Hi Glenn:
GLENN:
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.
PLATT:
It doesn�t prove that Quality is part of the environment, but it suggests
the possibility.
GLENN:
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:
Here�s Pirsig�s description:
�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, woolly-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.� (LILA, Chap. 5)
If I interpret Pirsig correctly, he says you feel the pain (or smell a skunk)
and unconsciously determine it�s low quality a split second before you
can consciously conceptualize and express what�s happening.
Unconscious perception has been shown to have a firm empirical
base, as I discovered in reading papers on the subject on the Web.
PLATT: (previously)
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.�?
GLENN:
Would you say DQ gives you a fabulously better explanation of
experience in the food tasting and skunk smelling examples above?
PLATT:
You bet. When I add those examples to others Pirsig uses throughout
LILA, and taking into account experiences over a lifetime, the fabulously
better explanation of the MOQ comes through loud and clear,
especially compared to �Oops� which is no explanation at all.
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.
GLENN:
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:
Are you saying you don�t believe Pirsig hates science? If my memory is
correct, we had an exchange not long ago on that very issue. Wasn�t
your position that Pirsig hated science because he blamed science for
SOM and our cultural decline? Is �hate� too strong?
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).
GLENN:
You are reading TOE too literally, and the phrase "self-appointed Gods"
is emotive rhetoric.
PLATT:
If TOE means Theory of Everything and if science believes that
everything can be explained logically in terms of physical processes,
what�s too literal? Scientist who are pursuing such a theory must be
confident they can unlock the secrets of the universe.
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.
GLENN:
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.
Yes, I apologize for inaccurately ascribing beliefs to you that I have little
reason to think you hold. I�ll try to refrain from such ad hominen
exaggerations in the future. Thanks for pointing it out.
GLENN:
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?
PLATT:
Yes. The relationship could be with a �conscious environment,� as
noted above.
GLENN:
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:
Yes. The evidence is fairly conclusive that memory is stored in neural
synapses. But since an experience necessarily occurs prior to its
being stored, part of the �bulb� could be �taking in� awareness from the
environment. Are not some of the other bodily organs multi-functional,
like the skin for instance?
PLATT:
Do you, can you, give credence to the reality of any phenomenon that
is immeasurable?
GLENN:
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:
Proof? Certainly not. But suggestive? Yes. �If it walks like a duck,
quacks like a duck . . .� etc.
PLATT:
Is �evidence� in your view restricted to mathematical measurements,
tables, graphs and statistics?
GLENN:
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.
PLATT:
I withdraw the question since you answered it in saying �I affirm
experiencing quality� above. No measurements required for �personal
evidence.�
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.
GLENN:
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?
PLATT:
Boy, you got me on this one. �Humans creating substances?� I�m sorry
but I have no recollection of such a discussion and if I claimed that the
MOQ asserts that humans create substances and that rocks are
several minutes old, well, I must have had one to many. Please quote
from Pirsig the relevant passage(s) that concern you.
Platt
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