Matt: I haven't been following the conversation at all (so perhaps this has been brought up and is already in play), but anybody who wants to figure out the particular issue of DQ, perception and "sense of" need to take into account, in particular, this passage from Pirsig's SODV (page 14):
"In the third box are the biological patterns: senses of touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste. The Metaphysics of Quality follows the empirical tradition here in saying that the senses are the starting point of reality, but -- all importantly -- it includes sense of value. Values are phenomena. To ignore them is to misread the world. It says this sense of value, of liking or disliking, is a primary sense that is a kind of gatekeeper for everything else an infant learns. At birth this sense of value is extremely Dynamic but as the infant grows up this sense of value becomes more and are influenced by accumulated static patterns. In the past this biological sense of value has been called the 'subjective' because there values cannot be located in an external physical object. But quantum theory has destroyed the idea that only properties located in external physical objects have reality." [Krimel] Excellent quote, I can imagine the stir that it caused. Pirsig makes the clear separation here between the sense and value. I think the problem is to see this sense of value as a "sense." This is a bit hypocritical of me since I actually do think of it as a "sense of senses". But that thinking seems to confuse people so I am open to modifications. It sounds like this confuse was front an center even in the title of MF discussion, "Does Pirsig adequately support his notion that we have a 'sense of value' analogous to the five traditional senses?" Perhaps it needs a different spin. This sense of Value is not like a sense of sight or hearing. It is more like a sense of direction or a sense of time, more like one of the Kantian a prioris. In this case a sense of probability or what Kant would call causality. Or perhaps a synthesis of the other senses. [Matt back when:] I think the quote can be read "as implying that the 'sense of value' is not analogous to the five traditional senses, but 'primary.'" [from Wim's earlier post--MK] Interpreting the passage this way is consistent with Pirsig's redescription of reality as Quality. With a "sense of value" as primary, I take it this means that all other senses evolve out of the original historically and in each individual's case the five senses are simply five different kinds of a "sense of value." [Krimel] I am not sure this is disagreement of just a different point of view but I think we experience Value as emotion. Emotions have that quality of valence to them. They are either positive or negative. They compel us to run away or to chase things. These compulsions are built into us by Nature and our responses are influenced by them (note the probabilistic "influence" versus the deterministic "cause"). As I have pointed out repeatedly Nobel winner Daniel Kahneman talks about the "sense of probability" in the same kind of thing as a sense of space and a sense of time. I would say we tend to "value" meaning or the reduction of uncertainty. Uncertainty is our constant dark companion. We dread it and fight it with the very fiber of our being. [Matt] So, in answer to the topic question, "Does Pirsig adequately support his notion that we have a 'sense of value' analogous to the five traditional senses?" I think we have to answer in one of two ways: 1) "mu," because we do not have a sense of value that is analogous to the other senses because all Pirsig means is his redescription of reality or 2) no, because if we have a "sense of value" analogous to our five senses then it would be empirically testable as a physical section in our brains (like the other five senses) and I severely doubt we find a section in our brain that senses morals and can be developed or underdeveloped _physically_. [Krimel] But it IS empirically testable. That's how Kahneman won the Nobel. He and his partner Amos Treversky started the field of behavioral economics as a result. Other more biologically based studies, particularly Antonio Damasio's work, highlights the importance of the physical structures that are key to the experience of emotion and value, both in terms of biological expression and the feelings produced. This problem arises from the confusion of the term "sense" the five senses are specifically involved with transducing physical energy into neuron patterns. Our "senses" of time, space and probability as not senses of this sort they are more of a combination of the senses, the "meaning" of the those senses. [Matt] I don't think Krimel in this specific instance is willy-nilly ignoring Pirsig's redescription of reality in his comments on DMB, but rather accusing DMB of regressing (which is a common and fair enough charge for us to use on each other). So, if I'm right, then where you, Steve, and Krimel disagree in this limited instance is not wholesale over Pirsig, but narrowly over what DMB means in his understanding of Pirsig (which is important if people are going to defend other people against still more people). [Krimel] You may be on to something here. I tend to think of Dave as lauding the virtue of regression. He would argue something from Wilber about the pre/trans fallacy. I think it is just an excuse. The lack of any meaningful way to understand or use the supposed insights of his mystical approach just leaves he scratching my head. [Matt] I would also add, Steve, that your addition of "worseness" to "betterness" in your description of what Pirsig means by DQ is a conspicuous alteration of what Pirsig says with fair consistency in Lila (despite the SODV passage just discussed, where he says "liking and disliking"). A paradigm instance is his reformulation of Darwinian evolution in teleological terms: "All life is a migration of static patterns of quality toward Dynamic Quality." (160) To gloss DQ here as "betterness and worseness" would be as meaningless as Pirsig finds the unconcerned, Darwinian tautological response: "But 'survival of the fittest' is one of those catch-phrases like 'mutants' or 'misfits' that sounds best when you don't ask precisely what it means. Fittest for what? Fittest for survival? That reduces to 'survival of the survivors,' which doesn't say anything. 'Survival of the fittest' is meaningful only when 'fittest' is equated with 'best,' which is to say, 'Quality.'" (166) (And, note, the very often ignored fact that Pirsig not only often glosses DQ in betterness-terms, but also Quality, which creates even more problems for a neutral reservation of "Quality" for reality-redescriptive duties.) [Krimel] I think even Dave has backed away from the idea that DQ is always "better". But there is no doubt that is the main thread of Pirsig's account. He merely pays lips service to the critical Value of SQ and suggests that we are best served by always embracing DQ. I find is incomprehensible as I think we are much more attracted to SQ and more likely to run away from DQ with good reason. 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/
