[MD] A larger system of understanding

[Ham Priday]

Ron, Platt, Magnus, Bo, Dan, Horse, and All --


I like Platt's title, although it's a phrase from Lila.  I think it 
describes what a philosophical forum--even one dedicated to a specific 
philosopher--should aim for.  If we can't open our minds to new ideas, at 
least for dialectical purposes, the MD is reduced to a mouthpiece or 
sounding board for "the party line", which I doubt any of you really want. 
If defining and spouting "official doctrine" were what this group was about, 
you would not be renouncing religion and authoritarianism in all its forms.

Of course we're all obliged to respect the integrity of the author, and 
Horse has a perfect right to protest ideas falsely attributed to Pirsig or 
claiming to represent what he "really meant".  On the other hand, didn't 
Pirsig himself suggest that an infinite number of interpretations are 
possible for static patterns?  If that is true, how can we refuse to 
consider a worldview that doesn't exactly conform to the author's paradigm?

For example, on July 9, Platt quoted Wilber as saying:

> Moreover, any intellectual proposition about reality must
> fall into the following four categories:*
>
> 1. Reality is absolute Being
> 2. Reality is Non-being
> 3. Reality is both Being and Non-Being
> 4. Reality is neither Being nor Non-Being
>
> Any one of these propositions that claims to embrace reality
> must exclude another, thus limiting its embrace and falling into
> self-contradiction.
> *("The Spectrum of Consciousness" by Ken Wilber, p. 66)

To which Magnus added a 5th (MoQ) category:

> That may be true for a static universe, but it isn't purely static,
> there is DQ as well. To paraphrase Wilber in MoQeese:
>
> Reality is both Being and Becoming.

Why isn't 'Being and Becoming' a valid interpretation of experiential 
reality?  It certainly represents the existentialist position of Heidegger 
and Sartre.  Moreover, it also takes "nothingness" into account, as 
"becoming" infers coming into existence from nothing.

Speaking as an outsider, I have the advantage of being allowed to criticize 
the
MoQ without misrepresenting it.  For what it may be worth, it is my opinion 
that the Bodvar dispute, as well as the paradox that Platt has articulated 
in a variety of ways, arise from a common error.  Here is how Platt 
expressed it on 7/8:

> Perhaps someone can explain, if the MOQ is a set of
> subjective intellectual values, how it can see itself as a
> set of subjective system of values -- the problem an eye
> seeing itself.

The "error" I allude to is the concept of intellect as a supra-human 
"domain" rather than a function of human reasoning.  For, clearly, if 
intellect is understood as a reasoning process of the individual subject, 
the dispute about whether Intellect = SOL or is some other subset of MOQ is 
seen as meaningless.  And, as for an  "eye seeing itself", the paradox is 
resolved by understanding "selfness" (i.e., self-awareness) as an 
intellectual precept of experience rather than as a "subjective system of 
values".

While it is possible to define intellect in cultural terms as "a level of 
understanding", just as intelligence may be euphemized as a collective body 
of knowledge, in a strictly epistemological sense neither of these 
definitions is correct.  So long as reality is conceived as nothing but 
levels of Quality, the levels themselves must be regarded as the agents of 
change or progress, which I maintain is a metaphysical paradox of the first 
order.

Hey, but what do I know?  I'm only the elephant in a room of Pirsigians.

Respectfully submitted,
Ham