Greetings, John --
And sincere condolences on the recent loss of your father in law. He must
have been one cool dude, judging from your anecdotes.
[the proprietary nature of thought] seems to me to be so
fundamental to what we do, and what [RMP] was writing,
that it doesn't need to be made explicit. Nobody stands
on a soap box and trumpets that the sun has risen today.
We all know that the sun has risen today. If the matter
were held in some doubt, I could see making an
argument that one's thoughts are one's own.
That makes sense to me, John. Yet, here are just two of many references to
"knowing" and "awareness" which indicate that Pirsigians have a fuzzy notion
of what proprietary thinking means:
[Marsha]:
The *knowing* is an intellectual pattern, nothing more.
Before that, lower level patterns was there without anyone
knowing about it. It was unknown, but not unreal.
[Bo, describing Pirsig's SODV diagram]:
...in the preliminaries to diagram-drawing Quality is
"pre-intellectual" while "intellectual" is the object
becoming aware of subjects.
[John]:
Well I admire a philosophy that allows for the idea of
conscious awareness as property, while also leaving room
for other interpretations of being also. Hindu Philosophy,
for instance, does not make the same distinction between
consciousness and contents of consciousness - thou art
that sort of thing.
Do you believe that there is only one proper interpretation
of being? One way of looking at things that is the "true" way,
and all others are faulty? Because I'm skeptical of a
philosophy which does not contain a way of evolving and
self-correcting.
I believe that "being-aware" is self-evident proof of beingness. All other
interpretations of being are appearances, the objective evidence for which
is empirical.
[Ham, previously]:
Without Value and a free agent there can be no choice.
A universe evolving to goodness or perfection for its
own sake is morally meaningless and does not allow for freedom.
[John]:
With your first statement, I agree absolutely. With your second,
I disagree absolutely.
I believe the analogy of the organism is apropos for the cosmos.
"For it's own sake" implies also, for the sake of it's parts as well.
That would be an accommodation to natural evolution (or Pantheism, if you
were so inclined.) The problem with this analogy is that it denies freedom
to the value agent. The individual cannot be free if his behavior is not
allowed to conflict with the physical laws of the universe.
I believe Freedom arises with individuality. Or you could say,
freedom defines individuality and the individual is free to
oppose the universal evolutionary betterness, or to fail to
realize it out of some existential fear, but as an individual,
I intuit my own freedom and deduce from the facts of existence,
a universally evolving good. I don't see any moves you
could make to argue me out of such a belief, given the ultimate
unprovability of the stance, one way or the other, but at the
same time, holding the belief gives me room to breathe and
reason to strive - the two most necessary components of
animal existence. Otherwise, how could I face my task of being?
You'd have to demonstrate some real pragmatic reason for
looking at it differently.
First of all, I do not put implicit trust in "universal betterness", since
the universe is largely a construct of individual experience. What we
understand as "good" is that which supports human life and the values toward
which we are oriented.
If you're suggesting that the cosmos is our moral guide, you're mistaken.
The universe is amoral. It evolves on its own course without regard to our
preferences or aspirations.
I agree with what Arlo said, and with you on the place where
he errs. He errs in construing certain religious beliefs which
are widespread and poorly conceived, on any theistic formulation,
no matter how carefully constructed metaphysically. But that's
a common error shared by many in the world and within this
discuss community.
I'd advise all who err on this point to consider this formulation
in their meditation practice (coined by Pirsig himself):
God is a high Quality intellectual pattern.
Does being a "high Quality intellectual pattern" make God real? Or is this
just another conceptual pattern created by the imind (a.k.a. Intellectual
Level)?
> Is not experience a value? Is not perception a value?
So I can certainly chime in with your "universe is as much
experiential as valuistic".
I question your distinction of the cognitive individual and the
culture. Cognitive individuals are the creations of a culture,
just as culture is simultaneously the creation of individuals.
As Pirsig points out, the famous Cartesian dictum should have
said "The 17th century French culture exists, therefore I
realize I am."
This is obviously true for the psychological as well as ontological levels
of analysis.
I disagree. Would Descartes have failed to come up with his Cogito had it
lacked this socio-cultural context? His meditations were those of a human
being, not of a social product of 17th century France. This line of
reasoning typically leads to the question: Would he have been able to think
if he had been isolated on a desert island. The inference is that we need
society to form ideas and analyze concepts. That's collectivist bunk, in my
opinion. Life is an individual experience. Frankly, I don't see the need
for a Social Level anymore than I do for an Intellectual Level
Well I guess what troubles me in your formulation, is that
"value-sensibility" arises only in a subject perceiving an
object and realization of this duality from a higher perspective
of both-born-at-once.
So while you say, "simlutaneity" is not at issue, you construct
a sequence which implies otherwise.
No, you INFER a sequence. Any human process, from living to learning to
producing, is a series of events in time. But I disregard the time stream
in my epistemology because it leads to too many 'chicken-and-egg' questions.
I'd be uncomfortable stipulating such a sequence, when
all I'm really sure about is that you need all three - value,
subject and object - simultaneously for experience.
And I still don't see any useful distinction between existence
and experience. They both mean the same thing in essence,
do they not?
Yes, unless you allow sequential causality to stand in the way.
Greetings, again Ham, 4 days later. I thought I'd sent this reply,
but then realized I hadn't. I'd waited to read Schain's essay so
I could comment.... and got distracted, and here we are now.
I must say, I wasn't impressed. I agreed with every word he
wrote, but that doesn't interest me much.
I thought about it a bit more and realized I would also not have
been impressed, if I disagreed with him. So I wonder if I'm just
particularly hard to please or something. I don't like reading
what I disagree with and I don't like reading what I agree with!
You just can't please some people, I guess.
Well, if it's any consolation, I can't say I was impressed with Peters'
exposition, either. He filled most of his 15 pages illustrating recursion
with a map of England within a map of England, ad infinitum. This is
symbolic analysis, not metaphysivcs or philosophy. It's the sort of sophism
that drives me crazy on this forum. Language is representative; we all know
that. But the letters and symbols refer to "real" objects and events, so we
don't have to spend hours looking at ourselves looking at ourselves looking
at ourselves in the mirror of infinite regressions. Likewise, metaphysics
is conceptual. But to argue that a metaphysical concept such as MOQ
necessitates a "higher level of Intellect" than can be contained in a
reality by that name is childish nonsense.
I included a brief comparison of the "finite perspective" vs. "Infinity" in
my own thesis in an attempt to portray finitude as "near nothingness"
(i.e., 'Infinitesimilitude'), but am not sure mathematical analogs are the
best approach for conveying such concepts.
I do think his words were good and should be heeded by all people.
At least, what I could remember of them. It sorta reminds me of a
reported interview with Pirsig where he mentioned ZAMM was
panned in Japan because "we already know this. It's all obvious.
Yawn." While over here it's "way too out there" to be acceptable to
academia. ...
And btw, when I followed your link to your posting of article on
your website, it looked kinda screwed up.
You must be using FireFox as your browser. If so, I apologize for the mess.
I constructed this website back in 2002 using Microsoft FrontPage as my
development program. FrontPage is compatible with Internet Explorer which
was the standard at that time. Since then new browsers have come onto the
market using display formats not supported by Microsoft. It makes no sense
other than as a way to push new products on the consumer, and it's a source
of annoyance and embarrassment to me. I'm currently seeking help from
Earthlink and Verizon on how to make or my site compatible with all browsers
currently in use without having to start all over from scratch. If you have
any solutions they would be greatly appreciated. Fortunately the lengthy
text of my thesis page seems to be displayed by Firefox Mozilla in proper
order
Again, the original link for the Schain essay, in case you missed it, is
http://rschain1.tripod.com/The_Problem_of_Existence.html .
I'm very interested to get somebody's take on Borges and Cantor
and the solutions of transfinite numbers to recursion in set theory.
And how this all ties in with Magical Realism and literature and
TS Eliot... I feel the glimmer of a beckoning idea in there.
Transfinite numbers and set theory are too sophisticated for this "country
philosopher", I'm afraid. (I had to look up "recursion" after seeing it
used here by Joe Maurer and others, and am still not sure I understand its
relevance to philosophy.) I'll stick with "infinite regression" as it
relates to metaphysics lacking an uncreated source.
Anyway, thanks for getting back, and please keep me informed as to your
metaphysical insights.
Essentially yours,
Ham
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