Marco, I am very pleased to continue diplomacy in a sea of trouble and
purposeless strife...
MARCO WROTE:
> I agree with Roger about the warning in the bottom of the map. But I
> would like to discuss the map, here: actually, maps are the only things
> we can discuss about.
ELEPHANT:
Well a fat lot of use maps would be if that remark were true.
MARCO:
> Hi Elephant,
>
> I want to pick up your suggestion for a possible catharsis.
>
>> Atleast we now know where to start next time.
>
> You finally agree I'm not numericist and I now become an individualist
> (a little step beyond, indeed :-). You probably remember that you' ve
> begun to put on me the blame of numericism when I offered a quote from
> Pirsig's SODaV paper:
>
> << [In Lila] The quality that was referred to in Zen and the Art of
> Motorcycle Maintenance can be subdivided into Dynamic Quality and static
> quality. Dynamic Quality is a stream of quality events going on and on
> forever, always at the cutting edge of the present. But in the wake of
> this cutting edge are static patterns of value. These are memories,
> customs and patterns of nature.>>
>
> [At least, it seems we individualists are... two (!). ]
ELEPHANT:
Yeah, old story: at this point I note the passages where Prisig talks about
the "aesthetic continuum", and go through Pirsig's discussion of "event",
and flag up the age old metaphorical significance of "stream" as used by
both James and Heraclitus, and so on and so forth. Do we need to go through
all that rigmarole again? Lord preserve us. I won't if you won't Marco!
MARCO:
> You suggest to restart from the "Event" term. Well, IMO there's no need
> to search a lot. Quality, that is Reality, is at the same time
> continuous (the HERE and NOW) and static (memories, customs, patterns of
> nature). Patterns are in the present, and condition how the present
> works. That's why I did not accept your point that the "essence" of
> language is not its "nature". Even intellectual patterns are HERE and
> NOW flowing: where and when else? Nothing is completely static and
> nothing is completely dynamic. That's why, in Pirsigian terms, the
> Q-Event is a never ending moment, HERE and NOW.
>
> At least, according to my edition of the map. :-)
ELEPHANT:
OK - your map works for you. But from my perspective you went wrong at the
first hurdle by saying that Quality "is at the same time continuous [...]
and static" as if it were just one thing, quality, that we were speaking of.
It isn't. There is Dynamic Quality, and there is Static Quality, and the
cut between these *two* things *IS THE FIRST CUT* as Pirsig keeps repeating
over and over and over and over and over and over again. More than this, it
is not just first, but the only cut that directly corresponds to the
essential reality of things - again this is a point Pirsig makes repeatedly.
MARCO:
> But this was not our only disagreement. There is another one, and it's
> about the patternmakers. In your opinion, intellect (language) is the
> only patternmaker. Again according to my edition of the map, they are
> four. My map says that when intellect works there are already
> "staticities", but it does not mean that those "staticities" come first.
ELEPHANT:
- just to stop you there and say that I do not understand this last
sentence. If the "staticities" are there "already", then necessarily those
staticities "come first" - this is just what the word "already" means.
Perhaps you intend something different from what you state.
MARCO:
> First of all, there is the cutting edge and the continuous HERE and NOW
> reality. When I say that intellect does not come first, you accuse me of
> numericism, failing to recognize that also my edition of the map says
> that first of all there is DQ.
ELEPHANT:
I seem to remeber that Rog has said some very intelligent things on this one
when he talks about the "quality intellect". Maybe we should both go back
and take a look - or maybe Rog himself will deny all knoweledge /
corroborate.
It shouldn't be forgotten that the here and now continuum is an *aesthetic*
continuum - and that means that existence of the love of the good is a
necessary part of the existence of this here and now. The two aren't
separate.
When I say that the intellect comes first, I mean first before objects with
static quality and first before quality events (the way I understand the
word "event"). I don't mean that 'intellectualisation' is prior to DQ: not
at all. (That would be just plain silly).
In one sense of "intellect" by which one might mean intuition of the good, I
think that the existence of DQ and of this "quality intellect" are one, or,
alternatively two "intellectualisations" of the same reality.
But it's mostly the other sense of "intellect", the sense attached to
"reason" and "thought" and such like that we've mostly been taking about -
that's the intellect that comes first before objects, but second after DQ.
I suppose it's possible that we entirely agree on all points - if so, let us
not be silent but find something new and interesting to discuss fruitfully
and with open ears. If we do agree on all points, then I for one have a lot
of deafness to make up for.
Elephant
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