Bo (with Platt's challenge in mind) --
[Ham, previously]:
I don't think Pirsig ever really wanted to ponder the
metaphysical truth of a primary source.
[Bo]:
IMO Pirsig wanted it too badly and got obsessed with the
"Quality = Reality" issue, while metaphysics usually opens
with an axiom, saying let's see what such an assumption
leads to . And MOQ's assumption is that there is a dynamic
flux of value that has developed static levels, while Pirsig
makes the MOQ the "static" part of a still greater
"Quality/MOQ" meta-metaphysics and thereby "kills" it IMO.
It's this I ask you to apply your phenomenal intelligence on.
I know you don't buy the MOQ but this has normal logical
implications.
[Platt, on 6/12]:
If by Quality/MOQ being the culprit you mean categorizing
the MOQ as just another metaphysics, I'm with you. If you put
the MOQ in the same mental container as materialism, idealism,
existentialism, essentialism, determinism, naturalism, monism,
nihilism and the hundred and one other theories of reality,
you have the ingredients for philosophology, the playground of
academics of little significance. But if you understand what
Pirsig talks about as being reality itself and not a filter needed to
discuss it, we're on the same page.
I think there's general agreement here that "reality itself" is what we're
all seeking. So let's throw away the "containers", "compartments", and
"filters" that are one man's scheme for dissecting the universe, and get to
the point. We can discuss whether a particular pattern belongs to this or
that level 'til the cows come home, but how is this different than
speculatng on how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? If we don't
know what Reality is, what sense does it make to try to diagram it?
[Platt, commenting on a Scruton quote]:
"The Cartesian picture tempts us to believe we go through life dragging an
animal on a lead, forcing it to do our bidding until at last it collapses
and
dies. I am I. It is it. In this way the body becomes a thing among other
things."
How much more illuminating, harmonious and "real" to
know oneself as a being of unique value.
Where, in all of Pirsig's works, is the self referred to as a "being of
unique value"?
Indeed, by defining the subject as a POV, the author has made the self a
valueless "thing among other things." Descartes' contribution to philosophy
was finding the "starting point" in our quest for Reality and defining its
limitations, but he failed to relate the thinking self to the reality it
experiences. By positing the unique properties of the cognizant
self--sensibility, experience, thought, and intellect--as external
(non-proprietary) patterns, Pirsig has effectively reversed the Cartesian
model. As a result, the individual is left with nothing but "a collection
of interacting patterns", none of which defines his or Reality's essential
nature.
We don't need "meta-metaphysics" or a "proto-moq". What we need for this
quest is to begin our metaphysical exploration where the Cogito leaves off.
After all, the Reality we're trying to pin down is the reality we all know
as experience. Even Pirsig concedes that experience is the "cutting edge of
reality". Just what is it that we are "cutting"? And what is its "uncut"
nature?
That, I submit to you gentlemen, is where metaphysical understanding begins.
Not with history, science, mythology, sociology, polemics, or a blueprint of
Quality. If you're open-minded enough to proceed on that basis, I'll put my
"phenomenal intelligence" fully behind your quest. Otherwise, the
discussion becomes an exercise in decoding terms whose doctrinal meanings
are foreign to me.
Essentially yours,
Ham
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