[MD] (Fwd) Re: John Carl Critiques Pure Experience:INST01

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi John

25 July you wrote:

> My comment referred to RMP's commentary on Idealism as commented on
> by Coppleston posted on Ant McWatt's website.

I see.

> Speaking to?   I was "speaking" to MoQ Discuss.  The gist of my
> dialogue here began with assering Roycean Absolute Idealism as more
> compatibel with the MoQ than Jamesian Pragmatism.  I would have made
> more sense except I am scatterbrained, which gets in the way of
> effective communication.  That's my insane way of dealing with my
> truth, I guess.

Forgive me, I'm half numb from ten years of discussing the MOQ and 
may not be aware of who's talking to whom - and about what.   

I had said
> > See, Pirsig is no longer as tough on idealism (subjectivism) as P.
> > of ZAMM was

John: 
> Yes, in fact I saw him switch attitude 180 degrees in the short
> length of this one paper.  He started out really ripping into
> Idealism wherever he could and he concluded with....

Right, the MOQ must be the strangest case in history where a thinker
sets out with a revolutionary thesis - like Phaedrus did - then going
through the ordeals he did and coming out like Pirsig who launched a
watered-down version. And it's the intellectual level everything turns
around. In ZAMM the SOM is seen as Quality's first product and
identical to the Classic (read "static") part of the Romantic/Classic
(read: dynamic/static) dualism and also called "intellect" .. this
fact is the fulcrum ...the 4th level ought to have remained SOM!!!! 

Now, Phaedrus' in-out turn of the metaphysical "sock" is an axiom that 
can't be proved, yet it dissolves SOM's paradoxes and produces none
of its own as far as I know and that makes it a strong case. But
Pirsig launched this vague 4th. level that looked a lot like SOM's
mind - a realm of ideas - and that made the MOQ nil and void and has
caused the stalemate that this discussion has been in for a decade.
Each time I forward the (original) SOM=intellect interpretation DMB
strikes at it, and his academical credentials carries a lot of weight.
        

John quotes Pirsig: 

    It has really been a shock to see how close Bradley is to the 
    MOQ. Both he and the MOQ are expressing what Aldous 
    Huxley called "The Perennial Philosophy," which is perennial, I 
    believe, because it happens to be true. Bradley has given an 
    excellent description of what the MOQ calls Dynamic Quality 
    and an excellent rational justification for its intellectual 
    acceptance.  It and the MOQ can be spliced together with no 
    difficulty into a broader explanation of the same thing.   

Pirsig so badly wants similarities with other well-known names in
philosophy, but as long as those persons never came close to his "in-
out-turn" (that SOM is a sub-set of a greater "system") it's 
counterproductive. 

Bo before: 
> > and this is the problem that the MOQ have been hampered
> > by since LILA's publication. Pirsig has let go of the deadly grip
> > that Phaedrus had on SOM by declaring SOM a Quality's fall-out.
> > Now suddenly idealism is a way to understand the MOQ! Argh!!!

John: 
> No, I wouldn't say that.  I'd say the MoQ and Idealism are both
> attempts to understand reality, and comparing their paths builds a
> higher understanding in a dynamically intellectual way.

No, and no again. Idealism is just the other side of SOM's mind/matter 
"coin" and the toughest obstacle for understanding the MOQ. The 
matererialist (obstacle) was tough when P- wrote ZAMM , but has 
crumbled completely.  

> Mysticism is a brand. 

??

> Quality is undefinable, but you know what it is. 

Pirsig says that value is experience itself and tries by many examples  
to prove it, but to SOMists it's just as obvious that "what we like" is 
subjective. The Quality=Reality is an axiom and can't be proven, only 
the MOQ built on it can "prove" itself by doing away with SOM's 
platypuses. But - phew - to Pirsig the Quality=Reality is the main thing 
while the MOQ is secondary.

> That "knowing" is an interesting idea in a empirically-oriented
> world because one problem empiricism has is linking the empirical
> facts of another to one's own "accredited knowledge". The
> philosophical assertion that the other has an undefinable but
> knowable experience solves this problem in a unique way. 

Please  ;-)


Bodvar