[MD] Catching up to Pirsig

[Platt Holden]

> > [Krimel]
> > The answer to that is so patently obvious it hardly deserves
> > consideration.
> > We strive to survive because we are descended from survivors. It
> really
> > is
> > that simple. We have built into our DNA mechanisms, urges, emotions
> and
> > needs that facilitate our survival. Those who do not have this inbred
> > need
> > do not survive. The questions is idiotic. It's like asking why don't
> we
> > breath water? Survival is the imperative of all living things. Without
> > it
> > there would be no living things.
> Platt:
> A great non-answer. As Pirsig asked, "If life is strictly a result of the
> physical and chemical forces of nature then why is life opposed to these
> same forces in its struggle to survive?" 
> 
> Krimel's thoughtful answer, "Don't ask."
> 
> Ron:
> A non-answer to a non-question. IS life in opposition to physical and
> chemical forces? or is that
> one way to view its processes, or one may view it as life exploiting these
> forces at every chance.
> If Pirsig taught us anything it is that there is never one way to view
> experience, with this in mind
> one should never tout his words as authoritative gospel.

Agree. But then one should not always take the opposite view from Pirsig as 
gospel either. I consider Pirsig's question, "Why survive?" to be 
legitimate, just as the many other "why" questions he poses in Lila such 
as:  "Why, for example, should a group of simple, stable compounds of 
carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen struggle for billions of years to 
organize themselves into a professor of chemistry?"

[Ron]
> Quality is experience, DQ and SQ are one of many ways to describe it
> linguistically. 
> 
> What should be primary in the MoQ is this. I'm pretty sure Bob's intent
> was not to 
> construct another static giant to do battle with the old static giant
> rather to see the
> static giant for what it is and ones own experience for what it is. We are
> the giant.
> everyone of us. It may be changed, but it takes an open mind. Bo would
> have another
> giant an MoQ giant which "rides" the old one. To me, Pirsig states a
> static giant
> is not prefferable to ones own unique view. MoQ is about finding the
> blossoming lotus in 
> in ones own experience, then one sees the blossom in all experiences.
> Your question then is a SOM question. Then, it IS better not to ask
> questions of this nature
> because questions of this nature pull one deeper into intellectual
> systems, analytical systems.
> Philosophical systems which have no correspondance with immediate
> experiences.
> 
> Observing patterns and their relations is one thing, developing and
> adhereing to concepts
> about them as what IS is another.

As Pirsig said, intellectual concepts such as a metaphysics may be 
degenerate, but avoiding them is also degenerate. "The only person who 
doesn't pollute the mystic reality of the world with fixed metaphysical 
meanings is a person who hasn't yet been born-and to whose birth no thought 
has been given. The rest of us have to settle for being something less 
pure. Getting drunk and picking up bar-ladies and writing metaphysics is a 
part of life." (Lila, 5)