From: Matt Kundert (pirsigaffliction@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat Sep 24 2005 - 22:05:40 BST
Ham,
Ham said:
It's good to see you talking metaphysics again....
...
If you really want to turn your attention from philosophology to
metaphysics, here's a challenge worthy of your intellectual patterns, Matt.
Matt:
I still don't think you quite understand what I'm up to (or else you're
being coy). First of all, I was explicating Pirsig's position. Second,
whether we call it metaphysics or not depends on how we are defining
metaphysics (my hunch being that the two of us would use opposing
definitions in trying to capture what Pirsig is up to (or _should_ be up
to)). Third, there is no opposition between philosophology and metaphysics,
at least to which I do the former almost exclusively and the latter rarely,
that respects Pirsig's own philosophical scruples (though it may respect
yours). Fourth, tying around to the first, if there _were_ a contrast
between philosophology and metaphysics (in other words, thinking on your
terms), it would appear that I was doing philosophology and not metaphysics
in my little interlocution. (Though I can understand how you'd be confused
considering that using the philosophology/philosophy distinction is
confusing work (hell, I'd argue impossible).)
But, be all that as it may, I have a few short rejoinders to your questions
and comments.
Ham said:
Why should the subject-object division be an enemy to SOM's inventor?
Matt:
Because Pirsig invented it to capture what was wrong with contemporary
philosophy.
Ham said:
If rocks are causally independent of man's experience, to what do we
attribute their cause? If Mr. Pirsig has laid out a Creation ontology, I'm
not aware of it. Levels and patterns only categorize different forms of
existence (universals?) as intellectually conceived. Such categories do not
account for the creation of existents.
Matt:
Indeed, Pirsig does not have a "Creation ontology," which I consider to be a
plus. If you are looking for a cause of the creation of existents or the
cause of rocks, philosophers like myself suggest that we have all we need in
the causal accounts given by physics (for rocks, like the Big Bang theory),
biology (for cells, like evolutionary theory), historical zoology (for how
animals started organizing themselves socially), and historical anthropology
(for how humans created language). I don't think we need anything more
grandiose than that, like the Creation story in Genesis or in Aristotle's
Metaphysics.
Ham said:
Your analysis implies that the "patterns of experience" exist prior to and
independent of conscious awareness. This, I suppose, is what I've always
wondered about but never dared to ask. Then, are the levels "inorganic",
"biological", "social" and "intellectual" also pre-conscious?
Matt:
So it would seem to imply, but I've suggested on occasion that the
consequence of Pirsig's claims about experience being synonymous with
reality is that other terms dancing around in the same sphere, like
consciousness, are also thusly redescribed. On my reading, if we are
willing to suppose that rocks experience other rocks, then we could also
just as easily say that rocks are conscious of other rocks. Saying this is
no big deal. What we need to remember, though, is that rocks, cells,
animals, and humans have different kinds of consciousness. This is what I
intimated when I said that rocks only experience other rocks. While Pirsig
appears to be ubiquitizing experience and consciousness, thus making them
completely useless (which, in a sense, he is and with good reason), his
distinction in the different static levels captures what would appear to be
uniquely each level. He thus saves our intuition that there is a difference
between humans and rocks or, traditionally more threatening, humans and
animals (roughly, language).
Matt
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