From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Nov 12 2004 - 21:01:07 GMT
Hi Scott,
P:
> > I have always considered consciousness and experience to be
> > interdependent, i.e., you can't have one without the other. I've also
> > viewed the MOQ as presenting not only an evolutionary theory of values
> >but
> > also an evolutionary theory of experience because to Pirsig, values and
> > experience are the same: "Quality is direct experience" (Lila, 5). If
> > consciousness is considered direct experience and direct experience is
> > Quality, then a Metaphysics of Consciousness is what Pirsig proposes.
S:
> The problem is with how we use the word 'consciousness'. There would also
> be a problem with how we use the words 'experience' and 'value', except
> that Pirsig has definitively said that in the MOQ they are, so to speak, to
> be used transcendentally, that is, we assume that all experience is value,
> and all value is experience, and value is everything.
"All experience is value, and all value is experience, and value is
everything" -- that appears to be Pirsig's basic assumption and statement
of faith in a nutshell.
> But, as you say, Pirsig seems to prefer to use 'consciousness' in the way
> materialists do, as something that came into existence at some point in the
> history of evolution. As I see it, this is incoherent, since to say there
> is value is to say there is consciousness of value. If there isn't
> consciousness of value, then there is no value -- there is just meaningless
> existence.
As Osric said in "Hamlet," "A hit, a very palpable hit."
> The problem, I assume, is that we are unable to think of consciousness
> except in S/O terms. There are two possible answers to this, as I see it.
> One is to assume that there is always some subject and some object, so back
> when all there was only the inorganic (as far as we can tell empirically),
> then there must have also been some non-material consciousness observing
> the inorganic and thinking "this is good". The other answer is to assume
> that it is somehow meaningful to speak of consciousness without an object
> and without a subject. Since this is how Franklin Merrell-Wolff describes
> his mystical experience, I consider him worth listening to on this
> question. If we accept this answer, then our inability to think of
> consciousness except in S/O terms just means that we are not finished in
> terms of the evolution of thinking. That is, we are currently evolved to a
> state where consciousness has taken a strictly S/O form. Now if we follow
> Barfield and accept that in earlier times the S/O form was not strict, and
> the mystical claim that the S/O form is transcendable, then the ability to
> speak meaningfully of consciousness without S/O lies in our future.
Excellent analysis. I should live so long. :-)
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 : Fri Nov 12 2004 - 21:13:06 GMT