Marsha, Platt [Ron mentioned] --
[Marsha]:
Reductionism: "Everything in the Universe can be understood in terms of quarks and leptons."
[Platt]:
Nicely summarized. Ask a reductionist "Where do quarks and leptons come from?" you'll get a blank stare or from an honest reductionist the reply, "Don't ask."
Quarks and leptons notwithstanding, the universe is understood in terms of subjects and objects. This has nothing to do with theoretical physics or scientific principles. It's an empirical truth that we know from experience. Just because we don't know precisely what objects are or what the nature of "selfness" is doesn't mean they don't exist or that they must be "explained away" in order for us to be "enlightened". That's no philosophical breakthrough; it's just plain foolishness.
If we insist on being reductionists, we need to acknowledge that fundamental division of existence beyond which all else is speculation. Although Descartes is no longer fashionable among the elitists, his Cogito stands as a lasting reminder that existence is an experiential duality.
Ron recently quoted LILA to reveal Phaedrus's train of thought on this issue:
"But he realized that sooner or later he was going to have to stop carping about how bad subject-object metaphysics was and say something positive for a change. Sooner or later he was going to have to come up with a way of dividing Quality that was better than subjects and objects. He would have to do that or get out of metaphysics entirely. It's all right to condemn somebody else's bad metaphysics but you can't replace it with a metaphysics that consists of just one word."
The problem with this line of reasoning is that metaphysics is not just "words" (one or many) but concepts explained by words. Pirsig tried to make the seven-letter word Quality a metaphysical concept, which it cannot be without an ontology to support it. So, "to come up with a way of dividing Quality that was better than subjects and objects," he substituted the adjectives "static" and "dynamic". Then, under the influence of native-American culture supplemented with a little peyote, he had an epiphany of sorts.
"To cling to Dynamic Quality alone apart from any static patterns is to cling to chaos. He saw that much can be learned about Dynamic Quality by studying what it is not rather than futilely trying to define what it is. Static quality patterns are dead when they are exclusive, when they demand blind obedience and suppress Dynamic change. But static patterns, nevertheless, provide a necessary stabilizing force to protect Dynamic progress from degeneration. Although Dynamic Quality, the Quality of freedom, creates this world in which we live, these patterns of static quality, the quality of order, preserve our world. Neither static nor Dynamic Quality can survive without the other."
The "chaos" he attributed to "Dynamic Quality alone" may have been a result of his altered state of mind, as there is no logic to support the view that a primary source is chaotic in the absence of patterns. On the contrary, a pure source -- Quality, Value, or Essence -- has no disparate elements but is homogeneous, whereas chaos is defined as "a confused heterogeneous agglomeration." Obviously, Phaedrus's focus was limited to what was "inside the box" (experiential patterns) rather than the primary source or nature of the box. In fact, the MoQ thesis never transcends the physical universe. It is a hierarchical ontology based on a euphemistic or "romantic" notion of Quality. As such the MoQ falls seriously short of what classical philosophers would regard as a metaphysics.
Whether physical existence is ultimately "real" or not, the S/O split is the fundamental reality of existence. We can't make a metaphysics out of objective reality any more than we can impart Quality to it. What is sadly missing in Pirsig's philosophy is the sensible agent, without which neither quality nor value can be realized.
Thanks for your time and, hopefully, your understanding, 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/
