[MD] Definitions.

[Ian Glendinning]

OK, so what about those additional words.

Yes, Pirsig wrote them, and yes we've debated them many times before -
but as I've replied before, they represent Pirsig describing the
problem he's dealing with - the problem we're dealing with.

NOT a bunch of words that define the solution - not a definitive
statement which removes the radical empirical nature of Q / DQ / sq at
the heart of MoQ - their underlying indefinable nature.

Anyway - so we agree definitions form a basis, a foundation (a
starting point , I had already said, including mine, I'd said) -
useful tools but not necessarily constraints on the quality we need to
achieve.

Two further points.

Of course we're using more than intellect in discussing Q / Dq / sq -
just like Pirsig does (More than SOMist intellect anyway, always happy
we also discuss alternative evolved forms of intellect.)

And finally, I've said it before, but it's highly ironic that Dave as
our best exponent of  Pirsig's mythos metaphor - as recently as the
Bozeman Chautauqua - is also Pirsig's Bulldog in defending Pirsig's
particular words as somehow definitive. (Love ya Dave.)

Ian
(PS I only made one comment "against" definition. I simply said to
Arlo that I disagreed with his suggestion that they were constraining
- except where we choose them to be so, in the confines of some
specific intellectual debate. I said the constraint was a choice.)

On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 11:22 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Ian said:
> Strawman alert. Who suggested Pirsig wasn't careful (even skilled and poetic) with his words?
>
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> dmb says:
> Okay. But what about the rest of it? Don't you have any reply to this part.....
>
>
> "Definitions are the FOUNDATION of reason. You can't reason without them." (Emphasis is Pirsig's. ZAMM, page 214.) "A metaphysics must be divisible, definable and knowable, or there isn't any metaphysics." (Pirsig in Lila, page 64.)
>
>
> Now, has anyone ever said - or even implied - that dictionary definitions are the end point for the MOQ or anything else. No, of course not. This is a straw man, one that interprets the basic of demands of intellectual quality (coherence, logical consistency, etc.) as something that's beneath them. The implied claim, it seems, is that the contradictory use of terms is not a very basic failing but quite the opposite. It is above and beyond words, Ian claims, because "evolution involves people using the language beyond existing understood explicit meanings".
>
>
> You see how that works? The use of contradictory word salads isn't a problem or an error to be criticized, it's above all that stupid static stuff like definitions and metaphysics. Only a pedant is interesting in stuff like that, right? Nope, I really that that's just ego-driven nonsense wherein those accused of very basic errors reply with a transparently self-serving dismissal of the criticism.
> ....Does anyone really think they are too deep, too mystical or too special to be bothered with the basic demands of intellectual quality? You're too evolved to be bothered with definitions? That sounds like the ego is doing the talking, not intellect.
>
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