[MD] Post-Intellectualism

[John Carl]

Good Monday morn Dan,

> >>
> > Jc: Absolutely.  Good readers are more precious than gold, to a good
> > writer. There's not as many good readers as there used to be, I think.
> > Maybe I'm wrong.  I do live in California.  I don't know anyone, outside
> of
> > my family, that reads.  Books I mean.  They can *read* of course.
>
> Dan:
> I used to own a carpet cleaning business. I'd go into 500 houses a
> year and I recall how seldom it was to see books in those houses.
> Televisions? Gadzooks at the televisions!
>
>
Jc:  That sounds about right.


> >
> > Dan:
> >
> > But paying for a review smacks of coercion. Am I going to lie to my
> >> potential readers in order to sell books. No. And no reputable author
> >> will.
> >>
> >>
> > Jc:  I'll kidnap them and tie them up and make them listen... Nah, jk.  I
> > don't know how to write to bunches of people I don't know.  Too much back
> > explanation required.
>
> Dan:
> Just write to one person then.
>

Jc:  Yes, I think that is key.  Especially for me.  I'm not good at
addressing groups in print.  I don't do too bad at public speaking, when I
can get instant feedback on the reactions to my words, but print is a
distance communication.


>
> > Jc:  It can't.  That's the paradox.   Each side of the self/reality
> > dichotomy can be used against stuckness on the other side.    If they are
> > stuck in self, you argue their reality and if they are stuck in reality(
> as
> > in scientific materialism)  you point them to their definition of self
> and
> > point to it's weakness as a postulate.
>
> Dan:
> Well, I can see why Ciarin doesn't come to moq.discuss. They'd tear
> the poor guy apart. Not me, of course. They.
>
>
Jc:  :)

I've been seeing his name pop up in a blog I read - Just Four Men. I don't
know if its the same guy, but it seems like him.  He's a good writer, I'll
give him that.  And there was a definite Pirsigian angle to his tale of
going to school to study philosophy and being unable to get anyone to
actually engage him and his ideas.  They were all "we're not here to learn
what YOU think".  I bet that's pretty common, actually.

>
> Dan:
>> You're talking about two different levels... snap reflexes so far as
>> animals go relate to biological patterns. Philosophers and their ideas
>> relate to intellectual patterns.
>>
>>
> Jc:  Ok, but if we're walking in the woods, and we hear a heavy snapping
of
> brush, our cultural definitions shoot the word "bear" into our
> consciousness and we have a history of seeing bears in this section and
our
> biology shoots adrenaline into our bloodstream and I doubt if much
> philosophophizing gets done at the time, because philosophy, or reflective
> thought, which we call intellectual thinking, is disconnected, to a
certain
> extent, from the immediate now.  But everything else, in an individual,
> doesn't happen in levels - it just happens.
>
> I don't know what that has to do with what we were talking about, but its
> interesting to me.  I never thought of it quite like that.  The hot stove
> analogy reminded me -there are no levels in nature, only in an
intellectual
> scheme which creates them.  But once created, they have to mesh with
> experience.  All static things decay and die, including static
intellectual
> patterns unless the impetus of experience, keeps them alive.  When they
> stiffen (into religion) they lose their dynamic touch and die.
>
> Ye who are anti-religious, beware of making a religion out of it.

Dan:
> This is a bit of an aside but I've been considering something for a
> few days now and your words reminded me of it just now:
>
> If there is a genuine need, it will be met.
>
> I don't pretend to understand this statement but I know it is true. In
> fact, I'm pretty sure I have never come across a truer statement in my
> life. But to me, the statement doesn't reflect the same truth that it
> might for others. What do I mean by that?
>
> We do not possess Quality. Quality possesses us. So to 'have' a
> genuine need is a misnomer. Read the statement again. If there is a
> genuine need, it will be met. Most people read this and proceed to
> make fun of it. They say: oh, I need this and I need that but I never
> receive it so the statement is just a lot of rot. What they don't stop
> to realize is: the statement doesn't say if you 'have' a need, it will
> be met.
>
> What is a genuine need? And who or what is 'it' that meets that need?
> I think that ties in with the intellectual schemes that you mentioned
> but it also depends upon the context and the cultural mores that
> surround the questioning. Most people want to know what's in it for
> them. Period.
>
> Someone here mentioned Alan Watts. I don't recall who it was and I'm
> too lazy to look back and see. Anyway, if you check out his book: The
> Book: The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are:
>
>
> http://www.amazon.com/Book-Taboo-Against-Knowing-Who-ebook/dp/B005LALG9S/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1401662664&sr=1-1&keywords=allan+watts+books
>
> you'll find this excerpt which I find apropos here:
>
> "Coming to our senses must, above all, be the experience of our own
> existence as living organisms rather than “personalities,” like
> characters in a play or a novel acting out some artificial plot in
> which the persons are simply masks for a conflict of abstract ideas or
> principles. Man as an organism is to the world outside like a
> whirlpool is to a river: man and world are a single natural process,
> but we are behaving as if we were invaders and plunderers in a foreign
> territory."
>
> Dan comments:
>
> If there is a genuine need, it will be met. See? There is no us
> against them, no human vs the world... there is only genuine needs
> being met. To me, that is the beauty of the MOQ... it informs us that
> we are not separate beings standing apart from the world of objects.
>
> Rather than continually striving against the river, jump into it
> bodily and boldly.
>
> End of aside...
>
>
Jc:   Nice.  Another book I got at the same time as ZAMM and Alan Watts was
Jacob Needleman's Sense of the Cosmos.  He puts it like this:

"Plato, we may recall, understood by the word eros a striving for a new
creation through participation in something more fundamentally beautiful
and real....And then there is that most mysterious of ideas: God is love.
How are we to untangle all this?  How can we begin to approach the idea
that love is a property of reality, whether we call that reality God or the
great universe?  Unless we  find some way into this idea we shall
inevitably remain stranded with the sundry modern psychological
perspectives on love: as something which affirms the ego or gratifies
sexual need."



>> Jc:  Interpretation is the will in the present, to understand some past,
>> with an eye toward the future.
>>
>> That's Royce.  Does it harmonize with Pirsig at all?  I keep wondering.
>
> Dan:
>> I would say that according to the MOQ, interpretation is always in the
>> past, not the present. This unfolding moment correlates to direct
>> experience, or Dynamic Quality.
>>
>>
> Jc:  There is the interpretation and then there is the act of interpreting
> and  Royce was talking about the latter rather than former because it's
> interpretation which translates the memories of the past, right now, for
> some future end or goal.  You can't have an interpretation without a past,
> or without an act of will in the present, toward some projected future.
> The act of will is a moral act, and Royce like Pirsig holds to a moral
> cosmology, and like Pirsig, to the theoretical nature of philosophy.  All
> we can do is paint pictures and hang them in a gallery.  There is no
> absolute object to copy and get right.

Dan:
> The interpretation is the past, that includes act of will, the
> projected future, and anything else we know. Interpretation is always
> static quality. The 'now' is direct experience before the
> intellectualization, before the interpretation. In other words,
> Dynamic Quality.
>
>
Jc:  How about this then, the act of interpreting is the act of caring.

> Jc:   I'm sure there is a way to approach pouring concrete artistically,
> but in the economic world that pays for the concrete on a big job, all
that
> matters is getting it done before the stuff sets and getting it done
right.
>   The boss paying the wages, likes a good profit so there's not a lot of
> people to help and  there's a lot of hard labor to be done and a feeling
of
> satisfaction at the end of the day.  But when you do a couple a week, for
> years, you don't sign your name to the thing.  Craftsmanship is a source
of
> pride, but it's not art.  And I really don't see any way it rationally
> could be, since the aims are so different.  Craftsmanship has social
goals,
> art aims at the highest level there is and is largely an individual thing.
> Does that mean its more moral to be a painter than a brick mason?
>
> Not at all, because life isn't just one level or another.  Life is the
> levels in balanced harmony.

Dan:
> I would say that most craftsmen, like the welder in ZMM, have glossed
> over the artistry of their work. They do what they do and that's it.
> They grow used to their work not being noticed. When someone
> compliments them on a job well done, like the narrator does in ZMM,
> it's almost like they think they're being made fun of. That doesn't
> mean what they do and do well is not art. They've simply forgotten
> that.
>
>
Jc:  I would say rather, that they have forgotten the part of them that is
an artist.



>
> > Jc:  Anything can be art, but everything can't be art.  That would  make
> > the term meaningless.
>
> Dan:
> Sure. Art arises through caring. Some people just don't care.
>


Jc:  A craftsman cares, that's for sure.  It's just that his scope of
caring is very limited, like intellect itself.  His parameters are
precisely defined by objective considerations.  +/- defined tolerances.
Within those parameters, he takes artistic care - that is, the same kind of
caring that an artist takes and by "artist"  I mean one who specialized in
expanded (expanding) parameters.  Craftsmen are playing a finite game,
Artists an infinite one.


>
> >
> >>> Dan:
> >>> I think Dynamic Quality becomes synonymous with experience in the MOQ.
> >>> I know... I've said it before but it's worth repeating. There are no
> >>> absolutes in the MOQ, including Dynamic Quality.
> >>>
> >>>
> >> Jc:  There may not be explicit absolutes, but the will of Bob sure
> >> instantiates as such implicitly, don't you think?
> >
> > Dan:
> >> I think Robert Pirsig says somewhere that the MOQ will work until
> >> something better comes along. He has always struck me as a pretty
> >> self-effacing guy and I somehow doubt he would appreciate his words
> >> being taken as absolute, either explicitly or implicitly.
> >>
> >>
> > Jc:  A man has the right to own the integrity of his  work, especially
> when
> > that work IS a work of art.  Something better than the MoQ?  Fine, but
> the
> > MoQ made better?  Or different?  It's like leaning over a painter's
> > shoulder and "improving" the brushstrokes.  It's rude.  But isn't that
> what
> > we do with philosophers?  All the time?  After all, that's what keeps
> them
> > alive.  That's what keeps Plato alive, after all these years.   I think
> > Pirsig is pretty amazing and even moreso, for tossing his philosophy into
> > the ring like he did.  Lila's child was an incredible thing, when you
> think
> > about it.
>
> Dan:
>
> Lila's Child changed my life so I'm probably prejudiced, but yes, it
> was and it is an incredible thing. Until Mr. Pirsig took an active
> interest in my work, I had no incentive to write. Now, I do.
> Everything has changed. There are some debts that cannot be repaid,
> and that's one.
>
>
Jc:  I agree, and I disagree.  The debt can be repaid and you're doing so
by writing yourself.  A good writer is paid in the attention of a good
reader, and you are a good reader, Dan.

But even more repaid, by being incorporated into future writing.  Bob wrote
about Plato, thus keeping Plato "alive"  Some future Plato, some day,
writes about Bob and his-story continues.  That's paid back.  You are  part
of the paying process.


>
> >>> >John:
> >>> > Altho to be sure, Royce defines Absolute, as the past.  Whatever has
> >>> > been done, has been done forever and permanently and thus SQ = the
> >>> > past and thus SQ = the absolute.  So I need to work on it, I know.
> >>> > But isn't that what we're all here for?
> >>>
> >>> Dan:
> >>> I disagree. The past is always being altered.
> >>>
> >>>
> >> Jc:  No, I disagree.  Even if there are no other absolutes, the past is
> >> absolute.  You may alter your memory of an event, but any event,
> > happening,
> >> has absolutely  happened.  There's some doubt about Shrodinger's cat,
> > until
> >> it's dead, then its dead.
> >>
> >
> > Dan:
> >> I just read that Tupac is alive and well and living in eastern
> >> Pennsylvania with Elvis and Schrodinger's cat. :-)
> >>
> >> The past is forever shifting and changing with the times. The
> >> conqueror writes the history, not the vanquished. For a hundred years
> >> or better it was known as the Battle of Wounded Knee rather than the
> >> massacre it was. That is not an isolated incident.
> >>
> >>
> > Jc:  You see, you argue that the past was truly different than the
> > explanations given you as a child, and you are right.  The actual past,
> is
> > the absolute that we try and formulate with our conceptions and
> teachings.
> > In a sense, it's an unattainable absolute because we can't go back and
> > bring it again, altho electronic media mimics the sounds and images of
> the
> > past, it's important to remember that those are imitations, and the real
> > past is something that we have to work out with other people and we can
> > only get close, never exactly there.
> >
> > It's an interesting viewpoint, I have to say.
>
> Dan:
> I would say there is no 'real' past. The past is what we make it. Like
> all our perceptions, the past is filtered through our cultural lens.
>
>
Jc:   Any present you can conceptualize in, is "past" by the time you
conceptualize it.  So in a sense, all knowledge is past.  But that doesn't
mean it's "only in your head".  So is reality, but that doesn't make it
"only".  But I agree, reality is filtered through our cultural leans.
Therefore the  past is the same as reality.  But there's more to reality
than the past!  This fits so well, all of our experience and it also
illustrates DQ.  If the past is SQ, then DQ is the future.  The future is
undefined. it isn't a simple derivative of the past, for there is an act of
will, in between the two. Where both come into being.  An act of will that
is fundamentally ethical in nature.



> >
> >>>
> >>> Dan:
> >>> Well, if you mean the grass is always greener on the other side of the
> >>> fence, no. That is the danger of desiring something better. Once we
> >>> obtain the fruits of that desire, we often times discover we are
> >>> wrong.
> >>>
> >>> Just do what needs doing.
> >>>
> >>>
> >> Jc:  the only "need" is betterness.  :)
> >> If there is no urge for betterness, there is certainly no doing.
> >
> > Dan:
> >
> >> When we begin to artfully engage the world, we start to see the
> >> futility of seeking to better anything.
> >
> >
> >
> > Jc:  I don't know, Dan.  When I scratch an itch, it seems better to me
> that
> > it doesn't itch anymore.  Peace of mind is a goal, because so often
> > something comes to our attention that we want to affect and we don't get
> > peace of mind until its done.  If it was all futile, I don't think I'd
> have
> > peace of mind about THAT.
>
> Dan:
> If you have an itch, scratch it. If you're hungry, eat. If you're
> thirsty, drink. If something needs doing, do it. To me, that's peace
> of mind. That is the essence of artful engagement with the world.
>
>
Jc:  If it feels good, do it.

Dan!  I didn't know you were a hippy, I thought you were a cowboy?

The problem is, you have to have some background.  "if something needs
doing" is a judgement that comes with experience and calls for a sacrifice
of selfish interests to dive in and get it done.  Not to mention a load of
gumption.

I agree with you, basically.  But its not as simple as it seems.


Dan:

Now, lots of people tend to think my life isn't what they believe it
> should be so they offer me little tidbits of well-meant advice. Most
> of the time, I smile and nod and pretend I'm listening.
>

Jc:  You and I have that i n common.

Dan:


>
> They desire something better for me, bless them. I realize that. On
> the other hand, they have no idea about the path I'm on. They presume
> that they know about my path simply because they believe they know me.
> They believe I am just like them. I'm not.
>
>
Jc:  I think that comes from all those Tv's  and lack of books.  People do
tend to have a monolithic view of what life should be like, and it comes
from everybody tuned into the similar stations.  Sure, "Leave it to Beaver"
has evolved into "Two Men and a Boy" But the principle remains that those
are the observed culture-bearers of our times.  And they're all insanely
materialistically oriented.    I know I'm over-reacting to it all, but
somehow that seems to be the right thing to do, in the moment.

Dan:


> If I perceive something better, I know it right off. I don't have to
> seek for it. On the other hand, when I begin casting about for
> something better, watch out. Odds are I'll only be fooling myself.
>
>

Jc:  Maybe.  But it's a satisfying kind of fooling.

> >
> > Dan:
> >
> >
> >
> >> Rather, by doing what is
> >> needed, by cultivating compassion, and by recognizing our inability to
> >> foresee the future no matter how prescient we had heretofore believed
> >> we were, we tend to allow the grass to grow by itself.
> >>
> >>
> > Jc:  you picked on a sore spot with me.  I live in a community where I
> have
> > to keep the landlord, and my wife, happy, and they don't like long grass.
> > I explain how it's better for the butterflies and the bees and the soil
> and
> > water retention and all the other plants and the garden and the birds.
>  But
> > they say its ugly, so I mow it, even tho I hate doing so.  But when I'm
> > done, I have to admit it does look good.  And I've comprimised by letting
> > it grow pretty long between mowings and not doing the edges.
>
> Dan:
> Ha!  Man after my own heart. I prefer nature and all its glory.
> Luckily, a good deal of my yard is privacy fenced so I mow what shows
> and allow what I call my backyard garden to grow on its own. It's a
> jungle, mostly, but I love it. Birds of all sorts are attracted to the
> 'weeds' that grow tall and luxuriously and not just during the warm
> months either. During the winter flocks of tiny multicolored finches
> live out there feeding off the seeds still clinging to the old growth.
> I also have a rescue raccoon that hangs out back there but I rarely
> see her except during the full moon.
>
> Jc:  Somewhere I saw this woman living in Minnesota with her front yard
like that, a jungle of "weeds" and she had to keep all kinds of signs up
for the neighbors about it being a bee sanctuary.  She couldn't have gotten
away with it in North Dakota, I don't think.  Neighbors are pretty rigid
about how the neighborhood is supposed to look.

I confess there is a beauty in a garden, that is beyond compare and even
the animals know this - they flock to a gardern that is well-though out and
fecund.  The trick is to change the land slowly, a few changes at a time
and in harmony with what is already growing.  Weeds are the information
carriers to the gardener which tranmit the ideas of what will grow well
there.  Gardening is the ultimate art - lifelong and infinitely expansive
and inclusive.



> >John:
> > We are fortunate, in this county, to have abundant water.  It came from
> all
> > the Chinese labor during the gold rush and money to pay them.  Some
> 70,000
> > acres of high mountain watershed, diverted into reservoirs and canals and
> > we get irrigation water all summer long.  Even while the rest of
> California
> > is going through a drought, we got grass that keeps getting watered and
> > needing to
>
> Dan:
> Yes, I've heard about the drought. Good thing you are not affected.
>
>

Jc:  We are affected by fire season.  Just wait... shivers.  We had a big
one here in '88.  The Rough and Ready Fire
<http://www.areyoufiresafe.com/about/49er-fire/faces-of-the-49er-fire/> it
was called, tho it started in North San Juan.  Some friends of ours built a
couple houses on the property it started on.  I was packing up my stuff to
leave R&R on the day it started and was glad to be out of it.  It finally
did come through the place, but all the watered lawns created enough
defensible space that only a few trees and some fence posts burned that
time.




> Jc;  And when we apply our human words, to non-human nature, we are prone
> to mistaken interpretation.  Is my point.

Dan:
> If you understand science at all, then you know mistakes are the norm.
> That's how we learn. Old theories are constantly being replace with
> new ones. And really, the only way we can interpret nature is through
> our humanness, so to speak.
>
>
Jc:  Right here, is where my entry point into the problem of values in the
first place.  The Arrogance of Humanism.  It's not that we have anything
better than our human reason, to figure out the world, its how much
confidence we place in human reason, as our source of values.  Nature
didn't obtain values from human reason, human reason obtains values from
nature.  Those values are the heart of our evolutionary being.  So first,
do no harm.  Respect.

I got into it with Arlo a bit, on the subject of humanism but I have to
mention to you all, that Eherenfeld predicted three consequences of
Humanism that have come true:  The inevitability  of nuclear power plant
accidents - because all factors cannot be controlled (this was also
confirmed by subsequent chaos theory) 2.  The losing race between
antibiotics and staphylococcus. (he was an MD)  3.  Greenhouse gases
affecting our planetary weather.  So I think he was pretty right on, after
all this time.

> Nature is more a codependency, than a competition.  Competition is a human
> > term.
>
> Dan:
> Competition doesn't mean to utterly defeat one another. Rather, it
> tends to make all parties stronger and more resilient. Now, when you
> start talking about the monarch butterfly, you have to bring Monsanto
> into the equation. We don't see monarchs in this part of the country
> any longer, thanks to the prolific use of weedkiller which has wiped
> out all the milkweed plants that used to flourish here.
>
>
Jc:  That's good, right?  Man has won the competition against butterflies,
and milkweed.

I just don't think competition is the right term for the way levels
interact and resonate.  Intellectual science is not in competition with
biological beings. It's more complicated than that.  Competition is a term
that mainly pertains to social patterns.

>> Dan:
>> The MOQ is not an abstract theory divorced from actual individuals.
>> You seem to be making it into something it isn't in an effort not to
>> understand what Robert Pirsig is saying.
>>
>>
> Jc:  All the years I read and discussed Pirsig, I never had any problems
> with what I read.  But when I joined here, I started to have problems
> because I found out that my interpretations differed from others.  I guess
> that's how you get Sunni and Shia, in the world.

Dan:
> We all perceive our environment through our personal histories. My
> interpretation of reality is different than yours. The same thing
> applies to the MOQ. To me, that's what makes this discussion group so
> fascinating.
>
>

Jc:  Agree!


>> Dan:
> >> So now you're saying the MOQ is both a traditional and a bad
> >> metaphysics? "...ethical ground of types" seems to correspond quite
> >> nicely to what the MOQ is saying or perhaps I am misreading it.
> >>
> >>
> > Jc:  Like I said, it's a certain interpretation of Pirsig I have problems
> > with.  The MoQ itself, not so much.  But yes, I agree with what Randall
> > Auxier saying about Royce, sounds a lot like Pirsig to me.  But then
> there
> > are many interpreters of Royce, who read him as an absolutist and that's
> > not Pirsig at all.  But then, according to Auxier, neither is it Royce!
> > Whew.  It's a good thing we have infinite time, to work all this out.
>
> Dan:
> I've been on this list a long time and I have yet to see anyone else's
> interpretation of the MOQ that I agree with. I think we come close
> many times, and I also think each of us are blind to certain nuances
> that others can lend us insight into.
>
>
Jc:  True, but mystifying.  Why can't everybody just see it like I do?  Heh.


> Jc:  I define marriage, rather simplistically, biologically, rather than
> socially.  Coyotes mate for life, then their "married".  Two people live
> together and sleep together?  They're married.  The Church likes to
control
> things nowadays, but who married Abraham and Sarah?  She went into his
tent
> and they got married.  I know this isn't the usual way to define marriage,
> but it seems simpler to me.

Dan:

> Sure, in some states they have what they call common law marriages
> where if man and woman live together a specified period of time, they
> are deemed to be legally married. I think in Arkansas that applies to
> a brother and sister too. :-)
>
> A marriage may well take place in a church and have religious
> undertones, but legally, it enables a couple to share in certain
> benefits not afforded those who only co-habitate. Thus the fight for
> same sex marriages.
>
>
Jc:  sure.  and its only logical that the state recognize any true union.
If there is a special marriage benefit, when you get divorced you should be
liable for all the back taxes you saved.  Let's see how popular THaT would
be.


Yours,

JohnC