From: Paul Turner (paul@turnerbc.co.uk)
Date: Fri Aug 27 2004 - 09:55:22 BST
Hi Ham
Ham said:
The fact that we can sense something that transcends the empirical
world, whether we call it Value or Quality, easily leads to the
conclusion that it is an immanent manifestation of ultimate reality
(i.e., Essence or The Comprehensive).
Paul:
The MOQ is founded on the assertion that value or quality *is* empirical
and therefore *does not* transcend the empirical world. Pirsig doesn't
think he is speculating about a deduced, transcendental entity such as
Essence or God. Did you miss this?
"[The Metaphysics of Quality] says that values are not outside of the
experience that logical positivism limits itself to. They are the
essence of this experience. Values are more empirical, in fact, than
subjects or objects. Any person of any philosophic persuasion who sits
on a hot stove will verify without any intellectual argument whatsoever
that he is in an undeniably low-quality situation: that the value of his
predicament is negative. This low quality is not just a vague,
woolly-headed, crypto- religious, metaphysical abstraction. It is an
experience. It is not a judgment about an experience. It is not a
description of experience. The value itself is an experience. As such it
is completely predictable. It is verifiable by anyone who cares to do
so. It is reproducible. Of all experience it is the least ambiguous,
least mistakable there is." [LILA, Ch 5]
"When it is seen that value is the front edge of experience, there is no
problem for empiricists here. It simply restates the empiricists' belief
that experience is the starting point of all reality. The only problem
is for a subject-object metaphysics that calls itself empiricism."
[LILA, Ch 8]
Ham said:
I have made that leap, despite its alleged "unverifiability" and lack of
logical support, because I believe it to be true.
Paul:
As far as Pirsig is concerned, there is no "leap" involved in believing
that quality is real and verifiable. If you think quality isn't real,
then you are saying that it is better to believe that than it is to
believe that it is real. The MOQ axiom of "some things are better than
others" cannot be denied without contradiction.
The leap occurs in believing that quality is Quality i.e. that it *is*
reality. He spends two books "justifying" this leap.
Regards
Paul
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