Hi Platt (Where is Dan, by the way?) --
To go directly to the main issue you raise as I see it:
[Ham]
Pirsig's reality avoids the individual and is totally wrapped up
in nature, evolution, and social systems. He sees DQ as a
fundamental principle of the objective world, and experience
as its mediator, which is a novel idea beautifully developed.
[Platt]:
Bypassing for a moment your erroneous statement that "He
sees DQ as a fundamental principle of the objective world . . ."
(DQ is a fundamental principle of Quality), permit me to
challenge your implied assertion that a "sensible agent" must
be an "anthropocentric reality" -- meaning I presume that
only human beings can be sensible agents.
DQ _is_ the fundamental Quality; its "principle" in the objective world is
to differentiate into static patterns (SQ). There is only one Quality as I
understand it, and the patterns are merely the way it is experienced.
Undifferentiated (unpatterned) Quality, therefore, is ultimate reality.
And, yes, human beings are the cognitive Value-sensible agents who define
the objective world.
Dagobert Runes defines "Agent" in the moral sense. "To be a moral , i.e.,
an agent to whom moral qualities may be ascribed and who may be treated
accordingly, one must be free and responsible, with a certain maturity,
rationality, and sensitivity -- which normal adult human beings are taken to
have." (This is the context in which I use the term 'agent'.) Again, Utoe
and other sensible creatures possess organic sensibility as needed to
survive in nature as a species. Their "choices" are genetically determined,
and they lack the value discrimination and cognitive ability to act as free
'agents'.
[Quoting "Lila's Child"]:
Platt: "As I understand it, the MOQ equates Quality with direct
experience. In turn, experience creates static patterns of value.
The problem is - how could inorganic static patterns be created
unless inorganic entities like atoms were able to experience?"
Pirsig: "I think the answer is that inorganic objects experience
events but do not react to them biologically, socially or intellectually.
They react to these experiences inorganically, according to the
laws of physics." (Annotation 30)
I'm sorry, but such answers still do not satisfy me. Why must inorganic
patterns be
created by objects or phenomena that have experience? Does a hurricane, a
light wave, or a billboard have experience? Pirsig says (in the first
quote) only that "experience creates static patterns". To most people that
implies _human_experience. When pressed to explain how objects
"experience", he invents a rationale that doesn't make sense. If atoms,
rocks, and houses do not react to Quality "biologically, socially or
intellectually", then they are behaving mechanically, according to the laws
of physics and thermodynamics. Physical behavior doesn't require
"experience" at all. In fact, the only reason for the question is the
assumption that any motion or change has to be a "reaction to experience".
Why? Just to support a philosopher's theory? Didn't Pirsig start out as a
chemistry student? Maybe he was dropped from the course after telling the
professor that litmus paper turns red because it doesn't like the taste of
acid. That makes about as much sense.
In my opinion, the Achilles heel of your Essence philosophy is
your belief that reality is "a concoction of my own proprietary
awareness." ... I simply cannot buy the idea that the universe did
not exist before I arrived on the scene, or that dinosaurs only
existed as bones because no human ever observed them in the
flesh, or that trucks only exist in the mind, an assertion that being
run over by one easily defeats.
For you the universe did not exist before your arrival. Pirsig himself said
"experience creates static patterns". Living beings have experience, and
experience is patterning our own 'being-in-the-world'. Without sensibility
there is no universe, but since all value-sensibility is a reflection of the
same primary source, experience is universal. Which is why existentialists
like Heidegger, Sartre, and Pirsig, not to mention the scientific
objectivists, insist that Being is primary to Essence -- even when that
essence is called Quality.
I'll concede that this takes a huge "leap of faith", and it's a concept I've
arrived at only recently. But look at it this way: Physicists have all but
rejected the "concreteness" of matter, leaving only energy or "vibrations"
to account for physical reality. Donald Hoffman and Merrill-Wolfe have
posited Consciousness as the fundamental reality, while Pirsig has opted for
Quality. Is Absolute Sensibility really so radical a concept in comparison
with these ontologies?
Be that as it may, always a pleasure to converse with you and read
your views, most of which I agree with, especially those regarding
the current sad state of affairs in the U.S., exemplified by a
presidential
wannabe who believes he has campaigned in 57 states.
A Harvard graduate no less.
Needless to say, the feeling is mutual, despite our philosophical
differences. Thanks for your kind references to my book, Platt, and rest
assured that I shall continue to pursue this line of reasoning against all
odds.
Essentially yours,
Ham
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