[MD] in defence of the "relative"

[Matt Kundert]

Hi Joe,

I think the below is an interesting interpretation of the 
passage, and Pirsig's philosophy generally, but it doesn't 
seem to me to scan with the passage in particular.  I think 
you would have a very hard time telling people that that's 
what Pirsig meant in the hot stove section.

Matt


> On 11/23/09 6:42 PM, "Matt Kundert" <pirsigaffliction at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> <snip>
> If everything is 
> experience, what could it possibly mean for something to be
> "more empirical"?  How can we drive a metaphysical wedge
> between the experience of low quality associated with the
> hot stove and the hot stove itself (a distinction you need in
> order to say the former is "more empirical") when the "hot
> stove itself" is nothing more or less than a set of static
> patterns of quality, meaning that "the experience of low
> quality" is not _associated_ with the stove, but rather _is
> the stove itself_.  Right?
> <snip>
> 
> Hi Matt and Ron,
> 
> Pirsig subtitles Lila with ³An Inquiry into Morals².  My take on that
> subtitle is that he expects a discussion to follow evolution as a foundation
> for morality.  In an evolutionary setting I expect ³more empirical² would
> mean a more intense awareness of the differing levels of evolution.  The hot
> stove and the experience of sitting on a hot stove relate to differing
> evolutionary levels, steel and flesh.
> 
> An individual can participate in all of the evolutionary levels
> unconsciously, since his attention at any moment is from only one level.  I
> think all he was trying to say was that sitting on a hot stove will wake you
> up by the shock.
> 
> The difficulty of participating simultaneously in all of the levels of
> evolution, is that my awareness falls asleep to other levels.  ³The hot
> stove² is a shock to wake me up to differing levels, created during the
> lapse in the awareness of the danger of sitting on a hot stove.
> 
> Joe
 		 	   		  
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