[MD] Another parallel

[X Acto]

DmB:
In fact, the more I learn, the more I appreciate Pirsig's accomplishment. The more I learn, the more I realize that what he said is very much on target with what's currently happening in the world of academic philosophy. His books engage the main issues that are so hot and sexy in pragmatism right now. Before I got started I was under the impression that the dominance of SOM would make my job nearly impossible, that mysticism would get me laughed at and kicked out, that all my teachers would be bullies and tyrants like the Chairman in Chicago. But, as it turns out, the task of finding a place for Pirsig's thinking in the academic world is an intellectual thrill ride. I find myself surfing a wave that was already in motion. Lucky, lucky me.

Ron:
I'm currently in the middle of Lila now. I haven't read it in about three years, I lent it out
and got it back unread with dust on it. But re-reading the work after 3yrs of developing
a backround of ancient Greek philosophy, James and the Pragmatists, Quantum physical theory
of Steven Weinberg, Bohr, Bohm mortised by Wiki and the discussions here on the forum
has illuminated the work of Pirsig within a context that I didn't understand before.

Since I have been aware of the literary style Pirsig was using I also have been really trying
to pay attention to the story between the technical reveal of the MoQ, the stuff I formally
just glazed over. I've been looking at the association of these dynamic passages in
conjunction with the more static technical monologues. Where I am at right now is after
the fallout with the first meeting of Jamie. Phaedrus is struggling with his preconceptions
of Redford, Lila struggling with preconception about every experience, paranoia
builds on these presuppositions until they create a reality all their own where the Orphic
mythos foreshadowed earlier takes form when she loses her pills, money and place to stay.
Her intellect runs wild in the dynamic situation latching on to anything remotely familiar
and she suffers a psychosis after having a post traumatic flashback. This is about the time Phaedrus realizes that to save MoQ from the static isle of the dead he must save it
from Hollywood transforming ZMM  into a social level pattern. A mythos that has nothing
to do with the intellectual pattern that places dynamic experience as the center of reality.
This it where it ties in with your comment about your preconceptions of academia
and Marsha's "kill all intellectual patterns" a lesson I learned in experience just recently.
The clinging to static patterns in dynamic experience. The Greek stoic, Epictetus
focused on this, the intellectual anchoring in the now saves one from the panic and the horror
of having static patterns torn from you, the now is a safe intellectual harbor in the fiercest
of dynamic storms. Pirsig states that there are five codes , chaotic/inorganic, inorganic/bio
bio/social  social/intellect and SQ/DQ the highest virtue.

DQ saves one from their own head, ones imagination and thoughts can devour you. It causes
you to live in a reality that only exists in your thoughts.

Wisdom then, is grounding intellect in the now. This is what is meant by killing it's
static patterns. It's the subordination of static intellectual patterns to the dynamic
intellectual experience. We can't kill our intellect without killing ourselves but we can
subdue it's static patterns and eliminate them from our minds.
MoQ then covers all explanation and saves the Psyche from itself in the process.
The relation of Radical empiricism to Pragmatism then is likened to the relationship
between the four levels and SQ/DQ. I can see where one would not necessarily 
require the other, but it certainly does help when they both work in conjunction.
-Ron