[MD] Academy

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi Joe

On 11 May you  wrote:

> In the history of thought a theory of knowledge precedes metaphysics. 
> Plato proposed a world of ideas as the source of knowledge.  Aristotle
> proposed abstraction as the way we know things.  Revelation!  Myths!
> Stories! Heroes!

A little salvo of "friendly fire" ;-). You are a bit like Ham and Krim 
by dropping baits of talking coherently about the MOQ for a 
while, but when someone grabs it, its just a pretext for starting on 
some pre-conceived ideas of your own with a following 
vocabulary. Now, you are a nice guy, but the MOQ is the focus 
around here.   

You may not have understood the immense scope of the MOQ. 
In ZAMM Pirsig tells about how he sees SOM emerging out of the 
mythological past with Socrates and Plato as midwifes and 
Aristotle the first recognizable SOMist. "History of thought" and 
"theory of knowledge" are all part of SOM's repertoire and so is 
"metaphysics" in the Aristotelian sense of subjective theories 
about an objective reality.

The early Greek thinkers did not start by "theories of knowledge" 
they began by searching for eternal principles something that can 
be seen as the beginning of a new objective attitude that ended 
its first stage with the notion of TRUTH. The first proposal based 
on objectivity was Plato whose Ideas were the true objective part 
with Appearance the fleeting subjective counterpart. With 
Aristotle "Substance" appears as the O with "Form" the S, and 
this is more like the modern variety of SOM that emerged much 
later.         

> [Joe]
> As a science psychology is mechanistic, and there is no sense of a
> difference in how we know things, other than typing on the keys of my
> computer, and how big my computer is! Mystics, however, are in a
> different category.

??
 
> [Joe]
> How can I communicate the undefined?  What key shall I press?  I
> accept Pirsig¹s insight that there is a part of my reality that is
> undefined. But how can I talk about it using defined words? 
> ³Consciousness is realities ground², if we are going to communicate
> with each other.  Consciousness is defined and undefined!  

All right if consciousness is reality's base, then a MOC is called 
for. Undefine (dynamic) Consciousness versus Defined (static) 
Consciousness. Then levels of consciousness that starts with 
inorganic consciousness and ends with intellectual 
consciousness. A perfect replica of the MOQ.  

> ³Culture hands us a set of glasses!² The debate is whether I know and
> can talk about the undefined.  Metaphor, analogy, and gesture are ways
> of talking‹communicating the undefined. Experience is not undefined. I
> know what I am talking about? Yeah! Well you are wrong, and I have a
> bigger gun that says so.  So much for epistemology these days! 

It's impossible to avoid language, but we don't "talk about the 
undefined" other than saying that it is undefined. But be my guest 
if language is even more fundamental  than consciousness a 
Metaphysics of Language is overdue. Can't you see what Pirsig's 
idea is? Finding reality's basic entity and then dividing it it the 
Dynamic/Static way ... which is the only alternative to the S/O.    

Most friendly, but a bit frustrated

Bo