From: Paul Turner (paul@turnerbc.co.uk)
Date: Sat Aug 07 2004 - 11:40:15 BST
Hi Platt
I am going to be away for a short while but will not forget to respond
to this post when I return because I think it's an important aspect of
the MOQ that is perhaps not as clear or obvious as I think it is.
Until I respond in full, here is a LILA'S CHILD quote (page 548) which
immediately springs to mind:
"In a subject-object metaphysics, experience is between a pre-existing
object and subject, but in the MOQ, there is no pre-existing subject or
object. Experience and Dynamic Quality become synonymous...This is pure
empiricism, as opposed to scientific empiricism, which, with its
pre-existing subjects and objects, is not really so pure."
Without understanding this, I don't see how you can understand the MOQ.
It is the fundamental difference between the MOQ and all varieties of
SOM.
Cheers
Paul
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk
[mailto:owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk] On Behalf Of Platt Holden
Sent: 07 August 2004 01:39
To: moq_discuss@moq.org; owner-moq_discuss@venus.co.uk
Subject: RE: MD The individual in the MOQ
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
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