From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Thu May 08 2003 - 13:28:50 BST
Hi Steve:
> The following are some thoughts on the MOQ based on the insight that values
> are internal to awareness. It seems completely obvious, but I had lost
> track of this simple idea in pondering the MOQ. Comments are appreciated.
The internal/external split is good old SOM, but necessary in discussing
the MoQ because we are educated (brainwashed) to think that way.
> Quality is the view from within--the only view there is.
Yes. A key fundamental of the MoQ.
> MOQ is first and foremost a "subjective" metaphysics. SOM is primarily an
> "objective" metaphysics. The MOQ explains the view from within. SOM
> imagines a point of view that is independent of awareness.
Yes. The "view from within" is experience, the universal starting place of
reality. Experience of what? Quality, morality, values. They're
inseparable.
> Values apply to the view from within. They are "subjective" in SOM terms.
> Quality=Experience=Reality from an *internal* point of view. From the
> outside, values look like causes and tendencies. From the inside, Value is
> all there is.
Values don't just "apply" to the view from within; they constitute the
entire view. As you say at the end, "Value is all there is."
> There really is no external point of view. The external point of view is a
> derivative one. It is a mental construction. The existence of an
> objective reality is inferred from experience that is consistent with
> other's experiences. That is why SOM is secondary to the MOQ. It is
> contained within the MOQ.
Couldn't agree more.
> Where is the Quality?
>
> Is Quality in the subject or the object? Quality is all there is. To
> experience is to select from the undifferentiated aesthetic continuum
> called Quality. But it is not simply "whatever you like." What is labeled
> "objective reality" by SOM is Quality that is experienced consistently from
> person to person. What is called "subjective reality" in SOM is that
> Quality which is not experienced uniformly from person to person.
I would say "to experience" is to be at the front edge of the
undifferentiated aesthetic continuum. "To select" is to divide, the leading
edge of intellect which follows primary experience.
> This "subjective reality" is not simply created by the subject, though the
> subject participates in its creation. The subject's selection from the
> aesthetic continuum is based on previously collected analogues. Anyone
> with the same previous experience would experience Quality in the same way.
Interpreting primary experiences is colored by individual life histories.
> Quality creates subjects and objects
>
> Every subjects responds to the world based on the quality that it is aware
> of. The object of experience is inferred from the Quality experienced.
> The subject was, too. Experience is experience of Quality. Consciousness
> is defined by experience. Without something to be conscious of, there is
> no consciousness. Thus consciousness is created by Quality. That is why
> Pirsig says, subjects and objects are deduced from Quality.
This is confusing to me. I equate consciousness as experience, not a
derivative of experience.
> Free Will
>
> Are we with our sense of free will like water believing that it wills
> itself to go down stream? If we could ask it, it would probably say that
> it prefers to do that. Sitting in a pond it thinks, I could bubble and
> flow and evaporate or rain down or even snow if I wanted to, but right now
> I'm content to just be at peace.
>
> So free will is just an illusion? No. Free will is part of the view from
> within. Determinism is what things look like from outside. But the
> internal view is primary, the external one is the one that is derivative,
> thus the MOQ supports free will while SOM is stuck in determinism.
Totally agree.
> Why does the ball fall to the ground when I let it go? The only way to
> know is to ask the ball. Motivation is always internal to awareness. We
> see what happens to dropped objects and infer a causal law. But this
> determinism is the *external* description, not the view from within. Only
> the ball as subject knows why it did what it did. "Whys" only apply to
> internals not externals.
Yes.
> From the outside we perceive A causes B. From B's point of view, B values
> precondition A.
>
> I've always hated when someone thinks that they know why I did what I did.
> Why? Now I know. Because they were objectifying me. They were denying my
> agency. I did what I did because I chose to do it--as the sun chooses to
> rise each day and as the earth chooses to revolve around the sun.
Right on.
> Degenerate Metaphysics
>
> Pirsig first realized that Experience is Value. Further equating
> Experience with Reality, the Metaphysics of Quality is complete.
>
> Pirsig then thought about looking at values externally and to classify them
> resulting in the MOQ as presented in Lila. This "objective" view is
> derivative. It is only a mental construction. It is itself a value. The
> MOQ assumes the possibility of an external view of Quality (reality) that
> Pirsig's original Quality insight says does not exist. That is why
> creating it was a degenerate activity. In applying the MOQ, we are only
> looking at Value from the outside. (How could we understand values from
> outside? Then why did he do it? For the same reason we do anything,
> because doing so seems to have more quality than not.)
Yes.
> MOQ Levels
>
> From the inside, there is free will to do what one recognizes to be the
> highest quality action. From the outside, values look more like forces.
> From the outside, things and animals and people seem forced to do what they
> do.
>
> Inorganic values are the forces that hold substances together (e.g.
> gravity) Biological values are the forces that hold a living being together
> (e.g. photosynthesis) Social values are the forces that hold a society
> together (e.g. laws) Intellectual values are the forces that hold ideas
> together (e.g. logic)
>
> These are the types of values that are experienced. By objectifying them
> we can see an evolutionary hierarchy at work.
>
> In addition there is dynamic Quality towards which values evolve. It is
> also the ground of experience that creates and sustains all patterns of
> value.
Yes. Often overlooked are the moral forces at the different levels that
constantly battle one another for supremacy. The inorganic value forces
that we, from the outside, call tornadoes won the battle against
biological forces in the mid-West recently.
Steve, our interpretations of the MoQ are remarkably alike. While
Pirsig's first split of Quality was Dynamic/static, I have no problem in
using your split of Inside/Outside (or SOM) to highlight the key insights
of the MoQ. Personally, I find a Primary/Secondary split to be more
useful, but there you go--an example of a value difference influenced by
personal life history.
Platt
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