[MD] Quantum Physics, Amerindians, Zen, the woods, beyond SOM

[Platt Holden]

> [Platt]
> It's one small step from ghosts to gods, one giant step from ghosts to
> morals.
> 
> [Arlo again cites ZMM]
> What had to be seen was that the Chris I missed so badly was not an object
> but a pattern, and that although the pattern included the flesh and blood
> of Chris, that was not all there was to it. The pattern was larger than
> Chris and myself, and related us in ways that neither of us understood
> completely and neither of us was in complete control of.
> 
> Now Chris's body, which was a part of that larger pattern, was gone. But
> the larger pattern remained. A huge hole had been torn out of the center of
> it, and that was what caused all the heartache. The pattern was looking for
> something to attach to and couldn't find anything. That's probably why
> grieving people feel such attachment to cemetery headstones and any
> material property or representation of the deceased. The pattern is trying
> to hang on to its own existence by finding some new material thing to
> center itself upon.
> 
> Some time later it became clearer that these thoughts were something very
> close to statements found in many "primitive" cultures. If you take that
> part of the pattern that is not the flesh and bones of Chris and call it
> the "spirit" of Chris or the "ghost" of Chris, then you can say without
> further translation that the spirit or ghost of Chris is looking for a new
> body to enter. When we hear accounts of "primitives" talking this way, we
> dismiss them as superstition because we interpret ghost or spirit as some
> sort of material ectoplasm, when in fact they may not mean any such thing
> at all.
> 
> [Arlo adds]
> My point is that your reduction of what SA had said was quite unfair. If
> one reads ZMM, the "path to enlightenment" as Pirsig calls it, one sees no
> discrepancy in what SA has written and Pirsig's writings. Do you? Indeed,
> if I dismiss ZMM entirely, I find nothing there that contradicts the MOQ,
> rather I think it evidences nicely his correction of Descartes, and his
> writings on language and culture. Furthermore, it seems to point directly
> to "something" (superposition?) that brings subjects and objects into
> mutual existence, rather than subjects working on objects. So, what is in
> his post you find the MOQ in disagreement to?

This from Lila:

Back to daylight and good old sanity. A few crickets were chirping. He 
heard a roar in the sky and looked up and saw a Concorde airplane slowly 
circling to the south then rising and speeding.
Good old technology. All this twentieth-century sanity wasn't as 
interesting as the old days of his incarceration but he was getting a lot 
more accomplished, at a social level at least. Other cultures may talk to 
idols and animal spirits and fissures in rocks and ghosts of the past but 
it wasn't for him. He had other things to do.

And this from Pirsig's annotations to Copleston:

When you hear the words "spirit" and "faith" always look for a traditional 
religionist trying to sneak his goods in the back door. Like the 
positivists, the MOQ drops spirit and faith, cold.

It would seem at first appearance that Quality might be an equivalent of 
Spirit, but this would be an enormous mistake. Quality is spiritual only 
to the extent that motorcycles and sausages are spiritual.  

The MOQ says there is no spiritual principle in man that makes knowledge 
possible.  Nature does the whole job.

When subject and object are regarded as grounded in and manifesting one 
ultimate spiritual reality, the MOQ agrees completely except for that 
term, "spiritual." 

Remember that people were burned at the stake to release their "spirits" 
from their bodies.  Quality inheres in high-priced sausages.  Spirit does 
not.  

Platt