"Quality is the continuing stimulus which our environment puts upon us to
create the world in which we live. All of it. Every last bit of it." --ZAMM,
Ch. 20
Craig said:
According to this quote, "our environment" precedes "the continuing stimulus"
which in turn precedes "our creation of the world in which we live". on
"our environment" for its "stimulus". But what makes an environment ours
depends on us. We & "our environment" are inter-dependent.
dmb says:
There is no reason to assume that this "environment" is the pre-existing
objective reality of SOM. (It's worth noting that he's offering this
explanation to people who understand things in terms of behaviorism, Pirsig
says, and so he's putting in terms they can understand.) If we continuing
reading this passage, in fact, Pirsig goes on to say that this idea sounds like
madness. It sounds insane. It defies common sense and the basic assumptions of
science.
And that is very much the point. Pirsig knows that this is a complete
revolution in thought.
And that also why so many people fail at this exact point. But look, he's
saying that reality as we understand it, every last bit of it, is a man-made
pile analogies. Reality as we know it, earth, sky, science, philosophy, every
last bit of it, is a set of humanly constructed concepts. Yes, those inherited
and evolved concepts tell us that matter (the material environment of science
and common sense) comes first and ideas come much later. The MOQ agrees that
this is a good idea for common sense purposes and for scientific purposes but
not philosophically and metaphysically. On that level, the MOQ rejects SOM and
begins with different starting point.
"But that which causes us to invent the analogues is Quality. Quality is the
continuing stimulus which our environment puts upon us to create the world in
which we live. All of it. Every last bit of it. ...I remember this fragment
more vividly than any of the others, possibly because it is the most important
of all. When he wrote it he felt momentary fright and was about to strike out
the words "All of it. Every last bit of it." Madness there. I think he saw it.
But he couldn't see any logical reason to strike these words out and it was too
late now for faintheartedness. He ignored his warning and let the words stand."
To claim that these analogies (static patterns) exist before we conceptualize
them is to totally miss the point. He's saying that we created the world in
which we live. Every last bit it. That is pretty much the opposite of a
pre-existing objective reality. The stimulus (Quality) is not separate from us
and the world we created is hardly independent of us. It's totally dependent on
us. We carved out the whole thing on the basis of experience, in response to
what we know most directly, the immediate flux of life.
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