Hi all, My two pennies on this.
I see Pirsig's 'sense of value' as including but not being limited to the five traditional senses. Using the baby's learning as a model, the baby first experiences undifferentiated Quality, and over time these experiences are segregated into different types, along the five traditional senses. However, it seems clear that these are a) experiences along a continuum (think of the phenomenon of synaesthesia) and b) that they are high quality derivatives from the primary sense of Quality. I like Jay's description, "when Persig illustrates a similarity between the five senses and the ability to discern quality, his intent was to establish that quality exists before, with and after all of our senses." I think Pirsig's language in the SODV is unclear, but the above seems most compatible with the MoQ as an intellectual structure. I agree with Matt that " It doesn't make sense at all to say that there is an additional, sixth sense for value _and_ all the other five senses are encapsulated by it." Interestingly, I see no reason why these five senses should be the only ones that we have. They are the senses which are appropriate for engaging with levels one and two of the MoQ. There must be senses which allow us to engage with the other levels. For example, a sense of beauty is not the same as a visual sense, but it is surely no less real (and equally distinguishable from the experience of undifferentiated Quality) than the sense of touch. This would ground out RMP's idea that morals are now on the basis of science (ie a sense of level 3 Quality). A note to Glenn: I think emotions are key to this sense of value, it's at the heart of my eudaimonic thesis, but RMP (and others) equate emotions with the biological level. I think that is a blind spot in their reasoning. One last thing - rather than 'flavorative' values, how about 'palatable' values? Sam MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_focus/ MF Queries - [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from moq_focus follow the instructions at: http://www.moq.org/mf/subscribe.html
