[MD] Reading & Comprehension

[david buchanan]

Bo said:
The intellectual level is either SOM or a mental vessel that contains ideas, concepts, modes of thinking with SOM one mode and the MOQ another, and such SOM's MIND. And if mind prevails then the MOQ turns into a somish idealist teaching. There is no compromise between these two positions and MOQ's future depends on all SOM's tentacles being cut. DMB no exeption. 

dmb says:

The intellectual level is either SOM or a mental vessel that contains ideas such as SOM's mind? Oddly, that is a false dilemma with only one choice. The first essay in James's radical empiricism is titled "Does Consciousness Exist?". In this essay James answers the question in the negative. He says there is no such vessel, no such container, no such entity or substance. The second essay is titled "A World of Pure Experience". In this essay James says that the subject and object are secondary, are concepts derived from something more primary, which he calls "pure experience" or "the immediate flux of life". Pirsig equates this immediate flux with DQ or the primary empirical reality, as described in both ZAMM and Lila. In both cases, you have intellect neither a mental vessel nor SOM's mind. Consciousness is a function within experience, not a thing that preforms the function. Ideas about the self and subjectivity are just that; ideas. Ideas are derived from experience and they work to guide future experience, which is why they seem so true, but Pirsig and James both insist that experience comes first. This is important to understand, otherwise one might be tempted to believe the impossible; that the subjective mind is derived from the primary experience of the subjective mind. 
This is the MOQ's copernican revolution, you see? Instead of quality being derived from the interaction between subjects and objects, subjects and objects are derived from Quality. Instead of experience being made possible by the interaction of subjects and objects, subjects and objects are derived from experience.  



Bo said:

If intellect is seen as "most dynamic" and able of coming up with (what you see as intellectual patterns) new ideas - even a new metaphysics that denounces the MOQ - i.e. abolishes the whole moral level hierarchy - what then? Will this be a high moral pattern?

dmb says:

To try and prevent the emergence of a better idea would be a violation of the MOQ's highest moral code. Plus it's profoundly unrealistic. You can't arrest the evolutionary process nor decide its direction. All one can do is put it out there and hope it catches on. Dan Glover and Anthony McWatt have definitely put it out there. Not the mention Sneddon and Granger, Henry Gurr, Ian or even Mark Richardson. I mean, these are the guys who are serious about promoting the MOQ in various realistic ways. But they seem to be your enemies in promoting the MOQ. In fact, even Pirsig has become you enemy in promoting the MOQ

What does that tell you, Bo?  





 		 	   		  
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