Hello everyone On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 6:07 PM, Ham Priday <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi Dan -- > > Please disregard my previous post. (I inadvertantly pushed 'send' instead > of 'save'.) > > [Ham, previously to Marsha]: >> >> I think I may have stumbled unknowingly upon MoQ's Waterloo. >> Pirsig defies epistemology by claiming that Quality exists >> independently of man. This leads his followers to believe that it is >> unrelated to desire, making desire a greedy, infectious state of >> mind. Why else would Dan associate desire with only selfish >> goals and motives? >> >> And, no, Dan; I do not believe for a moment that "Value and Quality >> exist without the desire to possess them." To value something is to >> desire it. If Value could not inspire desire, we would have no way >> to realize it. And if man lacked the capacity to discriminate between >> good and poor quality, or to choose what is of value, >> he would be reduced to robotic status. > > [Dan, on 3/15]: >> >> Thank you for allowing me to set the record straight here. First of >> all, RMP does not claim Quality exists independent of man. Quality >> is experience. How can experince be independent of the experiencer? >> So no, his "followers" do not believe Quality is unrelated to desire. >> As I wrote Marsha, in the MOQ desire can be seen as biologically, >> socially, and intellectually driven. >> >> And if you've read my posts at all, you must realize I do not >> associate desire with only selfish goals and motivations. Of course >> you probably have no real reason to read my posts, unless they're >> addressed to you... > > Then I have misinterpreted Pirsig's statement that Quality is the primary > reality. To me, "primary" means prior to and independent of existents or > "patterns". I know, of course, that he also equated Quality with > Experience; but as I have always considered experience to be the patterns, > which are subsequent to the primary (source), the logic of the premise > "Quality = Experience" still eludes me.
Dan: Maybe this quote will help: "Any person of any philosophic persuasion who sits on a hot stove will verify without any intellectual argument whatsoever that he is in an undeniably low-quality situation: that the value of his predicament is negative. This low quality is not just a vague, wooly-headed, crypto-religious, metaphysical abstraction. It is an experience. It is not a judgment about an experience. It is not a description of experience. The value itself is an experience. As such it is completely predictable. It is verifiable by anyone who cares to do so. It is reproducible. Of all experience it is the least ambiguous, least mistakable there is. Later the person may generate some oaths to describe this low value, but the value will always come first, the oaths second. Without the primary low valuation, the secondary oaths will not follow. "The reason for hammering on this so hard is that we have a culturally inherited blind spot here. Our culture teaches us to think it is the hot stove that directly causes the oaths. It teaches that the low values are a property of the person uttering the oaths. "Not so. The value is between the stove and the oaths. Between the subject and the object lies the value. This value is more immediate, more directly sensed than any "self" or any "object" to which it might be later assigned. It is more real than the stove. Whether the stove is the cause of the low quality or whether possibly something else is the cause is not yet absolutely certain. But that the quality is low is absolutely certain. It is the primary empirical reality from which such things as stoves and heat and oaths and self are later intellectually constructed." [LILA] Dan comments: Value is the primary empirical reality from which our world is intellectually contructed. Value is more immediate, more directly sensed than any subject or object to which it might be intellectually assigned later on. Sitting on a hot stove provides direct empirical evidence of experience equaling (low) quality. >Ham: > In order to appreciate Quality (or Value) the experiencing subject, it would > seem to me, needs to perceive something more than raw experience. He must > possess the aesthetic or moral sensibility to discriminate between > excellence and mediocrity as well as goodness and evil. I assume that > Pirsig considered "value-sensibility" to be a function of conscious > awareness. But I must be missing something in this epistemology, because he > also suggests that experience is not limited to conscious agents, By what > faculty does he propose that inanimate objects sense Quality? Dan: In the framework of the MOQ, "object" is a convenient shorthand for inorganic/biological patterns of value. So your question, from the MOQ point of view, becomes: by what faculty do inorganic patterns of value sense Quality? Since value and Quality are synonymous, inorganic patterns of value are Quality. They don't sense anything intellectually. Rather, they prefer certain preconditions, like iron filings prefer preconditions set up by a magnetic field or the growth of crystals prefer conditions set up by super-saturated liquids. > > [Ham]: >> >> The concept of individual liberty and social morality is derived from >> the desire of human beings to better their collective situation, not >> "wreck" it. The development of science and medicine was motivated >> by desire for the knowledge to alleviate suffering, not "cause" it. > > [Dan]: >> >> Agree. > > [Ham]: >> >> Of course unbridled desire can lead to gluttony and aggrandisement. Too >> much candy can cause a stomach ache. Too much power can breed >> tryanny. But must it be sinful to "want" something? How can human >> civilization progress without it? Besides, human beings have the rational >> capacity to temper excess craving. > > [Dan]: >> >> Again, I agree with you here, though with the stipulation that most >> human beings haven't the rational capacity to temper excess craving. >> Hundreds of thousands of people die every year from smoking cigarettes >> and drinking alcohol to excess. Obesity is rampant in developed and >> even developing countries. Social and intellectual patterns have >> evolved to curb excess biological cravings but many people suffer the >> effects anyway. >> >> Have you ever been to an art museum and witnessed some unbelievably >> incredible work of art? Did you feel the need to possess it; did the >> desire arise to make it yours? Or did you simply feel a sense of awe? >> And if you felt that sense of awe, wasn't that value? If you understand >> what I am saying, then you see that Quality and desire are not necessarily >> linked in any way, Ham. >Ham: > What we "want to possess" is the Value of what we sense, not the experienced > object that represents it. The magificence of the Venus Arising or the Ode > to Joy is what arouses our sense of awe (i.e., desire), not the painting on > canvas or the score on paper. A sense of Value, nurtured by exposure to and > familiarity with such works, is required of the observer for the full > appreciation of quality in any form. Dan: In the framework of the MOQ, we cannot possess value. Value possesses us. Human beings are seen as a colllection of patterns of value plus undefined Dynamic Quality. So, taking the MOQ into account, to say we desire to possess the value of what we sense seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of experience. >Ham: > I maintain that value-sensibility is the "core self" (sometimes called 'the > soul') of man. Desire is the individual's realization that spiritual > fufillment does not lie within himself but in the "otherness" from which he > was created and to which he bears witness. It is the Value of this other > that he seeks to possess; but he can only do this provisionally -- by > differentiating Value experientially into the "many and many things" that > constitute his being in the world. Now, I know this isn't Pirsig's > worldview or epistemology, for which I apologize. That said, however, I > think you'll agree that it accounts for human value awareness in a more > immanent and substantive way than the Experience = Quality equation. Dan: In the framework of the MOQ, there are no supernatural entities like spirit and soul. The MOQ is empirical. "The many" refers to static quality patterns of value which are defined and discrete. Experience (or awareness if you prefer) refers to Dynamic Quality which is both undefined and infinitely definable. > > [Dan]: >> >> Well, as far as the Quality thesis goes, I don't speak for others, >> only myself. But I do have some little grounding in the MOQ, so I >> appreciate the opportunity to expound on it. >Ham: > As a long-time priest of the inner sanctum, you are much too modest, Dan. > There is no doubt in my mind that your interpretation of the MoQ has the > author's approval and is spot on. Had I not developed my own concept of > Value before discovering Pirsig, I might well now be echoing your words. > While positing Value as the ground of existence is a significant step > forward in the development of philosophy, I frankly feel that the Quality > paradigm skips some fundamentals that are needed for a cogent metaphysical > thesis. Dan: Thank you, Ham. I apprecicate your words. I've spent many years studying the MOQ, it is true. And I've been most fortunate to work with Robert Pirsig in furthering his work begun in LILA, where I learned a great deal, not only from Mr Pirsig but all the other contributors to the discussion group. I know you've been working for a good many years too, hammering out your own thesis. Perhaps, over time, we can help each other see the shortcomings in each of our viewpoints. >Ham: > Many thanks for your interest and for setting the record straight for me. Dan: You're welcome, and thank you too. Dan 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
