[MD] Pressed Ham

[Platt Holden]

Hi Ham,

To clarify a few points in your post to Stephen:

> Thanks for being the first to report back with an opinion.  You have
> stated the similarity of the two philosophies quite well: they both
> posit a non-materialistic, experiential (phenomenalistic) reality.  This
> is what initially intrigued me about Pirsig's Quality while researching
> Value for my on-line thesis.  Most ontologies, including scientific
> philosophy, are based on being as the fundamental "essence".  Pirsig and
> I both felt the need to dispel this notion.

By "being" do you mean "physical" things like mass and energy?   

> My biggest problem with the MoQ is that an aesthetic attribute like
> Quality does not logically support a primary source which, for me, is
> essential.  Of course Pirsig doesn't define DQ as a primary source; he
> describes it as "the primary empirical reality".  In other words, the
> MoQ offers no transcendent reality; it is basically an existential
> ontology with Quality replacing Being as the primary reality.  Pirsig
> has reinforced this concept by suggesting that self-consciousness could
> not have developed prior to a certain stage of societal evolution.

Above you say your philosophy posits an experiential reality but, 
unlike Pirsig's philosophy, is based on a transcendent reality. Can you 
describe how to experience transcendent reality?  

> Also, the parsing of existence into levels and patterns is arbitrary at
> best.  My objection here is not the impreciseness of the divisions, but
> the inference that subject/object duality is "overcome" by simply fusing
> the world's inorganic, biological, and intellectual components.  This is
> Pantheism -- the doctrine that reality comprises a single essence of
> which all things are modes or members.  I maintain that Essence is not
> the "all-encompassing" but the immutable One, and that most of the
> "patterns" that Pirsig describes, such as Intellect, Consciousness, and
> Quality (or Value), are relative to the observing subject, as opposed to
> being innate in the universe.

Similar to my question above, who or what is the observing subject of 
your transcendental reality? How can something be known to be innate in 
the universe without being observed?

> I agree that laws determine the morality of the group, but I do not see
> its relation to Biology.  Nor do I see the greater "potential" of the
> collective society.  The distinguishing characteristic of existence is
> that everything is differentiated, and that applies as well to man, the
> sentient core of the system.

Again, relating to my questions above: Can an experiential reality 
exist without a sentient Essence?

Regardless of the questions I pose above I see your contributions to 
this site extremely valuable because they challenge the reigning 
orthodoxy. I suggest you simply ignore those who can't or refuse to 
answer your objections to the MOQ and try to hide their own 
intellectual inadequacies by attacking your motives, honesty, 
intelligence and politics -- anything to avoid a civil debate.

As for your ringing defense of the individual, bravo. Pirsig's own high 
regard for the individual is evident from the title and central 
character of his book, "Lila."

Best regards,
Platt