Hi Platt,
Don't worry about being tardy. I certainly don't set good examples in
this area myself. And of course I could see you were busy with Richard.
PLATT:
I�m happy to see that you acknowledge that we possess �a sense of
quality.� If this sense is, as Pirsig claims, like our senses of sight,
hearing, taste, touch, etc., all of which inform us of what�s happening in
our environment, then it�s not unreasonable to conclude that �DQ� is
also part of the environment and not just something the brain creates.
While I agree that all our senses, including our sense of quality, tell
us something about our environment, it doesn't follow from this that DQ
is a part of the environment itself. It seems our sense of quality works in
tandem with our other senses, and not independently of them, in determining
what is good and what is not good about direct experience. Although Pirsig
is quite vague in his hot stove example (ch. 5 and ch. 9), he seems to be
saying that the thing that makes you jump off the stove isn't your sense of
touch which feels the heat, but a leading edge of low quality that precedes
the pain by a split second. This is why he thinks mystics, who are attuned
to this quality, will jump off faster than logical positivists, who aren't.
If I'm interpreting Pirsig correctly here, then we should also be able to
feel that we like or dislike food just before acknowledging tasting it, and
feel a sense of revulsion just before acknowledging smelling the scent of a
skunk. I have not had such premonitions, but according to Pirsig this
doesn't disprove his idea, it just means I'm quality impaired (in a way
that is analogous to being tone deaf).
PLATT:
But Pirsig�s reasoning goes far beyond just the fact that
science hasn�t found values in the brain. He wrote a whole book of
reasons.
...
How about the argument that if you posit DQ you get a fabulously better
explanation of experience than if you restrict yourself to brain
�epiphenomenons� which mean, in essence, �Oops.�?
Would you say DQ gives you a fabulously better explanation of experience
in the food tasting and skunk smelling examples above?
PLATT:
Anyway, science hasn�t found a lot of other stuff in the brain
either, like your belief that Pirsig hates science. All it has found is a
bunch of cells, a network of nerve synapses and some wavy lines on
an oscilloscope.
Well this bit about my "belief that Pirsig hates science" seems to keep
hitting a nerve with you, Platt, and I believe it's a nerve in your brain!
PLATT:
Except to �include everything� you have to include the unknown and the
inexplicable, something scientists as self-appointed Gods believe they
will eventually demystify with a TOE (Theory of Everything).
You are reading TOE too literally, and the phrase "self-appointed Gods" is
emotive rhetoric.
PLATT:
I love your assumption that DQ is creation of human imagination and
that experience is what emerges miraculously out of a bulb of nervous
tissue . It seems you are such a materialist that the very idea of a free-
floating mind must be squelched as the ravings of a maniac and that
anyone suggesting such a thing is a candidate for the looney farm.
I tried but failed to find, through a web search, the results of any
polls that show the percentage of people who believe in free-floating
mind. I seem to remember hearing somewhere that it's about 20%. I don't
think 20% of the population are raving maniacs. I don't think *you* are a
raving maniac. Planting the suggestion that I do in other readers' minds
is unfair and a bit unkind, since I've never said this.
Your implication that experience could not emerge "miraculously out of a
bulb of nervous tissue" gets style points but is not a substantive argument.
Don't you acknowledge that science has shown, through experiments, that a
relationship exists between brain stuff and conscious perception? Doesn't
Pirsig himself have first-hand experience of electro-shock treatment wiping
out static intellectual patterns of value (ideas) from his memory, and
doesn't that strongly suggest that these ideas were stored somewhere in
his bulb of nervous tissue?
PLATT:
Do you, can you, give credence to the reality of any phenomenon that is
immeasurable?
If we expand our traditional 5 senses to include the sense of quality, then
yes. In doing so, however, the notion that all phenomena originate from
external sources would have to be questioned.
I affirm experiencing quality as most anyone would, but this alone does
not prove, or even suggest, it's origin.
PLATT:
Is �evidence� in your view restricted to mathematical
measurements, tables, graphs and statistics?
Since "evidence" is quoted, mathematics calculates and does not measure,
and tables, graphs, and statistics are not themselves evidence, I'll
hold off answering until you improve the question. I've already explained
in previous posts to you my criteria for something to be real, if that's
the essence of what you're after.
GLENN (previously):
Finally, there's this business about DQ creating substance during quality
experiences. There's no empirical evidence for this, and it contradicts science
because a rock that you create and which you claim to be several minutes old
can be carbon-dated and shown to be several million years old. Also, this idea
of humans creating substances like rocks on-the-fly contradicts another part of
MOQ, which states that the inorganic level evolved and pre-dated humans. In
this case either evolution is wrong or the creative power of DQ is not true.
You didn't respond to this. When I brought this up in a post last July in a
rebuttal to Pirsig's resolution of the mind-matter problem, I recall you
saying Roger had an answer for this, but you couldn't remember it. Roger
didn't respond then but perhaps he didn't read our thread. Would he care
to now?
Glenn
__________________________________________________________________
Get your own FREE, personal Netscape Webmail account today at
http://webmail.netscape.com/
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
