[MD] Chance

[Platt Holden]

On Sun, Jun 22, 2008 at 1:42 PM, ARLO J BENSINGER JR <ajb102 at psu.edu> wrote:

> [Platt]
> Seems you believe knowledge only comes from "first hand experience."
>
> [Arlo]
> No. But I've also never known anyone who has personally experienced death
> to
> tell me about it. The only thing we can say is that "loss sucks", but that
> is
> far different from "death sucks". Should those we lost find a way to tell
> us
> what death is like (better or worse), I'll be happy to accept this
> second-hand
> experience.


No doubt in my mind that "death sucks." Apparently no doubt in Pirsig's mind
either. Survival, the opposite of death, is "equated with the best, which is
to say Quality." (Lila, 11)

>
> [Platt]
> By asserting that pre-intellectual experience is "too obscure" for
> language.
>
> [Arlo]
> And yet that is what language is, analogies used to try to describe this.
> That's why its important to never forget that the best we can do is
> analogy, we
> can never "describe" it otherwise.
>
> An analogy is a figure of speech. Ex: "My love is like a red red rose."
Analogies are not meant  to be taken literally.

Language consists of a lot more than analogies.  It involves "the collection
and manipulation of symbols, created in the brain, that stand for patterns
of experience." (LC,25). It involves similes, metaphors, personifications,
apostrophes, allusions, alliterations, epigrams and many more figures of
speech.