Holiday Greetings, Platt, Marsha, Arlo, and All --
In the unlikely hope that fresh insight might clear the air as we approach
the new year, I'd like to address the epistemological misconception that has
led to this discussion.
On Wed, 12/29, at 8:17 PM, Platt Holden<[email protected]> wrote:
No matter how you slice it, the intellectual level (described by Pirsig
as manipulation of abstract symbols) presumes the subject/object
division and is thus the SOL.
On Wed, 12/29, at 9:06 PM, Arlo Bensinger<[email protected]> responded:
A subject-object metaphysics is in fact a metaphysics in which the first
division of Quality - the first slice of undivided experience is into
subjects
and objects. ... What he had seen is that there is a metaphysical box that
sits above these two boxes, Quality itself. And once he'd seen this he
also
saw a huge number of ways in which Quality can be divided. Subjects
and objects are just one of the ways. (LILA)
On Wed, 12/29, at 9:58 PM, Marsha V<[email protected]> quoted the MoQ Textbook:
Pirsig uses the term 'subject-object metaphysics' (SOM) for any
metaphysics (explicitly or implicitly) that perceives reality as either
mind
and/or matter such as idealism, materialism, and dualism."
I don't know the "MoQ Textbook" or its author, but Marsha's definition (read
in the context of the LILA quote) reveals the source of all this confusion.
In fact, subject-object duality is NOT a "metaphysics", despite Pirsig's
pronouncement of it as such. Subjects and objects are simply the way the
actualized world (relational existence) is experienced. There is no
"undivided experience". This notion, in fact, is the fallacy which has led
to unending and unnecessary debate in this forum. Once we understand that
experience serves to "differentiate" Value (Quality), the SOM/SOL
contradiction disappears. Everything we experience is added to memory,
which enables us to make intellectual and moral judgments relative to our
existential position in Reality. Intellect functions to make sense of
experience, which is the basis of man's innate rationality.
Cognitive awareness, sensory experience, memory recall, and intellection
(reasoning) are all proprietary to the self. By suggesting that Intellect
is a level of Quality, rather than a function of the subjective mind, Mr.
Pirsig has made epistemology incomprehensible and the self undefinable. To
regard a "hierarchy of levels" as a metaphysical ontology is in itself
something less than intellectual.
Metaphysics properly begins with the problem of "division" which is not a
"slice of Quality" but the difference between sensible awareness and its
undivided Source. In the absence of proprietary sensibility there is no
existence. Indeed, were it not for the separation of cognitive agents from
the primary Source, there would be no experience by which to measure the
value of goodness, greatness, virtue, or truth. All of these "qualities"
are relational, whereas the Source is absolute. Take away the difference
between selfness and otherness, and you eliminate finitude. Since what is
absolute can possess no other, finite "beingness" can only be actualized by
the negation or "exclusion" of value-sensibility from its undivided Source.
Happy New Year,
Ham
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