Marsha -- You don't want to make sense; you want to make poetry. You described yourself when you said: "all she really wants to do is dance." That's why we're talking past each other.
Pirsig avoided defining Value by claiming that "everybody knows what it is". If that were true, nobody would be calling it the "primary empirical reality". Instead they (you) are "redefining" it to fit the mystical equation: Value = Quality = experience = event = ALL. But the dance goes on ... > Static patterns of value are relational. So yes, I can imagine Value > before sentient beings. I can imagine Mars and Venus having value > without humans differentiating and explaining them. Man is the > measure of all things only within the pattern systems of which he is > apart. And only those patterns that he thinks he understands. Will > you agree that there is a limit to human understanding? Certainly I agree that human understanding it limited. I've been saying this all along. That's why we experience reality in finite increments called time. It's why we can never see the Whole of reality, but only its beingness fragmented into discrete objects and events. We don't experience our subjective selves as part of this objective reality, but only as "attached" to it by value. What we don't understand is that the bits and pieces that we experience are our own projections of this value. When we extract value from reality, we reduce it to beingness -- things and events experienced in space/time. Existence is the illusion that reality is a differentiated, evolving relational system. That is the "limited human understanding" of reality. I don't think this is a contradiction of Pirsig's basic concept, except that his metaphysical premise is flawed. Value cannot be ultimate reality because it depends on a differentiated subject to sense it. Therefore, there is no value without a subject/object dichotomy. > It's relationships of value to relationships of value to > relationships of value to relationships of value etc. etc. etc. That > cannot be confined to a dictionary definition. No, and it can't be considered a logical theorem, either. Relationships ad infinitum are meaningless without a primary source or cause. That's a philosophy without substance, a dance without the music. [Ham, previously]: > Value cannot be primary unless your concept of ultimate reality is > differentiated existence, subjectively realized. I assume from your > "special definition" that you exclude the possibility of a metaphysical > reality. [Marsha]: > If by 'metaphysical reality' do you mean theology? > Then yes I do exclude it. Theology is a word most people associate with a Supreme Being. Have I ever defined Essence as a Being? That's a red herring, Marsha, and I'm sure you know it. One can valuistically call what is absolute "supreme", but this relational description has no metaphysical significance. > There are times when I can agree that there is a correlation between > yours and the MOQ, but then you go off on this anthropomorphic > point-of-view, and then the similarities seem to fall apart. I do not have an "anthropomorphic point of view". That means positing the universe in the human form. I DO have an "anthropocentric" perspective, however, which is quite different. It means that existence is Essence perceived as proprietary to the human subject. You can talk about levels and patterns 'til the cows come home, but you will never convince me that the individual is not the focal center of experience. All knowledge comes from human experience, all experience is derived from value, and all value is perceived by human beings. (That's my "reality equation") Fundamental to this equation is the absolute, undifferentiated, immutable Essence which is its primary source. (Nihilists notwithstanding.) Essentially yours, 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/
