From: ian glendinning (psybertron@gmail.com)
Date: Mon Apr 18 2005 - 10:34:20 BST
DMB / Ham,
At the risk of sounding facetious - I struggle with e-mails over a few
paragraphs as you know - but I think you have your own agreement in
here.
It's just a matter of linguistics - I think the Pirsigian "quality" we
are talking about is just another name for the primary
"pre-intellectual" experience you are also talking about.
The mystery is about the scale of "pre" - how far back can it be pushed.
BTW - the Jimmy Hendrix "Metaphysics of Experience" - I like that -
you'll never know how much :-) If I borrow it I'll give you credit.
Ian
On 4/18/05, David Buchanan <DBuchanan@classicalradio.org> wrote:
> Ham and all:
>
> dmb said:
> The levels of the MOQ are levels OF EXPERIENCE, kinds OF EXPERIENCE. The
> whole structure is based on EXPERIENCE.
>
> Ham asked:
> If the whole structure is based on Experience, then why isn't Experience,
> rather than Quality, "the primary empirical reality of the world"?
>
> dmb says:
> Yikes. If Quality is the "primary empirical reality" then it should be
> pretty obvious that we are talking about experience. In that sense, Quality
> is experience. Quality is empirical. See? If Pirsig had decided to call his
> system "the metaphysics of experience" it might have been mistaken for
> something Jimmy Hendrix dreamed up. There are lots of other reasons for
> making that choice too, I suppose. But mostly it has to do with the problems
> with SOM, namely the difficulties of locating quality in subjects or
> objects.
>
> dmb said:
> Pirsig points out that the senses are just one level of experience, the
> biological level. And this is the sense in which you are using the idea of
> empirically-based facts.
>
> Ham replied:
> Right. But I can't "know a fact" without intellectualizing it. So
> empirical experience must also involve Intellect. Also, some of the facts
> we know, if not most of them, relate to inorganic objects and social events.
> Therefore, it seems to me that -- unless the experience referred to is
> nothing more than an itch or a toothache -- sensible (sentient?) experience
> involves all four of Mr. Pirsig's pattern levels.
>
> dmb says:
> Right. That's what I'm saying. You're pointing out some of the serious
> problems we have when it is assumed that eyeballs see an external world as
> it really is. This naive realism begins to fall apart when we realize that
> our eyeballs only see what the mind allows. In other words, seeing reality
> as we do is actually a habitual interpretation of the mind. And not only
> does experience involve all four levels, there is DQ too, where these
> anatomical explanations are nowhere to be found.
>
> Ham said:
> I still want to know the cause or the agent responsible for setting up these
> "static pattern" levels (and I don't mean MoQ's author). Is there something
> significant about the fact that they've been defined as four in number? If,
> as you say, "there is nothing magical about it", then whatever causes DQ to
> divide into four levels should be readily explainable -- possibly even
> empirically, or at least identified. Why is this not a legitimate
> epistemological question? And why hasn't Mr. Pirsig or yourself addressed
> the origin of this multi-level heirarchy?
>
> dmb says:
> I'm not sure what you're asking here. Pirsig made a choice to divide static
> reality into four distinct levels and it seems to me that this is a pretty
> darn good choice. But similar systems construe it differently. The most
> common and simple ones only use three. (body, mind and spirit.) Some systems
> have dozens of levels. Ken Wilber has a system that looks alot like
> Pirsig's, except that each of the four levels is subdivided. There are
> levels within biology so that we can distinquish the very basic
> single-celled organisms from the higher life forms, for example. Likewise,
> Wilber's system divides the intellect into several more subtle levels, each
> more inclusive and broader than the next. See, this is not dogma. Its just
> an idea. And the idea has to be logically consistant and it has to agree
> with experience. That's enough to count as intellectual truth. It does not
> claim to be the only truth or even the best truth. It just has to work. In
> the case of the MOQ, these four levels really work to explain what has been
> happening in recorded history, it really works to explain the conflict
> between religion and science. It is meant to deal with the problems that we
> presently face. This is why I get so crazy over the attempts to re-introduce
> tradition and theism. That kind of move strikes me as one that can only be
> made by one who does not even understand what the problem is, let alone the
> solution. I mean, how many more millions have to die before this conflict is
> resolved. Do you not see how murderous the reactionaries have been for the
> last several hundred years? Do you not see that the Hitlers, the Stalins,
> the Bin Ladins and the Pat Robersons of the world are extremely destructive?
> The one thing these wildly different characters all have in common is an
> anti-intellectual, anti-Modern stance at the heart of it all. So I'm saying
> that one of Pirsig's BEST moves is to make a distinction between the social
> and intellectual levels. Its a tool that allows us to sort out all kinds of
> issues. Maybe this is what Mark was getting at when he suggested that you
> don't understand what you're saying. Its not that your Essentialism will
> necessarily lead to genocide of the reintroduction of theocracy in the West,
> but it certainly won't help to prevent it. I mean, it seems to me that you
> are on the wrong side of evolution.
>
> Ham said:
> You balk at the notion of a "prime mover" or creator, and you make a "low
> quality thing" out of faith; yet the implicit trust that you and your
> cohorts profess for this quaternary blueprint of reality is no less than
> what I'd expect if Moses himself had handed it to you on a stone tablet
> brought down from Mt. Sinai.
>
> dmb says:
> Well, if Pirsig had claimed that his system was derived from a burning bush
> rather than from experience you might have a point. But he didn't. And its
> not that I take Pirsig's word for it. Its not that I have faith in the word
> of "the famous author". I just see that it agrees with experience, with MY
> experience. It makes sense. As a student of history I was especially
> interested in the rise of Modernity and the impact of the death of God. And
> nobody I know of gets a handle on it like he does. Again, this is not the
> absolute Truth with a capital "T". Its just true. It agrees with everything
> I know about history and with all my experience. This is all we can ask for.
>
> Ham asked:
> There are all kinds of epistemological schemes out there. So why is this
> one so sacred?
>
> dmb says:
> Its not sacred. Its just a good idea. In fact, there are other thinkers who
> I find to be just as worthy of respect, who deal with areas where Pirsig
> simply doesn't go, but I have found that the MOQ is clear and simple enough
> and to work as basic framework into which all my other intellectual heros
> can be fitted. This is another reason why I freak out when posters come
> along and try to put contrary systems into the MOQ. I mean, its open and
> flexible enough to accomodate all kinds of other systems and it seems
> obvious to me that there is no good reason to go around trying to put square
> pegs into round holes. By analogy, we live in a pluralistic society where we
> are supposed to embrace all kinds of perspectives and cultures. There is
> lots of room for nearly everyone, but does it make any sense to embrace the
> KKK in the name of pluralism? Heck no! Show me a guy who thinks otherwise
> and I'll show you a guy who does not understanding the meaning of pluralism.
> (This is just an analogy and I'm NOT calling you a racist.)
>
> Ham said:
> Well, one problem is that you don't know that "intellect is universally
> available". You have no proof that Intellect exists in the abstract (which,
> for me, rules out Level 4 as a legitimate static pattern). That phrase
> simply means that you can find human beings almost anywhere with the
> intellectual capacity to deal abstractly with empirical knowledge -- and to
> construct theories like this to explain things about which they have no
> empirical knowledge.
>
> dmb says:
> I don't understand what you're saying here. I'm just saying that anyone can
> grasp an idea just like anyone can grasp a stick. I'm just saying that it
> makes sense to view ideas as real - as real as rocks and trees. In fact, it
> strikes me as quite absurd to assert otherwise. I mean, try telling Neil
> Armstrong that scientific ideas are "just subjective". I'm just saying that
> the idea of an intellectual level of reality makes sense and agrees with
> experience.
>
> Ham asked:
> Would it surprise you to know that I find your assertions about a
> multi-level heirarchy of existence arbitrary, ill-defined, and
> metaphysically incoherent?
>
> dmb says:
> No. Wouldn't surprise me a bit. Its pretty clear to me that you have a
> different idea of the meaning of "empiricism" and "metaphysics" and it is
> that difference that makes the MOQ look incoherent to you. I mean, you have
> a different concept of the most central terms and that is causing lots of
> confusion.
>
> dmb asked:
> Is there any evidence of any kind WHATSOEVER that we live after death?
> Please put it on the table.
>
> Ham replied:
> Aside from NDE accounts, many of which have been recorded and published by
> reputable physicians, reports of out-of-body experiences by mystics in Tibet
> and the Far East, and Christian claims of a resurrected Jesus (none of
> which, of course, can be verified empirically), I contend that there is some
> evidence in reason and value:
>
> dmb says:
> I have to admit that Raymond Moody's work is pretty damn interesting. I met
> the guy nearly twenty years ago and was impressed. But its also safe to say
> that the jury is still deliberating about the meaning of near death
> experiences. Reports of UFO abductions are interesting in the very same way.
> Its clear that something is going on and yet there is no evidence of space
> ships from other planets. There is only evidence that people think there
> are. In both cases we are talking about a very wierd psychological event.
> The reports of out of body experiences are equally dreamy. The last one you
> mention, the resurrection of Jesus is the weakest of the three. As I
> understand it, the notion of a literal ressurection is a tragic
> misconception, one that reads myth as fact. (Please take a look at the
> recent exchange between Sam and I in the "Orpheus" thread and get back to me
> because this post is already way too long.)
>
> Ham asserted:
> 1) Human beings have a genetic propensity for belief in a supernatural
> intelligence, and almost universally place a high value on survival during
> and after life. There is no existential or biological reason for this
> tendency, except to point man toward a psychic after-life transition.
>
> dmb says:
> This gets at one of the most important differences between the theistic
> religions of the West and the non-theistic systems of the East. In the East,
> the whole point is to let go of one's ego and the fear of death. In the
> West, the whole point is to cling desperately to the same. And since the MOQ
> is a form of philosophical mysticism and is anti-theistic you are here
> presenting the problem as if it were the solution. I mean, you're expressing
> a commonly held belief here, but this is exactly the problem. If you had
> actually read LILA, Pirsig's advice that we let go of that would be ringing
> in your ears. Be a dead man and all that...
>
> Ham asserted:
> 2) Along with many scientists, I believe that the universe exhibits
> intelligent design. This not only implies a primary Designer, but a
> teleology for the design. For the design to be meaningful to man, the
> purpose of his creation would logically extend beyond finite existence.
>
> dmb says:
> The world is such an amazing place that I can almost sympathize and respect
> the idea if intelligent design. Almost, but not quite. I think that its
> really just creationism in a tuxedo. This answer will be too short to
> satisfy, but I think the intelligence and beauty on display is really just a
> case of being enthralled with our own interpretations. This is a matter of
> falling in love with our own reflections while not even realizing that we're
> looking at ourselves.
>
> Ham asserted:
> 3) Were we to have access to empirical proof of continuity hereafter, it
> would violate the principle of man's autonomous freedom; hence such proof is
> disallowed by the Intelligent Creator. In fact, the absence of such proof
> tends to confirm the concept.
>
> dmb says:
> This is the kind of statement that leads me to have such a profound
> disrespect for theology. Its completely circular and begs all the questions.
> Yuk! "The absense of proof tends to confirm the concept"? That's a heaping
> helping of stinky dung. That's exactly the kind of thing that gives
> metaphysics a bad name.
>
> Ham asked:
> Why are things better now than they were before? Death is a biological end
> for all living organisms, but I don't see how many deaths over time improves
> things. Is this merely a "feel-good" metaphor, or is there some other
> philosophy than MOQ behind it?
>
> dmb says:
> Yes. There is an interesting concept that you may not have heard of. Its
> called evolution. Its the central principle of all the biological sciences
> and can be very well applied to the social sciences as well as intellectual
> history.
>
> Later,
> dmb
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