Dmb criticized: > And the final claim is extremely objectionable too. Patterns don't exist > relative to an individual's life history. That claim is just silly > solipsistic subjectivism. Static pattens are socially constructed over the > course of a culture's history and development. An individual's life history > will affect their ability to perceive the static patterns within the mythos > but those patterns exist regardless of whether or not any particular > individual is capable of seeing them or not.
Marsha replied: There is nothing solipsistically subjective in this statement. "Solipsistic subjectivism" is a label that you have applied, but never explained. For understanding, there is a dependency on the individuals static pattern life history. "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance left one enormous metaphysical problem unanswered that became the central driving reason for the expansion of the Metaphysics of Quality into a second book called Lila. This problem was: if Quality is a constant, why does it seem so variable? Why do people have different opinions about it? The answer became: The quality that was referred to in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance can be subdivided into Dynamic Quality and static quality. Dynamic Quality is a stream of quality events going on and on forever, always at the cutting edge of the present. But in the wake of this cutting edge are static patterns of value. These are memories, customs and patterns of nature. The reason there is a difference between individual evaluations of quality is that although Dynamic Quality is a constant, these static patterns are different for everyone because each person has a different static pattern of life history. Both the Dynamic Quality and the static patterns influence his final judgment. That is why there is some uniformity among individual value judgments but not complete uniformity." [Ron] The conflict here is in regard to meaning, for example Marsha states that "for understanding" and I'm going to take this to mean ALL understanding since this is how she applies the many truths statement to mean each individuals "truth" "there is a dependancy on the individuals static pattern life history." Dave B accuses her of the philosophic stance of "subjectivism" a philosophical tenet that accords primacy to subjective experience as fundamental of all measure and law. This certainly seems to be how Marsha is interpreting what Pirsig states, but what is being neglected are social level patterns of quality in this statement and what is also being neglected is Bob's closing statement that there is some uniformity but not complete uniformity of value judgements. The value judgements which are uniform include the calls for clarity and precision in communication, include the concepts of truth and beauty for simply no other reason than the meaningful exchange of ideas within a social structure of value. When Marsha claims that her reading of Pirsig supports her contention that all calls for meaning, clarity and precision are totally dependant on the individual life history she excludes social patterns of value to suit her own rhetorical needs to win the arguement with Dave B. She is also understood to be supporting subjectivism in this manner according the primacy of subjective(individual) experience which seems to only serve to benefit and defend Marshas ability to say whatever she wants without any criticism as to the clarity of what she says and means. The charge of Solopsism may apply since Marsha is asserting the primacy of individual experience in her explanations and neglecting social level patterns of value (uniformity of value) Descates "I think therefore I am" which Pirsig corrects with "17th century culture exists therefore I think therefore I am" But Marsha can deny this charge if not soley on the merit that she claims the individual (self) does not exist. One has to ask what then is she hanging all her explanations that accord the primacy of the individual on if that primacy is held not to exist? Again, this does not explain anything, better or otherwise. This explanation is begining to show all the trappings of a religous explanation where any contradiction in meaning and unsound reasoning is explained away as the incomprehension of the ineffiable. "It doesent make sense because MoQ is beyond reason" replace MoQ with God and the bible and you get pretty much the same thing. The irony is that it is these sorts of people that respond the harshest to any religous contributers here when their own brand of explanation is on par. Its the snotty self rightous postmodernist temperment in which they delve out their own criticisms which is disturbing ala they can dish it out but they can't take it. It's about time this matter was addressed, I think most of the conflicts I have had with other contributers revolves around this very subject. thnx 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
