On 26 Sep 2009 at 9:57 AM, Platt wrote:
There's a passage in in a letter Pirsig wrote to Bo that bears on
the question, "Does value perception precede the subject/object
dichotomy?"
"I talked to a neurologist who argued that it was physiological.
She said that recent experiments are showing that the right side
of the brain, the "artistic" side, filters all experience before it
reaches
the left "rational" side of the brain. this would concur with the MOQ
assertion that value precedes concepts in human understanding. ..."
I don't know if neurology and espistemology are authentically related.
I suspect they are but I haven't the background in either discipline to
confidently connect the two. Suffice it to say I found Pirsig's
observation interesting.
The observation is interesting, but we have to remember that the brain, like
all objects, is an experiential construct and "before" and "after" is a
dimensional construct of the intellect. Yet, since this is our objective
paradigm for cognitive understanding, it has to be taken into consideration.
Certainly, if we are to regard 'proprioceptive awareness' like pain (e.g.,
RMP's hot stove analogy) as '"value", the epistemology becomes a
neurological phenomenon. In that case, the feeling of pain would have to be
an "intellectual construct" in the same way that your experience of rocks
and UTOE are constructs. (An awkward analysis, I should think.)
However, I maintain that we don't actually "experience" pure
(undifferentiated) Value. Instead, we "sense" it as an intrinsic, or
primary, attribute of self-awareness. It doesn't become broken down into
particular values (Quality patterns?) until experience+intellect localizes
it (mentally). This is why I've coined the term 'value-sensibility' to
define the Self. To put it simply, value-sensibility is the essential
Subject whereby all existents come into being as objective "appearances".
Experience plays an active role in this process, defining the parameters,
relations, and qualities of our objective reality.
By the way, UTOE is an "object" to you, just as Arlo and I are. This
doesn't mean that we aren't "real", but rather that what you experience as
animated objects is only the appearance of what UTOE, Arlo and I experience
as proprietary (subjective) being-aware, respectively. I think this is what
Kuklick was getting at in his "explanation of Royce" quoted by John Carl
[Appreciation in Value] on 9/23:
"If appreciation is real, however, it cannot in actuality be private,
momentary, and fleeting, although is is from our perspective.
We can make this state of affairs intelligible only if we assume
that the World of Description does not characterise the real; and
we must also suppose that our seemingly isolated and momentary
appreciative consciousnesses do share in the organic life of
one self in which everyone experiences the consciousness of
everyone else."
[Platt]:
Thank you for your response to my post, Ham. As always it was clear,
concise and considerate. I for one appreciate your challenges to MOQ
dogma. They help keep me on my philosophical toes, as feeble as those
toes may be.
My pleasure, Platt. I hope the above is insightful.
Best regards,
Ham
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