[MD] What is Zen?

[Magnus Berg]

Hi, Mary, DMB and others

On 2010-07-06 16:58, Mary wrote:
> Hi DMB,
>
> If you would place the MoQ no higher than the Intellectual Level, and in
> fact, place it squarely within it, then you will need to explain exactly
> what the Intellectual Level values which sets it apart "off on purposes of
> its own" that differ in Value from the Social.  You will also have to
> explain how the MoQ, which disparages SOM and finds it anathema is supposed
> to fit within the same set of patterns of value.

I think we need to step back and take a birds eye look at what we're 
talking about. Perhaps a quote from Lila could shed some light:

"In this plain of understanding static, patterns of value are divided 
into four systems: inorganic patterns, biological patterns, social 
patterns and intellectual pat­terns. They are exhaustive. That's all 
there are. If you construct an encyclopedia of four topics - Inorganic, 
Biological, Social and Intellectual - nothing is left out. No 'thing,' 
that is. Only Dynamic Quality, which cannot be described in any 
encyclopedia, is absent."

Ok, so we have 4 boxes where we can put our slips. We can write anything 
on a slip and it would fit nicely into one of those boxes, (actually it 
could fit into several at once but let's try to avoid that for now).

Let's start easy, I write:

* Stone
* Fish
* City
* A bed-time story

The stone goes into the inorganic box
The fish goes into the biological box
The city goes into the social box
The bed-time story is probably a book, so you might put it into the 
inorganic box. But the essence of the story, what the child going to bed 
seeks, is the *story* in the book, and that goes into the intellectual 
box. (If you want Pirsig's word for it, please see chapter 12 in Lila 
where he discusses how a novel is stoed in a computer.)

Ok, let's go on:

* The gravity of the earth holding us to the ground
* Newton's law of gravity
* Einstein's law of graivy

Earth's gravity has been around since the earth formed some 4.5 billion 
years ago. It kept rocks to the ground, rain falling and non-flying 
dinosaurs earth-bound long before Newton saw his apple fall. We can for 
example check written evidence of people walking on the earth long 
before Newton, so they weren't floating around mid air or flying like 
birds. They were earth-bound, bound by earth's gravity. And that's a 
force of nature and goes into the inorganic box.

Newton's law of gravity is a formula formulated by Newton that is 
supposed to mirror gravity and make it possible to predict what gravity 
would do given certain circumstances. It makes it possible to predict 
how long time it would take for an apple to fall to the ground if 
dropped from a given height. Newton's law of gravity is *not* what makes 
the apple fall if we drop it. The essence of Newton's law of gravity can 
be written in a book, or in a document in a computer, so, just like the 
bed-time story, it goes into the intellectual box.

Einstein's law of gravity is a refined version of Newton's. Newton's is 
just as good for predicting falling apples and missile trajectories, but 
if we want to predict planet orbits carefully we need Einstein's 
version. However, it's still not what makes the apple fall or keep 
planets in their orbits. It's still just a formula who's essence can be 
written in a book, and as such, it also goes into the intellectual box.

Now we come to the matters at hand:

* The MoQ as proposed by RMP in Lila.
* The SOM as described by RMP in Lila.
* Any extension of the MoQ proposed on MD.

The MoQ is a set of ideas that tries to describe our whole reality. Just 
like Newton's law of gravity, it *is* not the reality it tries to 
describe. It is a set of *ideas*, and it's essence can be, and has been, 
written in a book. I.e. it goes into the intellectual box.

The SOM is, just like the MoQ, a set of ideas that also tries to 
describe our reality. RMP formulated SOM in Lila from what he thought 
was a set of underlying assumptions of western philosophy. Some believe 
that SOM is the set of underlying assumptions most western people 
assume, some deny SOM altogether. This doesn't matter to us because we 
just want to put it in the right box. And the right box is the 
intellectual, because if we believe that SOM exists as the underlying 
assumptions, then it's like the MoQ and Newton's law of gravity an 
intellectual pattern, and if we deny SOM, then it's like the bed-time 
story, but nonetheless an intellectual pattern.

Any extension to the MoQ is no different. It's still a set of ideas. 
They can be valid, or total BS. They still go in the intellectual box.

	Magnus