[MD] atheistic and content

[Marsha]

Ham,

This "subjective agent" when looked for cannot be found.  There is  
experience as awareness, but all that can be said or thought about  
such awareness it is not: not this, not that.  I do not know how an  
explanation of such awareness can ever be true.  Quality, as  
unknowable, indivisable and undefinable, seems the best we can say; it  
is pure experience.

Your posts, of all, drive me tongue twisted.


Marsha




Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 13, 2010, at 3:29 AM, MarshaV <valkyr at att.net> wrote:

>
> Gav asks:
>
>
>> How does a concept evolve/grow/extend when it is seen
>> in the light of other concepts....?  This is a new type of dialectic,
>> in which the goal is not to synthesise or reduce, rather it seeks
>> to keep the contrasting elements in a kind of creative tension -
>> seeing what new ideas/insights are gained from these interrelations.
>> This is *creative philosophy*; philosophy has never really been
>> a search for truth, not even science is that (science is more about
>> a search for function)...philosophy is about love and wisdom....
>> As for the wisdom bit....what is wisdom?  Knowledge of the
>> implicate order or tao perhaps? and this is an intuitive knowledge
>> - a *knowing* rather than knowledge - knowledge *in action*.
>> Creative philosophy - I like that....sounds good.
>
> Marsha says:
>> I've always thought of the moq as an atheistic, anti-thesitic place
>> where I might be a religious person who doesn't believe in god,
>> or better yet, a place without such divisions as I and god.
>
> Gav responds:
>> You can't solve religious problems - they are mysteries.
>> How do you solve the tao? or the mystery of the cross.
>> Pirsig is naive here  Quality is nature; so quality is pantheistic?
>> Sounds like Spinoza. Pantheism is a theism.
>> Pirsig misconstrues faith; faith is at the heart of everything -
>> it is what it means to know oneself.  The delphic maxim and faith
>> are identical.  Intellectual truth?  What is that?  Intellectual  
>> truth
>> is existential truth - truth is not generalisable, truth is a  
>> pathless
>> land (krishnamurti).  Spirit and faith are existential terms.
>> Dropping existential criteria is at odds with an using a radically
>> empirical metaphysics.  It is incongruent.  From these annotations
>> Pirsig doesn't look much better than Dawkins.
>
> It's sad to see this forum degenerating into a lament for the  
> inadequacies of philosophy and transcendentalism.  Nihilism at its  
> best is an expression of discontent, of longing for the joy of the  
> believer when holding a belief is no longer acceptable.  Instead we  
> dwell on philosophilology -- wondering if James can be "reconciled"  
> with Royce, or Hegel with Northrop, or Strawson with Pirsig.  Or how  
> the "professionals" are stuck with recursion.  Oh, the futility of  
> it all!
>
> Cynicism has never been the heart of philosophy, nor will it satisfy  
> our quest for spiritual understanding.  Instead of excoriating  
> theism and glorifying atheism, might it not be more productive to  
> explore the reasons that mysticism and religion have for thousands  
> of years provided the valuistic and moral basis for human  
> civilization?  Indeed, the development of philosophy itself owes  
> much to the inspiration of gnostics and monastic thinkers.
>
> Actually, Marsha may have unknowingly put her finger on the nature  
> of man's discontent when she described her search for a "...place  
> where I might be a religious person who doesn't believe in god, or  
> better yet, a place without such divisions as I and god."  None of  
> us want to be "religious persons", but we all seek to satisfy our  
> spiritual needs.
>
> Why do you suppose we are spiritually unfulfilled?  Marsha has  
> answered that, too.  Because we all feel the "division between I and  
> god" as estrangement from the source of our existence.  We are, in  
> fact, lacking the 'essence' of our being.  Just what is that  
> essential source?  Mr. Pirsig has contented some by proposing that  
> it's Quality.  But we know Quality as our measure of value or  
> goodness.  To evaluate something as good or bad requires a cognitive  
> subject, yet Pirsig denies a subjective agent as anything but a  
> "pattern of Quality".  Obviously, this is an epistemological  
> paradox, for we can't appreciate (have an affinity for) value if it  
> is the very nature of our being.
>
> I'll stop here, because I've already made my point, and it's  
> unfortunately not a concept of the MoQ.  But just maybe it will  
> inspire others to come out of their nihilistic fog long enough to  
> consider the implications of my argument.
>
> Essentially yours,
> Ham
>
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