Hi Platt,
I've had a rough day at work and this e-mail you wrote
was the bright moment of the day! [yes, I know, I
should really get a life! The trouble is my job is my
own business, with my brother as a partner. So, it's
hard to leave work behind when it's your own money
you're worried about.]
Any way...I am happily stunned by what you wrote.
What you have articulated is exactly what I have
been trying to say. I thought it was what I had been
saying ever since I got on this web site. I have
obviously been using the wrong key phrases because so
many people have misconstrued what I intended. I
agree 100% with what you wrote.
I have been, to use Pirsig's restaurant metaphor,
writing about the menu. My focus was on how people
perceive reality and not on how the "food" actually
is, not on the primary experience. When I say that
there is a physical reality I was trying to affirm the
existence of an independent reality that is beyond or
before human language. Which is of course Quality.
You refer to it as primary experience, to
differentiate it from all our words which is secondary
experience.
This is great!
I guess I haven't been a carefull enough reader of
Lila,
Gary
--- Platt Holden <pholden@sc.rr.com> wrote:
> Hi Gary:
>
> > Hi Platt,
> > Thanks for your prompt reply. Very interesting.
> Your answers were
> > unexpected. Not sure what to make of your
> response.
> > To answer my own questions:
> > 1) I believe that Quality is the source, the
> Ground of Being from which all
> > things manifest. I do believe Quality manifests
> into a physical reality
> > which start with quantum particles and then
> continue on in complexity to
> > atoms, etc. Ending with a physical reality which
> would exist even if there
> > were no humans or any other sentient/self-aware
> life forms in the whole of
> > the universe. Hence a physical material universe
> independent of any
> > observer. 2) I had also presumed Pirsig to believe
> the same.
> >
> > As for your answer: I am not certain if I
> understand. You said a "high
> > quality intellectual pattern". Are you saying
> that there is no pattern of
> > Quality that takes the form of matter? I do not
> understand your
> > terminology. Could you please clarify?
> >
> > 3) Is the baby's experience something that someone
> other than the baby
> > could have knowledge of in the same way that the
> baby is experiencing?
>
> I'll try to clarify my response. If you'll look at
> what you wrote above you
> will see that the marks on the screen form a pattern
> of words and
> sentences that convey meaning. The same meaning
> could have been
> expressed in another pattern such as
> 11100000111110000010010000001000001000000100001000
> that
> computers understand. Or the meaning could have been
> encoded in
> Sanskrit or a hundred other "languages."
>
> So what you have written is a pattern of your
> thoughts which rely on
> patterns for meaning. In essence, thought is
> relating perceptions into
> patterns of meaning so one can act to preserve and
> enhance life. But,
> such patterns are secondary or derivative from one's
> primary
> experiences.
>
> In my framework (and I believe the framework of the
> MOQ), these
> various patterns of meaning, encoded in diverse
> symbolic
> configurations, emerged from the social level to
> form the basis of the
> static intellectual value level. This level
> separated from its social parent
> when it adopted as its primary organizing principle
> the unspoken
> assumption that for purposes of preserving and
> enhancing life,
> experience is best divided into subjects and
> objects, inside and outside,
> a mental world and a physical world, a me-in-here
> and you-out-there,
> etc, etc. Just when this division took hold is
> matter of some conjecture,
> but some say it was Aristotle who initially put the
> division in the minds
> of world's best thinkers from whence it filtered
> down to the general
> populace over the centuries. Today it is firmly
> ensconced almost
> everywhere due to the spectacular success of science
> and technology
> that relies on it almost entirely. (Scientists got
> the shock of their lives
> when they discovered that the quantum world, far
> from being an
> independent reality, depends on observation to
> exist. But I digress.)
>
> The point is that patterns of meaning represented by
> intellect are not
> primary reality. As Pirsig put it, "Metaphysics is
> names about reality.
> Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a
> thirty-thousand-page
> menu and no food." Metaphysics, being a product of
> language, is a
> meaningful pattern representing reality, not reality
> itself. Same goes for
> your words above and my words here. Same goes for
> science,
> literature, politics, economics and all symbolic
> activities of man.
>
> I'm sure you've repeatedly heard "the map is not the
> territory." In
> essence, that's what I'm saying. Except then most
> people go on to say
> the territory really consists of physical things
> like cars, roads,
> highways, fields, cows, trees, etc., etc., failing
> to realize (or admit) that
> their words are just maps too, a step removed from
> primary experience.
> Are words, maps, symbols, thoughts, real? Yes, but
> secondary or
> "reduced" value patterns derived from the primary
> value of experience or
> Quality which in its direct, raw form is patternless
> and thus beyond
> verbal description.
>
> Finally, you ask, "Are you saying there is no
> pattern of Quality that
> takes the form of matter?" Again you mix apples and
> oranges by
> employing a play on words because pattern and form
> mean the same.
> In the MOQ, there are no forms of matter. There are
> only forms of
> Quality.
>
> Using the MOQ doesn't change your experience of
> touching something
> solid or ingesting something you might otherwise
> call "matter." All that
> changes is how you label your experience based on an
> underlying
> assumptions or framework by which you interpret
> experience. With the
> MOQ, what you formerly called matter is now called
> inorganic or
> biological patterns of value. Why change to the MOQ
> perspective?
> Because using it's assumptions, you can enjoy a
> better understanding
> of your total experience than by using SOM alone. Of
> course, the goal
> of “better understanding” doesn’t appeal to
> everyone. In fact, most
> people resist any change in their worldview, being
> content to “bear those
> ills we have than fly to others we know not of.”
>
> To your third question about the baby's experience,
> my answer is "No."
> Each value pattern entity has unique experience
> known only to itself.
>
> I hope this helps. But nothing I say can replace a
> careful reading of LILA.
>
> Platt
>
>
>
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