[MD] The Tao of Quality - Verse 1

[X Acto]

Ian had said:
But the reason (SOMist intellectual artefact) at the start of your
piece is a different "reason" entirely from the expanded reason at the
end ... despite you (and I) happily using the same word.

Ron:
If we take the term as a generalization for that act and ability to criticaly think,
(which I believe is how the term is commonly used) then that distinction is secondary
within the context of my arguement of whether or not Quality or Tao is benefited
by that ability (to reason) critically.
 
The form of reason known as SOM esoterically by our own circle, objectivism, physicalism
if you will, that whole cultural assumptive attitude towards everyday life, appears to be reason
and an aweful lot of folks take it to be so, but once we take a close look at what exactly
those reasons are for our beliefs we find that it is often built on inaccurate assumptions.
 
If we expand a house, it still fits the description and meaning of that term "house" in the genera
of that term although it's particulars may change in experience rendering it more useful (better)
or less.
 
 
On Fri, Mar 8, 2013 at 4:10 PM, X Acto <xacto at rocketmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> [Robert Pirsig]
> I think, furthermore, that all his metaphysical mountain climbing did
> absolutely nothing to further either our understanding of what Quality is or
> of what the Tao is. Not a thing.
> That sounds like an overwhelming rejection of what he thought and said, but
> it isn't. I think it's a statement he would have agreed with himself, since
> any description of Quality is a kind of definition and must therefore fall
> short of its mark. I think he might even have said that statements of the
> kind he had made, which fall short of their mark, are even worse than no
> statement at all, since they can be easily mistaken for truth and thus
> retard an understanding of Quality.
> No, he did nothing for Quality or the Tao. What benefited was reason. He
> showed a way by which reason may be expanded to include elements that have
> previously been unassimilable and thus have been considered irrational.
>
> [Krimel]
> Notice that refrain? Yet some are convinced that after doing nothing for the
> Tao in his first book, Pirsig wrote a second to demolish it.
>
> I think not. I think he proceeds in order to benefit reason, or as James
> would put it conceptualization. That is, chopping the world into measurable
> parts. But he reiterates in Lila no metaphysics can to anything for the Tao.
> Not a thing.
>
> As he points out we are overwhelmed by "irrational elements crying for
> assimilation." This is an important point amplified by Dan Ariely and the
> behavioral economists. We are at our core irrational. But irrational does
> not mean incoherent or even incorrect. It means other than rational;
> nonalgorithic. We do not navigate our lives with reason. Reason itself
> emerges as an artifact, as a technique, as a process for assimilating the
> irrational. But reason does nothing for the Tao, or for Quality. Not a
> thing.
>
> [Ron sez]
> I have to disagree with that and here is why:
> Although reason is indeed an artifact and comes posterior in experience it is also
> helpful to see it as an evolutionary extension in the navigation of our lives. reason
> improves our lives, it makes them better. Therefore it most certainly improves
> the tao.
> Rendering the unintelligible intelligible was considered the operation of the divine
> by the ancient Greeks and infered (to them) a hint at the nature of the dynamic.
> The arguement was not about if something "is" or "is not" but rather what held
> the most meaning in experience.
>
> The question to ask, when we inquire into whether or not reason does anything
> for Quality is this: What does it mean to live a "good" life?
>
> In the end I think this becomes the point and conclusion of Pirsigs aim, he improves
> Quality by expanding and clarifying reason. Or why else get involved.
>
>
>
>
> ..
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