[MD] Where does logic itself belong inside the MOQ?

[Ham Priday]

Hi Steve --

I feel the need to respond to several conclusions that you and Andre have 
drawn in interpreting Pirsig's thesis.  Previously I referred to the LILA 
quote in which Pirsig says:

"A subject-object metaphysics is in fact a metaphysics in which the
 first division of Quality - the first slice of undivided experience - is
 into subjects and objects."

I asked why the author calls this division "the first slice of undivided 
experience," since all experience is relative and diffferential.

[Steve]:
> Likewise, we might ask, how could there be subjects and objects if
> there were no experiences? To your question, "who or what is having
> the experience?" you might consider that if there were no experiences
> this question could not be asked.

Pirsig equates Experience with Quality (DQ), which I assume is a unified 
entity.  My point was that before there were subjects and objects there 
could be no experience.  It is the subject who experiences, right?

> So while it is common sense to think that there must be a subject
> that existed prior to the experience, Pirsig points out that this entity
> that is supposed to be having an experience, this subject, is just an 
> idea.
> And (for empiricists anyway) ideas arise out of experiences rather than
> the other way around.

Even if the subject is "just an idea", where does it reside and what 
possesses it?  Are you suggesting that Quality is cognizant and has ideas of 
its own?

[Andre]:
> "The idea that the world is composed of nothing but moral value
> sounds impossible at first..." (LILA CH.8).
>
> If Pirsig would have said otherwise he would have had to place it
> outside the DQ/SQ configuration, which is an impossibility.
> The problem with the 'first slice' into subjects and objects is that
> it killed Quality. The DQ/SQ slice preserves it.

[Ham]:
> I think Andre (and Pirsig) have got it backwards. What kills Quality
> is homogeneity; differentiation (relation) makes Quality experienceable.
> Can you give me an example of an "undivided experience"?

[Steve]:
> Pirsig uses experience in an idiosyncratic way that it is difficult to
> wrap one's mind around, but he defends his usage. Here is an example
> from LC:
>
> 58. ...in all subject-object metaphysics, both the observed (the
> object) and the observer (the subject) are assumed to exist prior to
> the observation. In the MOQ nothing exists prior to the observation.
> The observation creates the intellectual patterns called “observed”
> and “observer.” Think about it. How could a subject and object exist
> in a world where there are no observations?

Indeed, in this phenomenalistic scheme, how could a WORLD exist without 
observations?
That's precisely my point.  The subject is the observer.  Prior to the 
subject/object division, there could be no observations, no universe, no 
existence.  Yet, you say "the subject is just an idea."  As there is no 
other agency, it must be Quality that generates the idea.

[Ham]:
> In any case, would it not have made more sense for Pirsig
> to say that the first slice of Quality divides objects from
> subjects?

[Steve]:
> He did in ZAMM, but then he realized that this is just one way of
> many ways to think about defining Quality. Pirsig argues that there
> is a better way of thinking about this first slice as DQ/sq.

If "a better way" is one that's more comprehensible, his argument doesn't 
cut it for me.  I have enough trouble trying to understand Quality as an 
unexperienced source, let alone that existence (SOM) is "static" whereas DQ 
is "dynamic".

[Ham]:
> I've reread Chpt. 8 and found no logical or epistemological support for
> "undivided" experience. Nor have I learned in any of Pirsig's writings how
> he accounts for evil in a world "composed of nothing but moral value."
> Perhaps you gentlemen can enlighten me.

[Steve]:
I am glad to hear that you have read Pirsig and can now constructively
participate in this forum. As for "the problem of evil," Pirsig
explains this through different types of static patterns of value.
Participation in each level is always the pursuit of some sort of good
even though biological good is frequently social evil and social good
is frequently intellectual evil.

For your information I have not only read ZMM, LILA, the SODV paper, and 
Ant's doctorial, but have "chewed over" them for six years.  Regrettably 
I've had to spit out the postulates which simply don't make sense to me. 
One of them is the idea that Quality is primary Reality that can exist in 
the absence of a cognitive agent.  Another is the notion that a static 
pattern of value can be evil, corrupt or "bad" while the "reality" from 
which it is derived is nothing but moral goodness.

As the King of Siam was heard to exclaim, "It is a PUZZLEMENT!"

Thanks for your contributions to my edification.

Essentially yours,
Ham