[MD] Dreaming and death
Squonkonguitar at aol.com
Squonkonguitar at aol.com
Sun Aug 13 13:12:48 PDT 2006
Dear Mark and David,
I am caught without image or word, but these last few posts have inspired
joy.
Marsha
No.
Love,
Marsha
Mark: What a beautiful thing to say. Thanks Marsha.
Mark said:
...the MoQ is asserting that some metaphors are better than others, not me.
This is how is goes if i have it right: 1. All sq patterns are evolving. 2.
The best ones survive. 3. Therefore, some are better than others as a matter
of MoQ (and empirical) fact. ...The MoQ is itself an intellectual metaphor,
and the best one yet invented in my opinion. An intellectual metaphor uses
abstract symbols to describe reality as sq, (maths, philosophy, etc.) but
they all point to DQ. Social metaphors, like religion, laws, describe
reality as sq, but point toward DQ.
dmb replies:
Oh, I see what you're doing. As you're using it, the word 'metaphor' pretty
much applies to everything. Its equivalent to static patterns because all of
human understanding is a matter of building analogies upon analogies. Is
that about right?
Mark: Hello. More than about right - spot on.
dmb: This is not what I mean at all when I use the word. I'm
simply talking about a form of expression. I'm just talking about the
picture language of our mythologies, which is much more specific than the
mythos in which they exist.
Mark: I didn't know the word is used in this way, sorry. I believe it is
legitimate to use the word metaphor to refer to all aspects of language? But let
us move on... You said, 'As I understand the term, a metaphor is a concrete
image that refers to a spiritual reality,
a reality that is intellecutally unknowable.' If i have it right, and i
believe this is how Pirsig tackles the matter, the alphabet, numbers, logic and
poetry are picture languages of our current mythology.
dmb: See, when you asked about which was better than the others the title of
Joseph Campbell's first book popped into my mind; "The hero with a Thousand
Faces". To put the main premise in Pirsigian terms, we could say that there
is a Dynamic value force constant enough in human experience that every
culture has depicted it in myth and celebrated it in some way. Thus we have
a single hero, but with a thousand faces. Each culture uses the metaphors
that make sense to them in their context, but the value force being
expressed are essentially the same.
Mark: Fair enough. But we have evolution to deal with. If we recognise
evolution then we committ ourselves to a better/worse distinction. More
specifically, a sq/DQ distinction - the better patterns (the more Dynamic ones)
survive. The thousand faces of the single hero are becoming more Dynamic as our hero
evolves, so Campbell's title may be a little static for our purposes. Maybe
he should have titled it, 'The ever evolving face of the hero'. or something?
dmb: Pirsig's nightmare octopus could have been a squid or a swarm of bees.
The
surface can change shape in all kinds of directions but still do a good job
of expressing the fear it depicts, for example.
But if we drop the "metaphor" problem and simply ask if intellectual
descriptions should be preferred over social level references, I'd say sure,
okay.
Mark: Fair enough. Actually, the whole metaphor = sq pattern stuff may be
considered to be entirely an intellectual activity.
I think this approach leads to allot of postmodernist confusion, but MoQ
value evolution allows us to talk about good and evil in a way postmodernists
cannot.
dmb: But part of what I've been saying is that if we read the myths as
myths instead of misreading them as history or metaphysics or whatever, then
we don't have to pick one over the other because then the two depictions are
not in conflict. They don't tell a different story so much as they tell it
differently. The MOQ's philosophical mysticism and the myths of our culture
only illuminate each other. They speak to us on different levels, but the
message is the same. Or so it seems to me.
dmb
Mark: That's what i said: 'Orpheus may have been the
best metaphor at the social level before the best intellectual metaphor at
the
intellectual level emerged. And they all point toward DQ.'
It seems there is broad agreement between us.
Love
Mark
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