From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Oct 15 2002 - 16:42:44 BST
Hi Matt:
> What I'm saying is that Pirsig's
> entire notion of Quality as brought out in ZMM is still infected with SOM.
> Saying that Lila is the infected area is fairly uncontroversial in this
> respect. He's making a metaphysics, of course he's infecting the system.
> But I want to argue that the infection starts earlier. The language he
> uses in ZMM still seems to bring up a SOM picture.
I guess we're all "infected" with SOM since we use SOM language to
communicate with one another. Our language is riddled with SOM since
it's fundamental premise is "I" and "You" (self-other). To accuse Pirsig
of being caught up in SOM is to accuse him of using the English
language. For Pirsig, SOM and its handmaiden science are high-quality
intellectual patterns. So I think you concern that Pirsig is "under an
SOM spell" is a strawman.
> So, when Platt says, "Experience prior to any inner-outer, subject-object
> distinction, is the ahistorical, universal foundation of the MOQ," this is
> the point at which I deny that the MoQ has evaded SOM. To make claims for
> ahistoricalness and universalness is to make SOMish claims. To follow
> Platt in saying that we must correspond to this ahistorical, universal
> Quality is to ressurect the spectare of SOM (at least, I'm pretty sure this
> is what you've been saying). You can only do this by already assuming an
> appearence-reality distinction.
Again, you can only say anything by making SOM distinctions. That's
why writing a metaphysics is a degenerate activity (but fun
nevertheless). Quality is what exists before you say anything. Quality is
reality before you make an appearance-reality distinction.
If you claim that "existence," "reality, "awareness," "experience,"
"consciousness," and the like are not pointing to ahistorical universals,
then you are saying language is hopelessly incapable of expressing
anything certain, and thus, anything goes. Since we can't live in a
constant state of doubt, we must accept that some things just won't go
away. To hold the omnipresence of experience as Quality as an initial
premise for a metaphysics seems to me a "good truth."
I'm happy to be infected with SOM. It gives me the power of language.
But, like mathematics, it doesn't begin to distinguish good from evil,
right from wrong. Taken by themselves, the number 2 is no "better" than
the number 15. Likewise, the appearance-reality distinction tells me
nothing about the value of this web site. That's where the MOQ comes
in. (-:
Platt
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