Hullo Bo,
I spent yesterday climbing Mt. Bartle Frere, Queensland's highest mountain,
(not very high), with friends, amongst them one named Bo! So somewhat stiff
and sore, I'm seeking to respond to your most recent comments, which
certainly lead right into the heart of the high country of the mind. You
said:
"Again: The MoQ as a (subjective) theory versus Quality as
(objective) reality, but isn't Quality (the uppercase kind) an integral
part of the MoQ ... in the same way as lowercase quality is part of
the SOM? And does not your statement that value entered
existence only with life reveal your true position? You don't accept
MoQ' initial postulate which also makes the material world a value
level."
My problem with capital Q 'Quality' is that it can mean as much or as little
as you choose. The core question seems to me "isn't Quality (the uppercase
kind) an integral part of the MoQ"? Well, is it, and how would we know? If I
claim that 'Quality' is an integral part of my essay, how would you refute
that? We are dealing with ghosts here. We start by saying 'Quality' cannot
be defined, then argue all sorts of things about it, including where it
resides or doesn't reside. To me it's all smoke and mirrors.
When we come to talk about 'value' and 'the material world', my position is
more complex than your comment suggests. My view of value, or quality, is
that it is prior to any conceptual 'thing', including the material world. I
am not arguing the idealist line that there is no real world outside of my
head, though proving that might be difficult. Rather, I am assuming that
quality or value has ontological primacy over any mental model of being. If
I can 'know' anything, it is that the hot stove is of low value, or the new
song is of high value. But this knowing is only true for the moment. I may
highly value sitting on a not too hot stove if I am freezing, and the same
song may bore me to tears years later. The value arises in the context of my
needs and development, hence can change as I change.
What I am saying is that value is always found in the nexus between the
'subject' and the 'object'. Pirsig says it precedes the division into
subject and object, which is fine with me. What does not make sense to me is
to say that 'value' is some sort of substance or ether or vital force from
which subjects and objects are made, unless we take this as a mystic
statement of faith, which does not flow from my experience of value. It
seems clear to me that Pirsig takes this step when attempting to show value
is somehow the basis for inorganic forms. Inorganic forms are already a long
way from my experience of value in immediate experience. I can agree that
value shapes my understanding of the inorganic realm. To the extent that the
inorganic realm is simply a figment of my imagination, this is consistent
with value forming the inorganic world. But Pirsig is careful not to claim
there is no world outside my 'mind', and I agree with him. Pirsig seems to
take seriously the reality of a world in which evolutionary forces operate,
and of which I am a part.
So a scientific world-view is a mental construct which helps structure my
map of what I call reality. It is quite likely it bears some relationship to
whatever 'is', or the scientific method would be useless. But it is not what
is, only a mental model of what is, hence limited and subject to change. In
just the same way the MOQ is a mental map of reality. It is different to a
scientific map because it takes values seriously, and in fact gives them
priority over the 'objective' world of science. Nonetheless, the MOQ is not
reality, either, just a more sophisticated map.
With evolution, though, we find life involved, and hence in my view we are
bound to find value is involved. "Survival of the fittest" is to me a value
statement. Fitness has no location in time and space, and cannot be measured
in a 'scientific' way. Yet even the concept of evolution is yet another way
of making sense of reality, part of my mental map. It is not in itself as
real as my experience of quality from moment to moment.
You say that in using any polarity in my language I am simply falling into
the subject object division. "Ideas in the "thinking compartment" (aka
"mind") while everything else is outside, which is good old subject-object
metaphysics?" If I talk about conceptual systems, you assume there will be
a polar term (perhaps experience) which is just the same old subject object
split. Nonsense. You are confusing the deep structures of language with a
particular philosophical trend. Any noun is predicated on being able to
discriminate what is this 'thing' from what is not this 'thing'. (Even
'good', if 'good' is a noun, about which I remain unconvinced.) Human
development seems inevitably to pass through a stage of discriminating self
from other, one thing from another. If the mystics are right I can learn
through meditation that this separation is illusory, and come to see that
all is one. But for me to state here and now that "All is one" would be to
take someone's concept, which may or may not be based on their value
experience, and to parrot it. It is not my experience. It is faith. Or if I
insist upon it, it is dogma.
So when I argue with aspects of the MOQ I take seriously Pirsig's insight
that value, as experienced as here and now quality, is the fundamental
reality. Mental maps are helpful in their limited way, but are always
inadequate, and language too is always inadequate. The MOQ is a mental map
expressed in language. It is helpful as far as it goes. In places it goes
too far and assumes too much. Any critique of the MOQ that is grounded in
personal experience of value is valid, for the person making the critique,
at that point in time. Which is why we rarely agree in this forum, and why
the quest for a moral code based on the MOQ is pure fantasy. Wilber is much
more credible in his outlook in this regard.
This has been difficult to write, and I hope you will take time to ponder
what I am saying and not just see the SOM bogey everywhere. In particular, I
would like you to respond to the difference between the deep structure of
language and Cartesian thinking, which I agree far predates Descartes.
John B
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