Hello MOQ'ers,
--- David Buchanan <DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org> wrote:
> Dear Pirsigians:
>
> Somebody claimed that postmodernism and/or deconstructionism is a
> reaction
> to the failure of the Enlightment. I don't doubt it. Lots of things
> are a
> response to that same problem. The MOQ is an attempt to correct that
> failure. Pirsig argues that this failure has resulted in a metaphysics
> of
> substance, which is otherwise known as SOM. He also points at the same
> mistake in refering to amoral scientific objectivity.
Yes, Pirsig is saying that all, and I fully agree with him, and your
analysis. But replacing SOM with another metaphysics which puts
experience in front, is not original, certainly in the previous century.
I admire Pirsig in his attempt to point to the essence of quality, and
his rather rigid intellectual attempt to formulate a 'Metaphysics of
Quality', but I admire a few others who more or less point to the same,
equally. The people below have all the same 'metaphysics' in common, in
that they see experience as fundamental, and not an objective world cut
off from our nihilistic and lonely selfs who only can know the objective
reality through for-ever inperfect senses and thoughts.
Nishida Kitaro (Inquiry into the Good). There's a reference somewhere in
the MoQ-site, and it is discussed some years ago by a few people. His
goal was to create a philosophy who takes as the only reality 'pure
experience'. A quote from the beginning of the book: "There is not
experience because there is an individual, but there's an individual
because there is experience". Objective reality, he says, is made of
simply constant features of consciousness.
Samual Avery (The dimensional structure of consciousness). I haven't
read this book to the end yet, but he similarily says that objective
things like space and time are constant 'dimensions' of consciousness.
Danah Zohar, Ian Marshall, Roger Penrose, Stuart Hameroff, David Hodgson
(The Mind matters: Consciousness and choice in a Quantum World. I highly
recommend this book). They all put forward the notion that consiousness
is as fundamental to reality as things as electrons and mass. Indeed
this is not so radical in that they discard an objective reality 'out
there', but they all put forward theories and philosophies that regard
consciousness as at least a phenomenon which has a deep part to play in
the universe. They further share the assumption that quantum theory or a
future version of it is a key both to understanding matter and
consciousness.
Philosophers like David Chalmers and Thomas Nagel also regard the
subjective first-person-perspective as an important feature of reality.
They too, however, don't go so far as to dismiss the existence of an
objective reality. But at least it's better than the inferior place we
conscious beings have in a Newtonian or maybe Cartesian world.
Let's see if I can come up with more people... hm. Well, of course
nearly all buddhists... as well as the early Greek philosophers before
Plato and Socrates and all.
As Pirsig has said, his work is a culture-bearer. That means that his
'metaphysics' (I prefer the word 'philosophy') is not something he
invented, but is a trend in culture. And others, like the ones I
mentioned above, have formulated in different words something similar.
How long took it after Newton to diffuse his implicit nihilistic
metaphysics to diffuse in our culture? Some centuries? Quantum theory
and Relativity are nearly a century old. The metaphysics or philosophy
that is inherent in them is beginning to be formulated in
scientific(popular) books. I hope we live to see a gradual change in our
society and the way we relate to each other and the world, and move
beyond the phase of theories, philosophies, metaphysics formulated and
(merely)discussed by a small set of people; but I think it's only a
matter of time that we start to LIVE the MOQ.
Thanks for reading, greetings, Patrick.
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