> between self and other. Plants can draw this distinction and it is
> critical to immune function and almost all animals. It is not a
> metaphysical concept and it certainly did not originate with the
> Greeks.
> 
> Bo in his frequent laughable forays into historical analysis throws
> Pirsig into a blender with Julian Jaynes to come up with some imagined
> fundamental difference in thinking said to have arisen with the Greek
> at some fixed point in time. I am not at all clear on if this is
> supposed to be the Greeks of Thales time around 750 B.C.; the
> previously mentioned Greeks of 500 B.C. or the Athenian Greeks of 300
> B.C.. But what difference should 400 or 500 years make to the
> clueless? Bo concedes some form of intellect to the Vedas which are
> among the oldest extant writing known to us. But he denies any such
> thinking to the ancient Hebrews yet Ecclesiastes is among the most
> profound writings ever penned and the most recent date one could place
> on it would be prior to Alexander or around 300 B.C. Intellect is
> surely evidenced in the Book of Job where Job seeks a reason for his
> trials and tribulations and receives reasoned answers from his
> friends. The final form of that book dates to about 400 B.C. and
> portions date to before the building of the First Temple around 750
> B.C.
> 
> Personally, I would argue that intellect and the intellectual level
> have been a part of human existence since at least Cro Magnon times.
> The cave painting in France are stunningly artistic and in Mary's
> transcript, Pirsig claims art is among the highest expressions of
> Quality. Evidence for the ceremonial burial of the dead certainly
> suggest thought processes, shared traditions and a thoughtful analysis
> of the human condition among our earliest ancestors as do to the stone
> tool kits of Neanderthals. The claim that myths and stories of ancient
> people are somehow excluded from the intellectual level also strikes
> me as entirely wrongheaded. The oral traditions of every people on
> this planet are clearly attempts to understand and explain man's
> relationship to the environment and to give reason and purpose to the
> lives of the individual who told and listened to them. Discounting
> them as "social" or non-intellectual is simply a disingenuous way of
> discarding facts that don't match ones preconceptions. It is that
> willful ignorance and fundamental dishonesty that make the SOL
> "unassailable".
> 
> A good argument can be made that the Greeks did originate a particular
> style of thinking but that unique style is the style of mathematical
> proof. Even there much of early Greek mathematics was handed down from
> the Babylonians and Egyptians and is not entirely discontinuous with
> them. The ideas of subject/object and continuous/discontinuous are
> merely different outgrowths of this style of mathematical thinking.
> 
> The SOL only persists because Bo has it stuck in his unassailable
> skull and throws out anything that does not match his preconceptions.
> It is easy to see why Platt buys in; Bo's chauvinistic anti-Semitic
> diatribes match his own twisted thinking. Why Mary and Marsha aide in
> perpetuating this rubbish is something of a mystery.
> 
> 
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