[MD] The MOQ Conundrum

[Steven Peterson]

Hi Platt,

> How do we deal with this MOQ conundrum?
>
> Experience arises from a reality created by experience.
>
> One answer. "Ignore it. Perhaps it will go away."

Steve:
In the MOQ, rather than experience arising from reality or vice versa,
experience is equated with reality.

See also the response I recently made to Ham on whether a experiencing
subject must exist prior to experience:


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?

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. 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 empricists
anyway) ideas arise out of experiences rather than the other way
around.

Your point that if before there were subjects and objects there could
be no experiences and Pirsig's point that if there were no experiences
there could be no subjects and objects have a "chicken and egg" sort
of relationship. I think that there is about as much hope in settling
the matter through arguments focused on this single point as in
settling that old dilemma. Rather I think the idea here is that both
notions (experience preceeds subjects and objects and vice versa) are
reasonable postulates, so to decide between them we should look to the
consequences of choosing one postulate or the other. Pirsig notes that
the construction where subjects and objects are primary has a tough
time accounting for values. It leads to the question, is value in the
subject or the object? Since choosing either horn of this dilemma is
inconsistent with other commitments we have (i.e. that quality is real
is is not merely subjective but is also not measured objectively), we
might favor the alternative Pirsig offers where "the subject who
experience" is viewed as a deduction from experience rather than
presupposed.

Later, Pirsig recognizes that subject-object is not the only possible
first cut of experience ad favors DQ-sq.


Best,
Steve