Hello Robert and the rest:
Before I begin, I should state that this is essentially my first post. I
actually subscribed some time ago, however completely forgot that I had done
so. I recently wemt to my email program and downloaded 782 messages and
reasoned I had better figure out how to unsubscribe or start contributing to
this group. My choice is obvious and not only do apologize for my period of
inactivity but also thank you for offering a forum whereby people may
discuss such things as metaphysics without beng looked at with John
Silverson-like "glassy eyes." Enough of this, however. Oh, but one more
thing. Please excuse my absolutely awful spelling.
Your post, Robert, is fascinating. I would like to deal only with the first
part, however, because it seems the most important: You say:
>Suppose there is a glass on the table. I don't really know anything about
it
>other than what I experience. To be concise, there is no glass but simply
>glass-ness. There is a shape when I look at it, and a hard physical
sensation
>when I feel it, etc, etc. I think this perspective is compatibvle with
monistic
>metaphysics idealism -- which says there are only ideas of things.
With this I agree, as I am sure most people who subscribe to the MOQ
philosophy do. You go on to say, however, this:
>But, but, but, if I leave the room and come back the glass remains there.
>It intuitively seems there is an external glass-thing that remains in
>tact even when I am not experiencing it.
This does seem to be common sense, however if we recall Kant's arguments, we
see you to be false: Kant shows that there are certain forms, or ideas,
that must anteceed sensous experience such as space, time, causality, and
relation. We may identify such a form by extracting it from sensous
experiencnce and attempting to see what remains. For example, if you
picture an object without space you get into a bind. For although you may
remove all of the properties of that object so as to have nothing but
nothingness, the space it occupied still remains. It is clear, then, that
before we may sense anything, including a glass, we must have concept of
space a priori.
Now we apply this to what you are saying: If we look at an object and
remove continuity (which is the form we associate with the glass still
existing when it is not sensed), we get into the same bind we got into when
attempting to remove the object's space. Without this continuity, we can
not attach properties to the object and thus are left with nothingness.
That nothingness obviously continious.
The conclusion is this: Any object relies on our mind totally. Without the
concepts of the mind, any world cannot have knowable existence. In MOQian
terms, I propose these forms are PRE-inorganic. Even before H20 and glass
can exist there does exist these immaterial mind forms that rear dynamic
experience into something managable. To abandon these PRE-inorganic
experiences we would conceivably see reality for what it is, but that is not
possible.
The world of objects exists, but in itself as chaotic beyond conception, but
in the mythos as stable, true, believable, common sense existance. The
glass we are sure of -- the glass that is true -- exists only in the mind,
or static quality. Yes, I am proposing that the subject-object split is
compatable, in the philosophic idealist sense as shown here, to the
static-dynamic split. The metaphysics Pirsig hates is realism but is termed
SOM, which believeing objects to have existence outside of our own
analouges.
That is all I wish to say for now, as it seems a lot to digest, as was your
post Robert. Please inform me if I have missed something, for I am sure
that I have and am unaware of it.
Thank you for listening,
Ryan
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