[MD] Static latching & faith

[Ham Priday]

Hi Anthony --

> A reasonably standard metaphysical exposition to
> support the MOQ is given in Section 2.3 of my PhD.
> This was closely scrutinised by Pirsig (as well as my
> PhD examiners) and is summarised towards the end
> of 2.3 in the following:

Notwithstanding the scutiny of Pirsig and your PhD examiners, permit me to
comment on some of the assertions made in that exposition.

> Subjects and objects (such as 'stoves', 'heat', 'oaths'
> and 'self') are, at least initially, useful (or valuable) details.
> For Pirsig, these conscious analogues are identified as
> static patterns of value because (through the connection
> between the past and present) these patterns have a
> cognitive significance that enables us to make sense of a
> changing (if occasionally uncomfortable) Dynamic experience.

When you cite "objects (such as stoves)" as "useful details", I assume you
mean the physical attributes of the thing experienced.  Aren't these
"conscious analogues", rather than their value, the empirical data by which
we define our common concept of reality?   If so, whether the referent
phenomenon occurs in the past or the present, it must have been observed by
the subject as assuming the characteristics of a stove, a tree, a house, a
person, etc.  Where do the physical parameters of these objects come from,
or do you mean to suggest that such details are derived from the observer's
sense of value?

You also say:


> "[D]escriptions of the world are learnt and are secondary
> to the experience of value (in the sense of being better or
> worse).  It is a claim that one can not explain the workings
> of the human world without reference to values..."
> Pirsig holds that descriptions are dependent primarily
> on value, not a physical reality."

How do we learn to describe the world if the physical descriptions are
secondary to our valuistic appraisal?  Even if the sense of value is
pre-intellectual, we communicate our experiential world to others in terms
that define the identity, form, composition, and function of the things
experienced.  These are empirical facts, not values.

> "We have a culturally inherited blind spot here.
> Our culture teaches us to think it is the hot stove that
> directly causes the oaths.  It teaches that the low values
>  are a property of the person uttering the oaths.  Not so."

What are "oaths"?  Are they the curses that accompany "ouch!" when we sit on
a hot stove?

> The value is more immediate, more directly sensed
> than any 'self' or any 'object' to which it might be later
> assigned.  It is the primary empirical reality from which
> such things as stoves and heat and oaths and self are
> later intellectually constructed."  (Pirsig, LILA, 1991, p.69)

I see that you and the author want to make a strong case for
pre-intellectual value, but it strains credibility.  If I spot a cardinal on
the branch of a tree, I experience it as a brightly colored red bird with a
black capped head.  Whatever value I may give to this experience does not
change the fact that the bird is an object of my experience, and that I
recognize this object by its physical attributes.  To claim that my
recognition of a cardinal is secondary to my evaluation of the experience
simply doesn't make sense to me.

I realize that your liberal persuasion is a bone of contention but it is not
my intention to engage in a political debate with you, while there are
others far more willing and capable.  However, I couldn't let this statement
pass without a response:

> I don't know what kind of world we would have had
> if the Europeans and their American offshoot had just
> taken advice of the Tao Te Ching and just stayed at
> home (gardening?)

While staying at home and tending to the gardening might allow you to
temporarily evade the willful destruction of populated market areas and
office buildings, would you really have us believe that it's an effective
response to the terroristic threat?  Or do you think that the goal of making
the world a "more beautiful, unpolluted and peaceful place" takes precedence
to the defense of a nation in distress?

I appreciate your references to Buchanan and the Northrup quote, but will
skip them at least for now, since this message is already too long.

One other question I had asked was why Mr. Pirsig didn't put down
supernaturalism (or, if you prefer, spiritualism) in a logical or
dialectical way instead of merely excluding his philosophy from it by a
causal remark.

You replied:

> I presume because the "author" had more important
> things to be concerned with though the MOQ is an
> attempt to remove superstitious nonsense without
> losing the mystery of the ineffable aesthetic continuum.

I find it incredulous that an author who devotes his life to philosophy
would find other things more important than clarifying the ambiguities in
his theory.  Why has he left this to academics like yourself?   Surely that
neglect must have troubled you, as well.

Nice to hear from you, too, Ant.

Best wishes,
Ham