From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Sat Nov 22 2003 - 06:13:39 GMT
Platt,
> > Ok. I agree with Matt and Steve, though, that it is better to think of
> > it as accompanying the information of the physical senses (and mental
> > processes) rather than being a "sixth" sense, though I don't think much
> > rides on this point.
>
> Think of it as you will, but a lot does ride on the point because the
> fundamental premise of the MOQ is that some things are better than
> others, an axiom you have to accept in the process of trying to deny
> it. (Any denial carries with the unspoken claim that it is better.)
> Without a basic, separate sense of value, betterness would not be
> recognized and evaluations of experience wouldn't occur.
I fail to see the need for separateness. That is, I don't object to the
phrase "sense of value", but do think it is cumbersome to describe it as a
sixth sense. There is no biological/physical organ involved in perceiving
value like there is for sight or hearing. And there are other such
non-organic senses, like the sense that the tree I see is not me, the sense
that my thoughts are produced by me, emotions, and so forth. The word
"sense" in these cases is used differently than when one refers to the
standard five senses.
> > It does not help in this process, but what you describe is pretty much
> > limited to scientific hypotheses. It doesn't work with metaphysical
> > hypotheses, because they cannot be verified by the physical senses. As
> > in my favorite example: I disagree with Pirsig that it is DQ that gets
> > one off the hot stove. I say it is SQ, a biological reflex. How are we
> > to decide between these two via an appeal to the physical senses?
>
> By an appeal to the physical sense of value. Given the MOQ's
> explanation of evolution vs. the scientific explanation, my sense of
> value informs me that DQ gets one off a hot stove prior to any notions
> of biological reflexes or other intellectual patterns you wish to
> invoke. (To attribute something to biological reflexes is fine if you
> don't want to inquire as to how or why those reflexes evolved.)
You are saying "Can't you sense it: that DQ there?" and I say no I don't
sense it in the moment. I sense value, of course, but not that something new
and creative is going on. That DQ created the SQ that I call a biological
reflex I don't deny. But to say that it is DQ that gets me off the stove
basically says that it is DQ that is responsible in the moment for every
event that happens, which as I see it makes the concept of SQ meaningless.
If we don't restrict DQ to the creative, then there is no way to distinguish
the creative from the automatic.
>
> > A more
> > important matter is the claim that everything is value. I don't dispute
> > it, but can conceive of no logical deduction from that that can be
> > verified by the physical senses.
>
> I agree there's not much that can deduced from "everything is value."
> But if the claim is that everything is a continuum of value from low to
> high, then our physical sense that some things are better than others
> verifies the claim.
Why call it physical? That word usually refers to the inorganic.
>
> > Anyway, the L of CI can be used when the methodology you describe fails.
> > It fails when the topic for which one seeks an explanation cannot
> > escape
> > contradiction. An example is our awareness of things changing. To be
> > aware of a thing changing we must remain the same before and after the
> > change (we are continuous). But in becoming aware of a thing we are
> > changing. To be continuous we must not be continuous. To be aware of
> > ourselves changing, we must not be changing.
>
> Such paradoxes, like "the present never changes but everything that
> changes in the present," simply show the limits of intellectual
> patterns (Godel et al) and the necessity to acknowledge that experience
> includes DQ, the pre-intellectual cutting edge of reality, the source
> of all things. I would guess that you have no difficulty relating to
> the reality of experience which cannot be spoken of. As Pirsig says,
> "The "Absolute' means the same as "Dynamic Quality' and the
> 'nothingness' of Buddhism." (LC, note 91.)
Actually, I believe he said (in an email to Ant, to be found on the SOLAQI
site) that the Buddhist "nothingness" was the same as Quality, not DQ. But,
whichever, yes, I have no difficulty with it. I do have difficulty with the
word "simply". The limits of intellectual patterns should be seen as the
cutting edge of intellect, where DQ is alive and present in each of us. That
is why I despair of Pirsig for calling DQ "pre-intellectual".
- Scott
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