Kevin,

Kevin said:
Matt, where did the issue of language come from?  The passage I originally
quoted (Lila pp. 62-64) doesn't mention language. ...  Of course language is
an expression of thought.  But it's not the only expression.  I would
consider the myriad behaviors that are also expressions of people's
thoughts...and feelings.

Matt:
Its true, that is a place where I read a little bit into Pirsig.  The reason
I do is, one, when he says that for mystics metaphysics is like a menu with
no food, what is a metaphysics but words?  And two, I don't know what
"thought" is supposed to be if its not "language."  I don't know what
non-linguistic thought is.  True, what we call feelings may not be
linguistic, but when it comes to thinking I think its linguistic or
something else.  This is one of the places that my pantheon grows a little
bigger than just Pirsig and I've learned that thinking of language as trying
to "express" something is a bad idea (at least when trying to pick which
metaphors we use when doing philosophy).  I don't really want to get into
the issue, but if you want an idea of what I'm thinking, you could look at
my post (amidst my overlong conversation with DMB) "Language, SOM, and the
MoQ" (Nov 16).  The connection is that I think language-as-expression is a
mirror image of representationalism and should be ejected with the rest of
SOM.

Matt

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