[MD] Does the MOQ invalidate Subjectivity?

[Steve Peterson]

Hi Ham,


Ham:
As for the assertion "that matter comes first is a high quality idea!", it
has no more meaning than what you try to make of it.

Steve:
I don't know what to make of your assertion that my assertion has no meaning.


You Quote Paul again:

> The MOQ argues that experience must be the starting point of philosophy.
> Where did the subject come from? Did the subject exist before it had an
> experience? What was it doing before it had an experience? How does a
> subject know it was already there without experience?


Ham:
Yes, these are all valid questions.  I agree that experience is the starting
point of philosophy.  But, unlike Pirsig, I do not attribute experience to
the objective world.  Like most philosophers, I begin with MY experience -- 
or, more precisely, with what I am (and what there is) WITHOUT my
experience.

>From this perspective, I am the subject.  In a temporal context, I came from nothingness -- hence did not exist before I had an experience -- and will eventually return to nothingness.  (Question #3 is therefore inapplicable.) I would not know I was here without experience, since "here" and "there", like "before" and after", are the dimensional attributes of objective experience.

Now those answers may satisfy the existentialists and MoQers of the world. But Paul left out at least one important question: WHY am I here?

Steve:
The MOQ says that life is better than death.


Ham:
 And how one answers it is significantly revealing.  I believe that life has meaning and purpose, and that existence is derived from an uncreated primary source.  

Steve:
I follow Matt K in interpretating meaning and purpose as questions as the same as asking "how is this used?"

Ham:

[You can skip the next two paragraphs if you're not interested in my
answer.]

Steve:
I read it but I can't follow it.
[Ham]:
> [Pirsig] would not have settled for "interacting subjects",
> either -- although the notion of electrons and
> amoeba "experiencing value" makes one wonder!

[Steve]:
> That's exactly what made me wonder. It makes perfect
> sense to think of cause and effect relationships as preferences.
> "A causes B" becomes "B values precondition A" and none
> of our formulas change.

Ham:
I guess it "make sense" if one is compelled to accept the notion of a
"preferential" universe.
I prefer what you said before about the teleology of the universe as
"bringing things into balance" rather than the things themselves "becoming better" by experiencing value.  

Steve:

I don't think I said that. Maybe it was Gene. I think of the arrow of evolution as pointing towards "betterness."

Maybe you could say more about what "bringing things into balance" means.


Ham:
But in either case, if things and their progress are constructs of our experience (as Pirsig suggests), then wouldn't it be natural that would bias things toward what we consider better or more desirable?   As an anthropomorphist, that makes more sense to me.

Steve:
We know that inorganic patterns preceded biological patterns and so on, so it is not human bias to say that intellect is a higher level of evolution than, say, the biosphere.

[Ham]:
> I don't think we can dismiss the empirical truth of our reality:
> that it is the conscious awareness of objective beingness
> (i.e., differentiated things experienced in a space/time universe).

[Steve]:
> Your statement is empirical in that it is consistent with
> experience but there is nothing empirical about calling it
> the "truth of our reality."

Ham:
Doesn't empirical mean consistent with experience?  Unless you have another
definition, my assertion is empirically true.

Dictionary.com:

em·pir·i·cal (m-pr-kl)
adj.

   1. Relying on or derived from observation or experiment.
   2. Verifiable or provable by means of observation or experiment.
   3. Of or being a philosophy of medicine emphasizing practical experience and observation over scientific theory.

Steve:

I don't think that saying that reality is conscious awareness of objective beingness is THE truth is an empirically based statement. Maybe this isn't what you mean.

I do, however, think that experience = Quality is an empirical perspective as RMP explains,

"What the Metaphysics of Quality adds to James' pragmatism and his radical
empiricism is the idea that the primal reality from which subjects and
objects spring is value.  By doing so it seems to unite pragmatism and
radical empiricism into a single fabric.  Value, the pragmatic test of
truth, is also the primary empirical experience.  The Metaphysics of
Quality says pure experience is value. Experience which is not valued is
not experienced.  The two are the same."

[Steve]:
> The MOQ says that the subjective/objective knowledge
> distinction is a high quality intellectual pattern.

Ham:
That's nice to hear; but, again, this depends on who's making the judgment, since everything in  existence is relative.  (That's Ham's Third Law of Metaphysics.)
Steve:

So you are saying that I've presupposed such a knowledge distinction in saying that such knowledge distinctions are patterns of value?

Maybe Matt K can sort out the question begging going on here.

Regards,
Steve

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