[MD] [MD} The relativity of the MoQ

[skutvik at online.no]

For Marsha

2 Sep. you said 

> If you want me to reread part of ZMM or LILA, at least point to a
> chapter.

OK I was a bit nonchalant there just saying "the Greek part". The best 
summary of the emergence of SOM-as-intellect is in chapter 29 from 
this passage onwards 

    To understand how Phædrus arrives at this requires some 
    explanation: One must first get over the idea that the time span 
    between the last caveman and the first Greek philosophers 
    was short. ...

Every sentence cries out that this is intellect emerging from the social 
level,  this passage f.ex.

    Early Greek philosophy represented the first conscious search 
    for what was imperishable in the affairs of men. Up to then 
    what was imperishable was within the domain of the Gods, the 
    myths. But now, as a result of the growing impartiality of the 
    Greeks to the world around them, there was an increasing 
    power of abstraction which permitted them to regard the old 
    Greek mythos not as revealed truth but as imaginative 
    creations of art. This consciousness, which had never existed 
    anywhere before in the world, spelled a whole new level of 
    transcendence for the Greek civilization. But the mythos goes 
    on, and that which destroys the old mythos becomes the new 
    mythos, and the new mythos under the first Ionian 
    philosophers became transmuted into philosophy, which 
    enshrined permanence in a new way. Permanence was no 
    longer the exclusive domain of the Immortal Gods. It was also 
    to be found within Immortal Principles, of which our current law 
    of gravity has become one.  


"This consciousness never existed anywhere before ...etc." It's not just 
another intellectual idea (as Q orthodoxy wants it) but a new reality, a 
new LEVEL!! Pirsig is still in the mythos mood and says that SOM 
destroyed the old mythos (the Aretê) to become a new mythos and 
OK, let's call the level "mythoses" -  or metaphysics,  what's important 
is that this says that that something enormous took place. 
 
> In this recent book I read on the pre-Socratic sophists, it verified
> you rational/irrational split. Before Plato and Aristotle all was in
> relationship to social level and multiple truths were quite possible. 
> Only with Aristotle did the either/or become rational and all else
> irrational. Even now Ron, silly boy, accuses me of being irrational as
> if he doesn't understand I see that as a sign of intelligence. And I
> have been quite clear at confirming that I understand the Intellectual
> Level to represent the subject/object split.  

Great. "Sign of intelligence" ... with Ron? Hardly ;-)

> For the moment, I'm wondering if the problem is not rooted in the
> self/object duality.  While the subjective vales are allegedly missing
> in the Intellectual Level, what of the illusionary self.  This 'self'
> is what Buddhism so adequately addresses, and is the most difficult
> for the West to consider, imho. The quality event creates both self
> and object even if it is within an intellectual patterned event. The
> self becomes an existing abstract 'thinking being' that is manipulated
> with the rest of the patterns. Do you think it would be worth giving a
> little thought to 'self' versus 'subjective values'? 

You bet it's the "self"  - aka consciousness - which is the difficulty. "I 
think, therefor is the subject/object split reality's deepest, and SOM.the 
only possible metaphysics ". I could go on: ".... therefore is any 
metaphysics that challenges SOM a sham .. it's merely another 
subjective ideas.".     

Happy to see your most valid inputs here. 

Bodvar