[MD] spanner in the works

[skutvik at online.no]

John the tsk-er.

20 July you wrote

> Just happened to come across it in the archives.
> Ladies and gents, The late, great  Paul Turner:
  
I take the liberty to indent the ancient part it to keep it apart.
 
    Paul: No, at least, that's not how Pirsig saw it: 

    "Man is the measure of all things." Yes, that's what he is saying 
    about Quality. Man is not the source of all things, as the 
    subjective idealists would say. Nor is he the passive observer 
    of all things, as the objective idealists and materialists would 
    say. The Quality which creates the world emerges as a 
    relationship between man and his experience." [ZMM, p383]  

    As you keep reminding us, S/O was a distinction that didn't 
    exist when the Sophists were teaching - so it seems an odd 
    move to pin idealism on them. These Sophists could turn out 
    to be a real spanner in the works for the SOL. Interesting.  

    Regards

    Paul

John:
 
> Heh-heh.  And if you think _dead_ sophists are a problem...
> But  here's where your really big problem is Bo, as I've been trying
> to explain -
 
    (Bo's response to Paul)
     
    About SOM not leaping ready-made into existence is no great
    thing (why Matt repeatedly hits the roof over this is beyond me)
    Pirsig describes SOM as having its start with the search for
    immortal principles. With Parmenides a milestone was 
    reached

    (ZMM page 366)

         "It's here that the classic mind for the first time took leave of
         its romantic origin
     
    (Classic=intellect in the diagram and if so Romantic=society)


John:
 
> Catch it Bo?  You put the romantic at the social level.  Tsk Tsk. Very
> inapt.  Pirsig makes the opposite point, in Lila, I believe. Making
> the SQ fall into a classic/romantic dichotomy.  You assign the Romantic
> to the wrong level! I guess because you're an artist, and don't think
> about what you do as thinking.

No I don't catch any flaws. To "translate" ZAMM into Moqish ain't easy 
and what "problem you have tried to explain" is beyond me. Regarding 
me "putting the romantic at the social level" follow my reasoning: 

Premise 1) In ZMM Classic Quality equals SOM equals Intellect.

  "           2)  The Romantic/Classic equals Dynamic/Static 

"Classic Mind" parting company with "Romantic Mind" means 
"emerging out of " and as classic=intellect and the intellectual level (in 
the MOQ) emerges out of the social level then "romantic" must  
correspond to the social level. Elementary Dr Carl.   
 
But - again - the MOQ-ZAMM translation is a mind-boggling  business. 
In ZAMM there were just the intellectual level (SOM or Classic), but in 
the diagram this level is not seen as emerging from any social level 
rather the Romantic/Classic dualism emerging from Quality  (the same 
fallacy as the Quality/MOQ in LILA)  All this is the author Pirsig's failing 
to convey Phaedrus' simple but genial idea which was:.  

Pre-intellectual Quality spawning intellectual Quality (SOM) Translated 
into moqish: DQ spawning SQ! .

Thus when Pirsig began drawing diagrams and settled for the 
Romantic/Classic matrix he should have made Romantic Quality 
spawn Classic (intellectual or SOM) Quality. Period! And then with 
LILA's Dynamic/Static, the same thing: DQ spawning the 4 static 
levels. This would have  made LILA a smooth continuation of ZAMM 
and the MOQ a revolutionary creation.          

> Silly Bo.  You're being too self-denigrating, after all.  And here
> everybody's accusing you of self-aggrandizement.

????????????????
 
> Paul didn't catch that particular error, but he well defined your
> overall problem:
 
    Paul:

    But if the Sophists were part of the emergence of the 
    intellectual level - as you now accept - 

Me ACCEPTING the Sophists as part of the emergence of intellect??. 
That's been my position all the time while Paul and his pupil DMB hotly 
denies that. What kind of Kafkaesque farce is this?  

    and if they held a position which is contrasted, by Pirsig at 
    least, with the emerging subjective/objective dichotomy of 
    Plato, then what can we conclude? 

They opposed Socrates' & Plato's OBJECTIVE (Truth) approach but 
launched the SUBJECTIVE (all in man-made) approach and SOM was 
complete. 

    Either you accept what most of us have been saying all along - 
    that the intellectual level is not identical with SOM - or be 
    forced to conclude that your mysterious proto-fifth-level 
    emerged at the same time as the intellectual level. 

The MOQ as a 5th (static) level is left but it IS the metaphysics that 
contains the DQ/SQ system, thus Q-intellect only came to be with the 
MOQ! No paradox in spite of Paul's effort. Intellect = SOM and 
emerged along with the MOQ, SOM is also a MOQ creation.  

    Your only other option is to reject Pirsig's description of the 
    Sophists' position with respect to S/O whilst accepting the rest 
    of his description of this period. This means your "unearthing 
    of the true MOQ" has started to erode the validity of ZMM as 
    well as everything else. You'll be down to one paragraph soon!   

Yes, I definitely reject the Sophists representing DQ, no one can live in 
a dynamic state, the static range is our abode. They had either to 
represent the old Aretê (=social) era (but this was at least a thousand
years in the past) or represent SOM's subjectivism and everything 
points to it.

Bodvar