[MD] The alignment of ZAMM and LILA

[skutvik at online.no]

Greetings Andre, Marsha and Company

9 Nov.

Marsha wrote:
> > This is from Zilioli's book and is interesting: "Before Plato, no
> > epistemological distinction had ever been drawn between perception and
> > perceptual judgement; 'aisthesis' was the general term used by
> > Presocratic philosophers to indicate 'sense perceptions', 'feelings' and
> > 'thoughts' (with no clear differentiation, either terminological or
> > conceptual, between the three terms).  (Zilioli, p.61) 
 
Bodvar responded:
> This is a bit difficult to align with ZAMM directly, but the likeness
> is clear,.. 
 
Andre:
> For what it is worth, this is very easy to align... providing you
> understand the difference of abstaction between ZMM and Lila. ZMM is
> 'dynamic' insight. It is direct perception and the whole of the book
> is us, the reader, following Phaedrus' path, through the
> intermediary (the narrator...his'for want of a better word 'alter
> ego' [ a mind divided against itself] ZMM p325) reaching this
> point... i.e.Quality.

Zilioli's dualism is "perception/perception judgment"  and this is a bit 
difficult to align with ZAMM's SOM because with the Greeks it had 
reached the "Appearance/Truth" stage where truth=what things are in 
themselves (objectively)  while appearance=as things seems for us 
(subjectively. Then, what does Zilioli's "perception" correspond to? 
Most likely "appearance", but "perception judgment" does definitely not 
correspond to "truth", so both looks like different terms for subjectivity.

I said it could easier be aligned with SOM at a much later stage, when 
it had reached the true subject/object stage (which was long after the 
Greeks) when "perception" had become the objective part, while 
"judgment of perception" had become the subjective part.           

> Imho if one continues the ZMM path one should go to the mountains or
> stay indoors and just follow DQ. This will end you up you know where! 

Well, ZAMM isn't all that "dynamic", after all it ends with a proto 
DQ/SQ MOQ. (I mean one easily spots Romantic=Dynamic and 
Classic=Static)

> Lila is about DQ ( the first 9 chapters) and Chapter 10 is the setting
> out of the MoQ...as Pirsig says at the end of Chapter 9 '...Phaedrus's
> central attention turned away from any further explanation of Dynamic
> Quality and turned toward the static patterns themselves'(Lila, p 125).
> He will be talking about those things abstracted from, extrapolated
> fron, chisseled out from DQ. These intellectual PoV's ( built up from
> inorganic/organic/social PoV's) are what is the MoQ. 

How much I wanted you to be on the right path, you stray. The notion 
that the MOQ is an "intellectual pattern", i.e. all levels basically are 
"intellectual" is MOQ seen from within MOQ's intellectual level, i.e.from 
SOM. Seen from the MOQ the 4th. intellectual level is a subset of the 
MOQ. Can't you get this into your head?

> You know all this as good as the back of your hand Bodvar. Nothing
> new...but remain looking, remain watching, remain sensitive to
> changes, remain aware of meanings and changing functions.

I started by trying to align this about the MOQ as an intellectual 
pattern, but soon encountered the internal "platypuses" it created and 
reached the said SOL, namely that SOM is MOQ's 4th level. Thereby 
the MOQ is the meta-level that contains the static levels whereof SOM 
is the  highest.  On the other hand if one swallows SOM's about 
everything thought, written or said as "intellectual" - meaning 
subjective - and the MOQ thereby a (subjective) intellectual pattern it's 
the MOQ committing suicide. 

> A mind divided against itself. There is the dynamic view (the Buddha
> everywhere...all is illusion because subject to change) and the
> static, in Nagarjuna's view, the 'conventional, everyday world of
> experience. The world within which we live everyday of the moon.
 
> I think it will help if you clearly separate these two points of
> view...but of course you know this already.
 
> You reduce everything from the intellectual level's point of view to
> subjects and objects.

> Is the baby born with this distinction? In nothing of Pirsig's
> writings do I detect such a notion. Do we learn such a distinction?
> Yes!! Because it is very useful. (it is biologically and socially
> very useful)
 
> Are we forever subjugated and condemned by this distinction? NO! Is
> intellect (i.e in your words the s/o aggregate) the determining
> influential factor from a MoQ point of view? NO! If that were true
> the MoQ would not have come to fruition.

Jeez Andre, it's you who makes "intellect=S/O" the determining factor 
by deeming the MOQ an intellectual pattern, thereby even making DQ 
static. Or - you are innocent - it is really Pirsig with his Quality/MOQ 
distinction who started all problems.  

> And whilst I am on this, I do not for a moment believe that Phaedrus
> was locked up solely because of his (Quality) views. He was locked
> up because he was manic and he carried a gun!!. Do you know what
> lethal combination that is? Of course 'society' had to do something.
 
> Many patterns of intellectual value have evolved. If not, then no
> one would have been able to write ZMM and Lila, and no one in the
> past would have been able to even hint at it.
 
> It is the tension between DQ and static patterns of value ( not only
> intellectual PoV's), present for many, many years responsible for
> the evolutionary (and revolutionary) aspects of the MoQ.
 
> Imho, reducing every intellectual PoV,or (what's the difference:
> interpretation) as you appear to be doing Bodvar, to once again
> pointing or not agreeing with your SOL (and therefore rejecting it),
> and reducing everything to that interpretation, not only obstructs
> newcomers (and I count myself among these still) to getting some
> sort of 'Pirsigian'understanding of the MoQ but it also stiffles
> progress. This is a pity.

Give this another try Andre I'm not sure what this means. Sounds like I 
obstruct people from getting some sort of Pirsigean understanding. 
And if so I definitely want obstructed his arch-somish notion about the 
MOQ an intellectual pattern, meaning "just" another theoretical, 
subjective mind-pattern about reality - in this case Quality. I push 
Phaedrus original "SOM = INTELLECT" insight.

Bodvar