[MD] Another parallel

[X Acto]

Ron:
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 expanding on this:
I'd like to develop this part of the post in the spirit of Socrates who, I feel
gets ignored due to his association to the portrait that Aristotle paints of him.
Aristotle seperated Socratic method into episteme and techne and focused 
on the techne aspect .
I think doing so in MoQ is a grave mistake. To focus on the techne of the four levels. 
To make it prime.
Socrates stated that he knew nothing. He knew dynamic quality and he knew static
conceptions of it were not really knowledge. Simply the shadow of knowledge.
The shadow of knowledge or eternal forms are housed in the cave of society.

"If someone were to show him the things that had cast the shadows, he would 
not recognize them for what they were and could not name them; he would 
believe the shadows on the wall to be more real than what he sees."

Apon leaving the cave the last form to be recognized is the good.

"in the region of the knowable the last thing to be seen, and that with 
considerable effort, is the idea of good; but once seen, it must be 
concluded that this is indeed the cause for all things of all that is 
right and beautiful "

Knowledge therefore does not lie in the techne of forms but in the epistme of freedom
from them.

Where Socrates loses the battle for Quality is in Parmenides when he can not defend
his position because he can not describe it. In the arguement of the distinction of
universals and particulars.

Parmenides:
"And would you feel equally undecided, Socrates, about things of which the 
mention may provoke a smile?-I mean such things as hair, mud, dirt, or anything 
else which is vile and paltry; would you suppose that each of these has an idea 
distinct from the actual objects with which we come into contact, or not? 

Socrates:
Certainly not, said Socrates; visible things like these are such as they appear 
to us, and I am afraid that there would be an absurdity in assuming any idea of 
them, although I sometimes get disturbed, and begin to think that there is nothing 
without an idea; but then again, when I have taken up this position, I run away, 
because I am afraid that I may fall into a bottomless pit of nonsense, and perish; 
and so I return to the ideas of which I was just now speaking, and occupy myself 
with them."

Parmenides argues that without forms dialectic is impossible. He asks Socrates what forms he is prepared to recognize, Socrates states goodness beauty aestetic and the distinction of unity
and plurality (Dynamic Quality). only Socrates doesent seem to be aware or is unable to make the arguement that these distinction of form are generated by DQ. He has no words for it and fears
taking up it's position.That Quality generates these distinctions.
Parmindes then destroys Socrates allegory of the cave and the conceptual forms in four
arguements. Parmenides takes up the theory of forms and chastized Socrates for being unable to 
defend his arguement.
Forms, therefore become primary. Aristotle and Plato then build on the statement that forms are required for dialectical truth. 

"After "returning from divine contemplations to human evils", a man "is graceless 
and looks quite ridiculous when — with his sight still dim and before he has gotten 
sufficiently accustomed to the surrounding darkness — he is compelled in courtrooms 
or elsewhere to contend about the shadows of justice or the representations of which
 they are the shadows, and to dispute about the way these things are understood by 
men who have never seen justice itself?" (517d-e)-Socrates

Therefore my good readers the case may be made that the arguement for the MoQ
MUST take the shape of forms. It is arrived at by virtue of these forms but when the knowledge 
of DQ is realized, those forms are mere shadows. We must not confuse the vehicle with the destination and the destination with the vehicle. yet we may not have one without the other.
They are corelative and niether should take primacy. In Quality the vehicle is the destination 
and the destination is the vehicle.

-Ron





 

________________________________
From: X Acto <xacto at rocketmail.com>
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 8:27:52 AM
Subject: Re: [MD] Another parallel

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


      
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