From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Sat Aug 07 2004 - 01:39:16 BST
Hi Paul,
> Platt said:
> It's no mystery why people struggle with the idea that perception
> requires
> no pre-existing perceiver or perceived. It violates the meaning of
> perception.
>
> Paul:
> It only violates the meaning that perception is given within a
> subject-object metaphysical framework. I thought this was made clear in ZMM
> and LILA.
I've looked through LILA and can't find where Pirsig made it clear that
"perception" as used in the MOQ means something different than its
everyday SOM meaning. Same goes for "experience" and "awareness."
> Platt said:
> It's also baffling when one realizes that Pirsig's perceptions were the
> basis for his metaphysics that denies the prerequisite of human
> perceptions.
>
> Paul:
> It doesn't deny perception. It denies a subject perceiving an object as the
> starting point of reality.
But, it doesn't, really. I can't find a single instance in LILA where
Pirsig, in explaining the MOQ, divorces perception (awareness, experience)
from a subjective human being, including such subjects as someone sitting
on a hot stove, a guy having a heart attack, an infant looking at his
mother, a brujo upsetting Zuni society, or a mystic seeking nirvana. In
fact, in the LS, Note 59, Pirsig states flatly, "The MOQ, like science,
starts with human experience." Once you bring in a human, you bring in a
subject, at least in the common definition of the word, "subject."
> Platt said:
> Further, Pirsig says we can never know ultimate reality (the
> conceptually unknown). But that's saying we know something about it.
>
> Paul:
> We can't know it *intellectually* but we can intellectually accept that it
> exists nonetheless and work from there. We *can* know it by experience,
> given that it *is* experience. Again, I thought this was made clear in ZMM
> and LILA.
Again, where in these books was it "made clear?" A couple of quotes would
help. Perhaps you're thinking of his confession that " . . . since
Quality is essentially outside definition, this means that a "Metaphysics
of Quality" is essentially a contradiction in terms, a logical absurdity.
(Lila, 5) If you have other passages in mind, please share them. Thanks.
Platt
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Aug 07 2004 - 01:38:29 BST