[MD] Pressed Ham

[Ham Priday]

David --


> What I'm trying to tell you is that your perspective is
> not just "somewhat different". I'm saying that your
> perspective is so completely opposed to the MOQ
> and that you are apparently unaware as to how and why.
> ...I'm just trying to get you to comprehend why Essentialism
> is at odds with the MOQ.

Does "at odds with" necessarily mean "opposed to"?

> It would be dishonest for you to conform to my
> fundamentalist complaint?  Huh? Dude, I simply asking you
> to examine some of the MOQ's most central concepts.
> ...You can discuss these concepts with me or you can
> call me names in order to avoid that discussion.

I choose the former, but I can only discuss your concvepts in terms of my
own.  Anything else would be ingenuous, if not blatantly dishonest.

> Yes, our knowledge is SOM-based. That is Pirsig's label
> for our basic assumptions and it has been with us for a long
> time. That's exactly why its so difficult to imagine things any
> other way.

But DO imagine things in another way.  That's what you're avoiding in this
complaint.  You want to indoctrinate me to the MoQ way and are frustrated by
my resistance.  Any discussion is a two-way dialogue.  If you lack the
flexibility to consider another perspective on its own merits, we can have
no productive dialogue.

> As Pirsig points out, the Positivists operated on these
> assumptions despite their deliberate efforts to avoid any
> such assumptions.

Huh?  That doesn't even make sense.

> And the MOQ doesn't trash SOM or reject it entirely,
> but subjects and objects are put into a larger context and
> they are seen as conventional rather than metaphysical.
> They are seen as interpretations of experience rather than
> the cause of experience.

That much we agree on.

> This so-called mystical realm that you describe as a retreat
> from reality is described by Pirsig in terms that are quite
> opposite. DQ is described variously as "the first thing you
> know", "direct everyday experience", the "primary empirical
> reality" and the "parent of subjects and objects". And the
> meaning of the saying "Thou art That" doesn't just suggest
> that man is "connected" to DQ, it means that DQ is the
> Big Self. There isn't just a link, there is identity. ... And your
> suggestion that the MOQ offers nothing in terms of
> practical application is just as wrong as these other points.
> The MOQ is a kind of pragmatism and, as Pirsig says,
> metaphysics is fine if it helps people, otherwise forget it.
> I mean, the whole idea of the MOQ is to treat real world
> problems. And the problems, such as alienation and the
> spiritual emptiness of scientific objectivity, can be traced to
> these SOM assumptions. These are the assumptions that
> put the subjective self, the little static self at the center of
> things, as you have done, and that dismiss mysticism as
> imaginary, as you have done. This is what I mean in saying
> your Essentialism is drastically as odds and that you seem
> to be unaware of Pirsig's work. As I said last time, "your
> Essentialism is essentially an SOM view.

Except for his SODV presentation paper, Pirsig's other writings demonstrate
his belief that metaphysics CAN'T help people: he has as much as stated this
in the recent interview.  How do you see the MoQ influencing or "treating
real world problems"?   How do you see it filling the "spiritual emptiness"
of our technological age?  And how does "putting the little self" down by
dismissing individuality cure the alienation of man?  (It would appear to
make it only worse.)

> I'm saying that you have failed to catch what Pirsig believes.
> You can't accept it or reject it until you first understand it.
> If you think there is no advantage to overcoming SOM,
> then you do not even know what the problem is. And the
> solution to the problem will not make any sense until
> you first understand what it is trying to solve.

I don't see acknowledging existence as a subject aware of objective reality
to be especially problematic.  In fact, it is the pragmatic approach to life
which you say the MoQ espouses.  There is nothing to "solve" unless one
feels the need to comprehend reality in an absolute sense.  On the other
hand, I don't see how "overcoming SOM" can resolve sicntific, societal, or
international problems.

> And as a matter of fact, the problem with SOM is that
> it has drained all the "meaning and direction" out of life.

I don't see any meaning or direction, morally or pragmatically, in the
Quality thesis.  That the world moves toward higher complexity offers no
spiritual or moral guidance for man -- particularly when the individual is
dismissed as an insignificant byproduct of Nature.

> On the web you could find thousand of .edu sites that use
> Pirsig's work with all kinds of applications. Beyond the
> perfectly ordinary business of motorcycle repair, academic
> types have appliied it to dance, to business management,
> physics, educational practices and many other fields.

Interesting.  Could you provide an example or two -- outside of bike repair?

> You know what will bring peace and harmony to the world?
> Justice. Peace is the effect, not the cause. Peace flows from
> justice. Or so it seems to me.

That depends on who defines justice and how it is applied.  Death to the
infidel is justice for some people.

> The idea that better is a subjective evaluation that varies
> from person to person, for example, is one that Pirsig takes
> head on and deals with for most of ZAMM. That's the
> view he's attacking through most of the book. But as it is
> explained in the hot stove example in Lila, this subjective
> self is not the perceiver of this betterness. The subjective
> self is a product of this sense of betterness.

I never suspected that sitting on a hot stove would make me a better person.
But, having burnt my hand once, I can assure you that I was the perceiver of
the pain, whether for better or worse.

> This MOQ, this metaphysical starting point, this dualistic
> arrangement is the assumption behind the problems of our time.

Again, I don't see that the problems of our time are the result of a
dualistic worldview.  But you're welcome to that opinion.

> See, here you've simply dismissed the whole idea with a
> negative characterization, one that makes little sense, and
> moved on to reassert the primacy of the subjective self again.
> I'm telling you that this is wildly opposed to the MOQ...

Yes, I'm seeing some of the wildness in the opposition right here.

As for Pirsig's appreciation of Indian culture (or was it the peyote?) I
chalk this up to his interest in anthropology and his mid-western upbringing
rather than to a serious study of mysticism.  I know he visited the Orient,
but to be honest with you, I got no insight from his musings on mystical
matters.  His personal reactions just seemed to distract me from the
philosophy he was aiming for.  But I take it they impressed you.

I like your poetic ode, by the way.

Peace for now,
Ham