Dear Dr. McWatt --
On Sat. May 04, 2013 at 9:23 PM, Ant McWatt wrote:
That's all very good Ham but how's the "homework" going?
Chapter 8 of LILA ring a bell?
I'd like to see a discussion about that - as far as YOU ARE concerned -
first.
Thanks anyway,
Ant
Oh yes, "the assignment" you hung on me (on my birthday, actually). I have
referred several times to LILA Chpt. 8, but you must realize that I don't
regard it as my Bible, as most of you folks do. As a consequence, you won't
like my critique of this chapter.
The very first sentence is an attempt to sell a premise that makes no sense
from either a philosophical or an epistemological viewpoint -- "the idea
that the world is composed of nothing but moral value." Had Pirsig
eliminated the first paragraph and started with the second (Phaedrus
recalling an experiment involving glasses that made everything appear
upside-down) it would have made more sense, as we might assume he meant that
creation (existence?) is a valuistic construct. But "moral value" is man's
measure of things, a psycho-emotional response to experience which is
definitely not the stuff of physical reality.
Next he states that "the Metaphysics of Quality subscribes to
...empiricism"! Now how does empiricism -- reliance on knowledge derived
from objective experience -- in any way support Quality as the fundamental
reality? The author himself admits "it flies outrageously in the face of
common experience." Then he goes on to posit a "second principle": "A
thing that has no value does not exist," from which he concludes that "value
has created the thing", as opposed to the other way around.
Mind you, I happen to agree that value sensibility is what creates (i.e.,
actualizes) our empirical reality. My criticism here lies in the rhetoric
by which he argues the case. He talks about "substance" as a "subspecies of
value"; yet he offers no epistemology to support this thesis. It's no
wonder that the Pirsigians are confused about what SOM means.
The reminder of this 10-page chapter is mostly a play on the "platypus"
analogy as a means of deriding substance, science, causation, the Big Bang,
and cultural evolution.
Don't you find it inconsistent that, despite the author's need to denigrate
these concepts, he fills 24 additional chapters explaining experiential
reality in terms of "static patterns" while romancing us with a cosmology by
which Dynamic Quality continually evolves toward moral "betterness"? Good?
Bad? Better? --all subjective criteria that do not exist in the absence of
conscious awareness, yet are purported to be that ultimate, essential
Reality which, the author still insists, is indefinable.
Incidentally, I noted that your response to my Apr 14th message was largely
a diatribe against my "right wing" views, including the 'Wicked Witch of
Westminster' quotes and characterization of Ayn Rand as a "hippie". So,
perhaps this assignment was directed toward my conservatism as much as it
was a request to provide a position statement of my philosophy viz-à-viz
Pirsig's MOQ. If you had a metaphysical purpose, however, I'll be most
happy to elaborate on any aspect of Essentialism you don't understand.
In either case, thanks for your interest, Ant.
Ham
----------------------------------------
Ham Priday stated to Arlo et al, May 4th:
The full heading of this thread is:
"Putting SOM back into the MOQ by excluding SQ; let's not do that say some
of us."
It was introduced by David Morey on Apr. 30, who suggested:
> Let's not divide reality into subjective experience and objective
> things,
> let's see that experience is made up of both static and dynamic quality,
> that patterns are just part of experience and are not separate objects
> outside of experience....
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