Hi David, and all --
> I'd suggest standard empiricism assumes SOM and therefore > that you need an epistemology to answer the skeptic. > > Radical empiricism says kick out the SOM concepts, > the only reality is experience: there is no world beyond > experience that we are trying to make contact with. > There is no special set of experiences that are more > certain and objective than others. What we experience > is real, it is all real. What we might call an illusion is > real, we see it, but it might not be something we can > kick, which is just another real experience. Very well put, David. I think this statement neatly clarifies the ontology Pirsig has outlined, and I'm happy to say it is fully consistent with my own view of existential reality. Now that you've established a platform for empirical (i.e., experiential) reality, we do need to support it, as you suggest, with a plausible epistemology. For instance, is there "something we can kick"? What is the "something" that lies beyond experience and connects us all with the non-illusory reality? Pirsig maintains that this something is Quality. But is not Quality, whether sq or DQ, an experienced derivative of something more fundamental, specifically a primary source? Quality, it seems to me, doesn't just happen. In the experienced world, quality or value is something that we attribute to objects. In other words, it's a SO phenomenon. I submit that what we call value is what connects subject to object in experience. I view it epistemologically as the "attractive force" that works in opposition to the "dividing force" of the SOM dichotomy. In that sense, Value balances the equation by giving meaning and "essentiality" to the objects of experience. Value (or quality) may not be the ultimate reality, but it is something "we can kick" as finite agents of that reality. And, by loving it or kicking it, we each identify our particular valuistic orientation to that reality from which we are all estranged. Is it not at least conceivable that such an epistemology defines the very purpose of human existence? Does anyone want to toss this idea around as it might apply to the MoQ? All responses will be gratefully received. Thanks to all, Ham Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
