From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Mon Apr 18 2005 - 01:44:40 BST
Sam --
This may be the thread you refer to. It was posted on the MF by dmb on Mar.
25.
> Mark and all Focusers:
> dmb says on 25-03-05:
> If emotions and egos were biological then we would be able to detect them
> with scientific instruments, but we can't, so they aren't. If you can
show a
> picture of an ego or of anger, or show it to me in a microscope then I
might
> buy it. This is why I think emotions have to be categorized at the social
> level, at least.
You don't have to "categorize emotions at the social level" -- whatever that
means -- because they operate within the physiology of the individual human.
Actually, emotions CAN be detected by scientific methods, such as EEGs,
blood pressure monitors, and blood endorphine levels. All emotions are
related to glandular secretions that affect brain activity, respiration,
heart rate and muscle tone. So, in that sense, they are not only biological
but empirical phenomena.
Mark also mentions this empirical connection --
Mark 29-03-05:
> Ironically, lie detectors and electroencephalograms are scientific
> instruments which measure physiological responses accompanying emotional
> states.
> Lie detectors and electroencephalograms do not register Social patterns.
But, since emotions and the psychic self [ego] are intrinsic to the
individual, they cannot be considered "abstract" in the universal sense.
Therefore, if by the sense of Quality, Pirsig means the psycho-biological
change resulting from an experience, he has refuted the concept of a
"universal sq level".
Incidentally, I have made the same stipulation for "existential value",
stating that it "is 'conditional' in that it is relative only to the finite
entity or event perceived. Existential value is therefore only a
'psychosomatic sensation' of Essence Value", the latter being the direct
experience of Essence which is only possible when the ego is pacified in a
meditative or mystic state.
The MoQ has no such transcendental Value or Quality because it rejects the
concept of a primary source. And the insistence on an empirical basis for
the MoQ further grounds its Quality to the emotive state of the individual.
I'm not prepared to discuss Social Patterns, as they're not compatible with
my philosophy of Essence, nor do I understand them to be significant to an
MoQ metaphysics. But if you still want to take up this issue, I'll be happy
to give you my perspective on it.
Let's see what David's response is before delving too far into the rest of
this Quality levels thing. Thanks for the Copleston annotations and your
extensive analysis, Sam.
Essentially yours,
Ham
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