From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Wed Oct 26 2005 - 19:18:53 BST
David --
I'll take one final stab at this -- just to be congenial.
You say you're not latched to the MoQ, that you have some unresolved
questions.
Well, what are they? I'll answer the questions you asked of me.
> Do you have any good reasons [for changing your view of reality]?
I think the best reason is to restore your 'self', which the MoQ either
ignores or distributes in a collective intellectual realm of its own
invention. Without an individual self, you have no role in the universe and
no connection with the essential reality. I've been chided here for not
attempting to work evolution into my philosophy. But what good is evolution
if it does not involve you or me? Even if your mystical Quality "makes
everything better", unless you can participate in its undifferentiated
source you are living a meaningless existence in which everything is
otherness to you. To me, this is the very kind of nihilism that has been
adopted by the logical positivists whom Pirsig detests.
> How can you have subjectivity without objectivity? I say drop both.
You can pretend that subject/object relations don't exist, but why reject
the obvious? If you were not a conscious subject observing the physical
world as an object, you would be either dead or comatose. It's one thing to
understand that the essential source is a unity; but a meaningful philosophy
must relate that unity to its experiential components. It can't do this by
denying the individual subject of experience, or by postulating that the
conscious intellect is some mysterious glob that exists in nature.
> Pirsig starts from the problems of our current assumptions
> and offers a less problematic set of assumptions,
> that makes them good to me, I have no idea what your
> reasoning is other than nonsense about logic, really!
I have done the same as your illustrious author. My ontology also offers
assumptions to replace conventional notions of reality. The fact that you
regard them as nonsense simply indicates that you haven't taken the time to
consider them. (It's always easier to accuse the outcaste of foolishness
than to take him seriously.)
> Intuitive/concepts/ideas/transcendening rational thinking/
> experience - Hegel makes more sense!
> Do you really think you are saying anything
> with that sentence?
Perhaps I didn't word it clearly. What I was trying to say was that
gnosticism was the application of intuitive understanding to empirical
knowledge. It was the basis for philosophical concepts developed prior to
the age of enlightenment and the implementation of scientific investigation.
The problem with scientism is that it can only deal with physical reality,
and therefore cannot draw inferences about non-physical (transcendental)
concepts.
You cite the MoQ and Whitehead's philosophy as examples of non-intuitive
metaphysics. The quality thesis of the MoQ is certainly an intuitive
concept, although its underlying metaphysics was left to a short
presentation paper (SODV) by Mr. Pirsig who later rejected metaphysics
altogether. Whitehead was a mathematician who tried to express his
philosophy in equations based on Newtonian physics. His reality was a
"network of events" rather than a "heirachy of levels". Although both of
these philosophies reject substance (i.e., matter), neither transcends
relational existence.
> Pirsig says his metaphysics of quality can also be called
> One, Nothing or Tao. Link?
What one chooses to "call" a philosophy -- or "link" it to -- does not
equate with metaphysical development. This is philosophy by association,
not the work of a true philosopher. By the same token, Quality=Reality is
an aphorism that may make you feel good, but it is not a metaphysical
thesis.
> Well I am calling the source Nothing, therefore
> unlimited source becomes unlimited Nothing,
> word play, so what? Is this not the same claim?
No. You're making the same mistake as calling the quality metaphysics One.
In addition, your proposition is illogical. Since nothing comes from
nothing
(ex nihilo), the source cannot be nothing. All this tells me is that you
reject the concept of a Creator. That's a conclusion you are free to draw,
but it isn't what I would call an enlightened view.
> Becoming as a missing aspect of our
> ontology, Pirsig calls this DQ.
Again, the word "calling". It doesn't mean anything! A philosophy is not
something one can simply associate with a term. Its function is to develop
and explain a concept by logical precepts. Anything can be called
"mystical", "quality", or "intellect"; but it's not a philosophy without a
logical thesis to support it.
> If the source is immutable how does it get out of bed in the morning
> to create reality?
I'll leave that one to you. Thanks for expressing your "admiration" of my
efforts.
Good luck to you,
Ham
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