[MD] Pirsig/James connection

[X Acto]

Dave,
in combat, there is a strategy used 

divert and attack

while one force diverts attention and leads in circles the other attacks

it's a guerilla technique

it wears the opposition down demoralizes them

used in vietnam extensivly



welcome to the jungle



----- Original Message ----
From: David Thomas <combinedefforts at earthlink.net>
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Sent: Sunday, September 13, 2009 4:21:24 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] Pirsig/James connection

On 9/13/09 5:18 AM, "MarshaV" <valkyr at att.net> wrote:

> Dave,
> 
> I see this Pirsig/James discussion lifting James and doing nothing for the
> MoQ or RMP.  Explain to m[e] why you think this Pirsig/James connection has
> value?

I am not here to elevate or deflate one or the other. Just to understand the
connection. If I have an agenda it is to see if Bo and I can come to a
mutually agreeable understanding about Pirsig's "extension" claim.

First because Pirsig referred to James work, obliviously thought it had
value, and claimed the MoQ was an extension of it. But the brief references
in Lila made it difficult for me to understand the connection. Like its hard
to understand algebra if you have never had basic math. So I went to some of
the sources and commentaries to see if I could better understand his claim
and what the implications might be.

So how did the James connection come about? It wasn't in ZMM.

What follows is complete supposition based on the recent reading of the
introduction to an electro shock therapy paper that was linked to the 2006
RMP interview that someone recently posted:

It seem that it is common for patients after this treatment to lose whole
blocks of memory in very unpredictable ways. It is also very common that
some try very hard to reconstructed them through going to see old places,
friends or anything else the can find to jog those memories back in place.
For a writer like Pirsig ZMM can be view not just as a record of this
process, but part of the process itself. He was to some extent lucky in that
Phaedrus had kept extensive notes on what he was working on. As this was a
very valuable portion of who he was/is.

But because of the treatments he still did not have complete access to the
whole lines of thought that he previously knew intimately. And sadly
probably will never know if he has completely recovered them.

So he writes ZMM, gets it published, and it's successful beyond anyone's
wildest dreams.......... Then come the questions.... Particularly about the
philosophy. Not as he hoped from professional philosophers, but from rank
amateur, "naif" folks like me and you. And some of the observations were
every bit as pointed as if they were from the professionals. Like, "Aren't
you saying some things very similar to William James? For instance.....?

RMP commented elsewhere that he didn't understand this. He thought that he
had laid it out very clearly, cleanly, and simply so that anybody should be
able to understand it. This forum is living proof that this was not the
case.

So he spends twenty years rethinking, re-researching, and writing Lila to
clarify and expand his thoughts in ZMM, into the MoQ of Lila. In that
process it's probable that he dug up more of the past memories and developed
new paths and links that he didn't know or had forgotten existed earlier.

As I stated in another post the intellect is both an individual and
community activity. Metaphysics is an intellectual activity with deep
historical roots. Impossible to create a whole new one with no reference to
the past. 

If you have been following my conversation with Bo you should be able to
pick why I think James thought is a valuable foundation.

Going forward, Metaphysics while foundational, is just a tiny branch on the
tree of philosophy. Or roots if you prefer that metaphor. It does little
work without other branches to do necessary tasks. Pirsig pointed to
pragmatism as an existing branch that would be valuable in doing that. So
I'm looking where he pointed. What I see doesn't seem be in conflict with
the MoQ and may be very valuable for its future progress.

But I could be and often am wrong.

Dave






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