Hi Michael (and all) --
On 2/7 at 12:24 PM MP wrote:
I do not deny that belief in God is culturally derived. What I am saying is that belief in g*d is deeper than culture. That it is some sort of inner human drive to seek transcendence. I dare say it is an innate (an not un-importantly notably unique) human drive to seek Quality in existence, Quality that transcends existence. That this need becomes manifest in culture and brings us God is not in question, but in its pure form it it is something else (hence: g*d). In my pedantry on this topic I am simply seeking to delve into what that something else is, esp. v.v. MoQ's Quality. And on topic; it is as such distinctly different from epistemology; it is precisely a drive to transcend the epistemological tableau in its entirety. Akin to the difference between knowledge and understanding.
By anyone's standards, this is a high-quality affirmation of man's innate spirituality. Even the nihilists here would be hard pressed to deny the "human drive to seek transcendence," athough they would insist that this is a static pattern of value moving toward Dynamic Quality.
The key word in this statement is "seeking". What we seek objectively we desire subjectively. Or, as Sartre put it, "we want the being of the other for ourselves". But because each self is estranged from beingness in its dichotomous condition of being-aware, our desire to "possess" the being we seek remains unrequited. As conscious beings we are left to realize value indirectly, in our experience of emerging things and their sensible properties. Since all knowledge is derived from the experience of finite being, we never know the value we seek "in its pure (or absolute) form". Primary value is not an object that can be realized subjectively, which is why we refer to it as "transcendent".
Now, whether you choose to call this transcendent value Quality, Divinity, Potentiality, Spirit, God, or Essence, I submit that it is the ultimate source of all experience and the driving force of human action. Putting aside the analogies and labels that divide us philosophically, we all share a common existential deficiency -- as human beings we are estranged from the undifferentiated source of our being. Yet, while we may choose to deny this truth, we are all equipped with the sensibility and reason to affirm it.
Unless I have misunderstood the thrust of Michael's statement, it is a persuasive argument for including theistic, valuistic, metaphysical, and nihilistic viewpoints in a forum dedicated to an exploration of Pirsig's Quality thesis. It will be interesting to see what objections, if any, are raised against this argument.
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/
