[MD] Truth and the Linguistic Turn

[Marsha]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Matt Kundert" <pirsigaffliction at hotmail.com>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2008 9:02 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] Truth and the Linguistic Turn



Hi Marsha, Joe,

Joe said:
IMO Matt and Marsha arrive at the same page, life, from different 
perspectives: variety is a difficulty of life, or variety is the spice of 
life. How many varieties does life come in? Is the inorganic a ³present 
variety² of life? Why isn¹t evolution discovered in a ³process of finding 
truth in our experience of the world?²

Marsha said:
If I look to the West, truth looks one way, and if I look to the East the 
truth looks another way. I never want to be the one who assumes truth to be: 
This is what I think, this what I feel, so this is the way it is... I would 
have never thought so, but I am beginning to think that the closer I look, 
the further I get from any kind of "truth". The generality is closer to the 
truth, the specific instance is just made up story, myth, or maybe a 
beautiful song, or poem. But I don't know...

Matt:
In all honesty, I've never been very good at understanding Joe, but I like 
the way he puts Marsha and I on the same page, "life."  There is a sense 
that I've been coming to appreciate more and more in my writing that "life" 
is the widest, most important concept/thing.  I can see why he pits us with 
the point of views he does, but when I'm not doing philosophy (in the 
particular way I do it), I quite like the variety of life myself.  I'd like 
to think that whatever philosophical viewpoint I have, it encompasses both 
the difficulty and spicy versions.

As it is with the point of view you enunciated, Marsha, I think you've bled 
together quite well parts of wisdom that I like, parts that can be found 
from both the East and West.  In the West, it is a philosophical tradition 
that begins with Socrates, continues with the Pyhrronian tradition, into 
Montainge, Emerson and Nietzsche and into the Existentialists.  I think it 
is fundamentally a humanist and ironist tradition, a string of intellectuals 
who look askance at the common sense of their time, people who feel both the 
need to speak and take back everything spoken, often producing a very 
ambivalent tone in their writings.

Matt


Greetings Matt, Joe,

Ambivalence?  What can you say definitively about a  universe that is 
uncaused, like a net of jewels in which each is only the reflection of all 
the others in a fantastic interrelated harmony without end?  Rooting out 
ones own erroneous thought seems the best course of action.  I think that my 
point-of-view fits well with the MOQ, but sometimes it's hard tell.  If it 
doesn't, I wish I would be more challenged.  Sometimes it is very clear, 
other times confusion reigns.  I started being so against hard logic, and 
here I am now chasing Nagarjuna's tetralemma form of logic.  Life is such a 
circle game.  Ha!

I find both you and Joe difficult to translate.  But more and more I see 
your (both) words as your art, and that is perfectly wonderful.  My 
curiosity and understanding will hopefully grow.  I hope so.  The MOQ seems 
perfect to me, because there is so much room to grow.  It is dynamic from 
its own side.  Spicy?  Harmonic?  Dance through and through...

Marsha