Happy New Year Ham,
On Dec 29, 2010, at 7:46 PM, Ham Priday wrote: > > 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. Marsha: I use a very simplistic definition of metaphysics: the philosophical study of the nature of reality. So how the world is experienced says much about one's definition of reality. I once understood reality to be comprised of self and an external, independent array of objects; now the world is experienced in mindfulness as patterns of value, and sometimes there is unpatterned experience. > There is no "undivided experience". Marsha: Of course there is. When one's mind isn't busily knowing, dividing and defining, there is a peaceful, unpatterned 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. Marsha: Through contemplative introspection (meditation) there is such a place for those who wish to follow the good advice to "know thyself." > 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. Marsha: Patterns are re-membered and reinforce their existence sometimes adding dynamic variation. Man's innate rationality??? Hahaha. Good one! Man's belief in is "innate rationality" is a static pattern of value; no-thing more. > 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. Marsha: To my mind, the MoQ's epistemology is experientially relative and pragmatically reinforced; the MoQ's ontology is indeterminate. Nothing confusing about it. > 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. Marsha: There are times I can actually intuit agreement with you, but not here. Huh? > Happy New Year, > Ham Marsha ___ 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/md/archives.html
