Hi David -- In your attempt to show that "feeling" is actually recognized in Pirsig's selfless Quality hierarchy, you describe it as "implied" by quality:
> Quality implies feeling, we do not begin by experiencing > abstract qualities like blue, we experience engaged qualities > that always have a felt meaning for us. Experience is always > of qualities that are more or less experienced as better or > worse compared to other qualities, even indifference is an > aspect of experienced quality. We notice the various qualities > of our experience because they are aspects of change DQ or > re-cognition SQ. This epistemology seems oddly construed and is difficult to follow. If "we do not begin by experiencing abstract qualities," where does experience begin? I agree that quality (value) implies feeling, but I don't understand what you mean by experiencing "engaged qualities". Your reference to "re-cognition SQ" suggests that it may mean qualities recalled from memory. But there must be an initial encounter with the color blue, for example, in order for us to recall blue in a subsequent experience. Try this on for size. We are all "attuned" to Value because our core self is value-sensibility. But since the self is finite and dependent on the limited capacity of the organic sensory apparatus, we differentiate value into experience and interpret it as objective phenomena (beingness). Thus, the objects we experience are intellectualized constructs of Value perceived incrementally in space/time. What we imagine as our psycho-emotional response to objects and events in an external world is actually a "virtual reality" created by our neuro-sensory breakdown of Value. Like the developing organism, consciousness is a process in time, so that as the "field" of sensible value changes from one moment to the next, so does our apprehension of physical reality. This is why I view existence (i.e., being-aware) as a "dynamic" system, rather than static. The only "static" reality is the immutable source (Essence); but because we do not experience essentially but only differentially, the life-experience of each individual is a passing panorama of events. Sensible values are also "relational", so that our valuistic responses range from the ecstatic to the abhorrent, depending how we interpret a particular experience relative to our self. The values with which we freely identify in the life experience, however they may be objectified as being, constitute our essential reality. In Essence, they are what I call the individual's "value complement". Does this epistemology, or any part of it, fit the MOQ scheme? If not, I suppose future discussion is useless. Thanks, David. --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/
