[MD] Aristotle and the MOQ

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi John

18 July u wrote:

> Oh piffle, Bo. You do keep on building upon unexamined presuppositions
> of dubious quality: 

> > I don't know what's Ron's point, isn't Aristotle's  "metaphysics"
> > about examination of reality? Anyway my point is that only with the
> > Greeks, with SOM, did the dichotomy of an examining SUBJECT and an
> > OBJECTIVE reality (to be examined) occur. And - further - as Pirsig
> > points to - the old books of the Bible lacks intellectual content,
> > meaning hat they lacks the said  Aristotelian dichotomy of a reality
> > and an examinator. Javeh was reality and mankind was part of that
> > reality. 

> The fact that Pirsig didn't examine the Bible very deeply either
> shouldn't let YOU off the hook for doing the same.

I'm just happy to see Pirsig making sense and sense in this context is 
"lacking intellectual content" so clearly corresponds to "lacking SOM" 
i.e. when Pirsig uses the MOQ he ends in the SOL     

> There's nothing to support your idea about "Javeh BEING Reality" in the
> Bible. That  idea is  a more Eastern interpretation of deity, anyway.  
> The Bible puts forth the idea of "heaven above and man below". 

We are speaking about the old Mosaic part that which Christendom 
parted company with, I'm not well versed in Judaism, but I know that 
they don't have a subject/object (mind/matter) distinction. No soul to 
be saved,  the body is what is resurrected and must be complete when 
buried, they pick every sliver of flesh from a bomb site to secure the 
resurrected human to be complete. OK let not this become a 
theological treatise, but to Jew the above/below isn't very clear, Javeh 
appeared before the prophets and delivered messages by so many sly 
ways.   

> And I'd say you'd never have heard of Aristotle or Plato except
> Christian Monks cared deeply enough about textual translation,
> preservation and understanding and I'd put forth the evidence that
> they DID care and understand the Greeks because the Greeks so
> coincided with the religious mind of the times, influenced and created
> by the bible - a spirit conducive to intellectual inquiry in the
> spirit of the Pauline "I die daily".

Right, Christendom became heavily Greek - i.e. intellect or SOM - 
influenced by Aristotle becoming a Church Father (it started with Jesus 
really, but I can't go into all this) and here is the clue: Christendom's 
heavy intellect-leaning made it prone to the Greek ideas when they 
returned with the Renaissance. And MOQ explains why Christendom 
let itself be overwhelmed by enlightenment,  progress, science , while 
the Islam world is dead locked on the social level, each time intellect 
threatens an assassin group forms to defend its purity. The US and 
NATO effort in Afghanistan is wasted.    

> So calling that aspect of man's understandings "social" while we're
> all intellectuals seems just a denigration driven by axe grinding, to
> me.

Yes, It's axe-grinding, MOQ's axe, and you see from the above how 
sharp it is.

> Tell me how the following passages obviate Subject Object thinking:

> "Who is this who darkens counsel By words without knowledge? Now
> prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer
> Me. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if
> you have understanding.  Who determined its measurements? Surely you
> know! Or who stretched the line upon it? To what were its foundations
> fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone, When the morning stars sang
> together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy?" 
 
> I mean that whole passage in Job captures neatly the entire
> intellectual problem of defining an age of the universe, or a limit to
> space.  And in Socratic form, as well.

A person (before blue-tooth cell-phones) walking about posing 
questions to God and allegedly hears God talking back is a psyciatric 
case in an intellect-steeped culture. But social reality was full of 
prophets and/or oracles who received messages from gods and the 
gods were usually in some bad mood.

> Calling it "non-intellectual" seems completely ridiculous to me.  How
> is it not Subject and Object based?

It's because we have different takes of what "intellect" means. For me 
it is the RATIONAL OBJECTIVE approach. Yours looks like the 
"intelligence" kind.

Bo before:
> > The same goes for all ancient texts, Homer's "Iliad" for instance,
> > not a trace of a subject who steps back from any reality, who
> > reflects ...etc.
 
> More piffle.  Plato  didn't invent intellectualism anymore than Pirsig
> invented Quality. He explicated convincingly the zeitgeist of his
> times-those patterns which had been in play long before he came along
> and was good enough to land an agent and a publisher.

At least I'm happy to see that you connect Plato and his time with the 
emergence of Intellect - or "intellectualism" - whether is was the  
zeitgeist isn't that important.   

> > All is enormous emotions, and sound and fury.Conclusion. Pirsig says
> > that the intellectual level = SOM  and everything points to him
> > being right. And one point more, my assertion about Christendom
> > being intellect-influenced and Judaism and Islam pure social . The
> > former is full of "rationalizing" of God - to try to prove His
> > existence - these things are lacking totally in the latter two.
 
> Right Bo.  Nothin less intellectual than a Jew.

I see the sarcasm, but the Jews in question - Einstein and whoever 
scientists or thinkers of Jewish origin - were-/aren't Orthodox head-
bangers, but deeply influenced by the West's intellectual environment. 
Which is why modern day Israel is such a paradox, but ... phew 
enough for now. 

Bodvar