Hi Ron
Dec. 21
Bodvar before:
> > The MOQ created the Quality Reality just like Phaedrus said the
> > Newton's Theory created the Gravity Reality. I maintain that Pirsig
> > backed down from Phaedrus radical assertion and presented the MOQ as a
> > mere intellectual (in a SOM sense) idea-pattern that won't alter the
> > REAL world. You (all) happily embrace this watered-down version of the
> > MOQ, only I hold Phaedrus' "torch" burning.
Ron:
> What Pirsig actually says is this on the subject of "MOQ as a mere
> intellectual (in a SOM sense) idea-pattern that won't alter the REAL
> world." Pirsig explains the distinction and it has nothing to do with
> intellectual ideas and the notion of a REAL world, he makes the
> distinction between two types of EXPERIENCE.
Pirsig in LILA I presume:
"The Metaphysics of Quality subscribes to what is called
empiricism. It claims that all legitimate human knowledge
arises from the senses or by thinking about what the senses
provide."
> Get that Bo? he goes on....read carefully..
If the crux of the MOQ were "...knowledge from the senses and/or by
thinking ...etc." I would not spend two seconds on it. Where does this
differ from SOM? At least I had a totally different understanding of it
when I read ZAMM for the first time, namely that it had SOM by the
throat by making it a subset under its own system.
"Most empiricists deny the validity of any knowledge gained
through imagination, authority, tradition, or purely theoretical
reasoning. They regard fields such as art, morality, religion,
and metaphysics as unverifiable. The Metaphysics of Quality
varies from this by saying that the values of art and morality
and even religious mysticism are verifiable, and that in the past
they have been excluded for metaphysical reasons, not
empirical reasons. They have been excluded because of the
metaphysical assumption that all the universe is composed of
subjects and objects and anything that can't be classified as a
subject or an object isn't real. There is no empirical evidence
for this assumption at all. It is just an assumption."
Pirsig begins by stating that the MOQ subscribes to empiricism, then
he says that it varies from this. It's futile to try to place the MOQ under
some "philosophological" heading, ALL kinds of academical
philosophies are SOM, the MOQ is something that transcends SOM.
The Church of Reason was Phaedrus "target".
Ron:
> Now for the big piece of understanding..ready? here it is:
"There's a principle in physics that if a thing can't be
distinguished from anything else it doesn't exist. To this the
Metaphysics of Quality adds a second principle: if a thing has
no value it isn't distinguished from anything else. Then, putting
the two together, a thing that has no value does not exist. The
thing has not created the value. The value has created the
thing. When it is seen that value is the front edge of
experience, there is no problem for empiricists here. It simply
restates the empiricists' belief that experience is the starting
point of all reality. The only problem is for a subject-object
metaphysics that calls itself empiricism."
I know this is supposed to the be a "proof" of the Reality=Quality
axiom, but regrettably it needs a "second principle" to do the job and
as this principle belongs to the system it is supposed to prove ... alas.
Inside the MOQ this principle is self-evident. That's my point, the MOQ
can only prove itself by the paradox-free reality it creates, but Pirsig's
obsession was the Quality=Reality as some entity outside all systems
thus the MOQ became some desecration of Quality, but that's wrong.
Bodvar
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/
