[MD] Reading & Comprehension

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi Platt

8 June.

 [Bo] before
> Of course not, but the message is that ordering existence is 
> humankind's hallmark, and the respective orderings were not regarded
> as such it  WAS existence. I know no way to convey this without
> invoking SOM, but this is the message of the said quote.      

{Platt]
> I use the "glasses" metaphor as a way to convey this. 

    "The culture in which we live hands us a set of intellectual
    glasses to interpret experience with, and the concept of the
    primacy of subjects and objects is built right into these
    glasses." (Lila, 8)  

> I wear glasses. I never take them off except to sleep.They are part
> and parcel of my existence. If I take them off my existence changes,
> becomes indistinct. But here's the thing; I rarely aware that I have
> them on, like I'm rarely aware that I divide experience into
> subjects and objects. In fact, before I read Lila, I was unaware of
> the S/O division and the metaphysical glasses that created my S/O
> existence. Then Pirsig said, "Try on these new glasses that divides
> experience into static and dynamic Quality." I did, and discovered a
> different existence, more luminous than the one before.

Thanks Platt. Yes, for us this carries the true message, but I'm
afraid Steve & Co will interpret the glasses metaphor in the
intellectual - SOM - sense of us as subjects "in here" looking out at
reality "out there" through metaphysical glasses. While the "cannot
avoid metaphysics" opening was meant to say that we cannot avoid
EXPERIENCE. The static intellectual experience of a subject "in here"
looking out through metaphysical glasses on reality "out there" is the
highest static good, but must be transcended to reach the MOQ insight
of all experience-levels as still greater "glasses" - glass domes
perhaps.       

> We depend for survival on a metaphysical premise, a first division,
> built into our glasses that orders experience and creates patterns
> of meaning. Depending on which glasses we choose, we understand more
> or less clearly.                 

Right you are and thanks again for the input.


Bodvar