[MD] Bo vs. Bob

[John Carl]

I was thinking a bit about a conversation I was having with Ham this
morning, about the many paths up the mountain and Lao Tzu saying you don't
need all that religion and philosophy...

The thing is, we're born at the top of the mountain.  All the paths
(intellectual games and religions) lead DOWNWARD, away from the top of the
mountain from that point.  And then if we're lucky enough to find our path
back, we praise that intellectual path as if intellect was a big help after
all.

Now according to Bob, Phaedrus found his way back to the top of the
mountain.  But Pirsig earlier, and we of the MoQ discuss lately, have been
trying to reconstruct that path.  It's not a given that Pirsig knows the
route.    So when taking Pirsig's authority on the best map, he's first
amongst us, no doubt, but it's Phaedrus who's the real authority and he's
dead.

With that in mind, I'd like to ask us to re-examine Bo's frustrations.

As far as the point that intellect = SOM, I agree completely with Bo.
That's just the definition of the term and the metaphysical reality of the
concepts.  Intellect is only half the evolved human consciousness, however,
and Pirsig calling the 4th level "intellectual" was due to Pirsig's
particular blind spot - the one that Phaedrus hated and overthrew in ZAMM.

>From my perspective today, (and I'd claim from the snip of the Oxford DVD
that Mary shared, Pirsig's as well)  It should have been called something
indicating the Intellectual/Artistic continuum  and perhaps we wouldn't have
suffered so much conflict and strife in our attempt at making this map back
up the mountain.

Because Intellect IS SOM.  Make no mistake about that.

It is intellect usurping consciousness that is at the root of all troubles.
Intellect (the classic) is only valuable when considered alongside with it's
equal or superior aesthetic side (the Romantic - although I think "romantic"
has awkward connotations for our current culture)  Perhaps Left-Brain
thinking, Right brain thinking.  But that has connotations too, of mind with
brain, which confuse people.

So labeling is as always, a problem.

Marketing is the essence of reality.  Just finished a Ben Elton book along
those lines, and then ran across a quote of Royce's regarding Kant's, that
"Critique of Pure Reason" was hugely and popularly accepted and embraced,
partly through the term "reason", which was all the rage in those days what
with the new revolutionary ideas sweeping Europe and overthrowing the old
orders.

In fact, Royce makes some damn fine points about the fitness of a philosophy
to the times, and reading Idealism in the context of the times it was being
explicated, and I'm gonna bring some of his points to the table when I
address the Copleston Annotations, which I've already started.

Lemme Quote and while you read, consider with me  how apropos "Zen" of Zen
and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was to those other troubled in values
times, the 70's.

" The word 'reason' was to the age that immediately antedated the French
Revolution very much what the word evolution has been to our own
generation--a sort of general comforter of those who felt puzzled and longed
for light.  Whatever the issue, the enlightened souls of that time said,
'Reason will set us right'.  Reason was to be the all-powerful substitute
for religion, tradition, superstition, authority, custom, prejudice,
oppression, in brief for whatever man happened to view as a galling
harness.  Reason was to be a chain breaker, jail deliverer, world reformer.
Thus when Kant undertook in his Critique an exhaustive survey of the
province, the powers, and the limits of the reason, he had in his favor not
merely technical but also deep-seated popular interests.  So he won a
well-deserved attention."

Royce, The Concept of the Absolute