Hi Kevin and others,
Great that you entered the discussion, Kevin. We haven't talked to eachother yet,
but I liked many of the posts you wrote.
I don't know if you read all the posts in this thread until now, but I think it's
very important to see the context in which my post was written, especially
seeing the ambiguity of the words Realism, Idealism and Reality.
Below I will explain the context in which the points were written. I think
this will show you that we don't really disagree.
Kevin:
> [...] I think Pirsig completely crushes any polarity between them [Realism
> and Idealism]. Dynamic Quality unifies both the subject and the object into one value.
Agreed, yet there is more to Realism and Idealism than object and subject.
The most radical Idealists (Sollipsists, Subjectivists) believe in only the subject
rejecting the existence of all objects. For the radical Realists (Materialists) it
is the other way around. But both the terms Realism and Idealism are very
ambiguous and as far as I know neither does necessarily reject subjects or
objects.
Walter:
> 1 There IS a reality that is independent of the existence of consciousness
Kevin
> False. Metaphysically reality is both subject and object simulatenously.
> Consciousness (subject) is found in all reality. Indeed, even an atom is
> both a subject and an object. [..]
> You seem to be narrowing the definition of consciousness. We all agree the
> universe is created solely of values and that a thing which has no value
> doesn't exist. But every "value" has a consciousness of its own value.
I wrote this to contradict radical Idealistic thinking, that there is no reality
outside human consciousness, but that there exists ONLY 'mind'. I made this
point to be clear about there existing things also without human life.
As you see in my second and third point I agree with you on the above. I hope
this explains why the 3rd statement doesn't contradict with the 1st one.
> 2 This reality can be partly known to man. As Pirsig said "we take a handfull
> of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that hand
> of sand the world".
> 3 The reality known to human consciousness is NOT independent of this
> consciousness, but 'influenced' by the very structure that accounts for this
> consciousness.
Kevin
> There is no reality independent of man because man defines his reality.
As you can see I make a distinction between epistemological reality and
"the world of existence out there", which I also call reality. I think much of the
confusion is due to this ambiguity of the word reality.
By the way:
You bring in a new point by challenging the definition of consciousness I use.
I can go along with you that one could explain 'consciousness' much further
than solely human consciousness. I had a similar discussion with David not so
long ago about the term 'awareness'. However for me this doesn't mean that we
must close our eyes for the special forms these terms have, regarding human life.
Grtngs
Walter
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