[MD] Does the MOQ invalidate Subjectivity?

[Ham Priday]

Hi Gene --

I'm replying to the message that you posted twice.


> A lot of people have refuted new ideas because they're
> simply not "up to snuff" if you will. Just because it might
> be an old idea, doesn't mean it has to be a low Quality idea.
> Researchers are finally anazlyzing a lot of old folk and
> chinese medicines which were disregard as antiquated, and
> just silly beliefs. Bullshit, essentially. But now they're finding
> that a lot of natural herbs used by these people for thousands
> of years actually have a great deal to offer to medicine and
> science as a whole. Just because something isn't
> contemporary doesn't remove value from it.

I'm not saying that there is no value in old ideas.  Actually, I think there
is, and I lament the fact that we have lost many of our traditional values.
But animism (or animal spiritualism) has been tried before; it's a doctrine
of Voodoo, the American Indians, and other primitive cultures, as Pirsig
well knows from his anthropological background.  Since the author abhors
theism and anything that smacks of spiritualism, I just find it strange that
he bases his Quality thesis on this
ancient belief.

I said previously:
> What I can't buy is the assertion "mind and matter are levels
> of value". Mind and matter are two distinctly separate and
> different phenomena.  They represent the dichotomy of
> existential experience. ...One can say that a tree and a flower
> are levels of biological organization, or that fear andanxiety
> are levels of emotional feeling; but we can't say that fear is a
> level of a tree. ...Awareness is not a level of material objects;
> it is the conscious perception of them.

You said:
> Is it the theory's fault that you can't accept it, or yours?
> I think you simply have a full cup, and you're very attached
> to the contents, so you refuse to pour it out. No amount of
> arguing will cause you to change your mind. I don't see
> why you can't say a flower "is a flower because it prefers
> to be a flower". Sure it sounds funny, but does it make
> any less sense than "It's a flower because I see it as a flower"?

Gene, you're simply repeating Steve's comment in his latest post.  I'm not
forcing anyone to
accept my theory.  But, in a sense, you are when you say "you can't see why
I can't say a flower prefers to be a flower."  To me that's a poetic
euphemism which, whether I accept it as true or not, adds nothing to our
knowledge of botany.  Inasmuch as you and I are both reasonably intelligent
and free to choose our respective belief systems, we each will likely make
that choice on the basis of how plausible it is to us, not on what Bob
Pirsig or Ham Priday says you should believe.  That's why I refuse to play
"Pirsig Says" in these debates.

You said:
> If all life on earth were completely wiped out, I'm pretty sure the
> earth would continue to orbit the sun much unchanged for our absence.

I replied:
> Not if finite things are a construct of man's mind, as Pirsig suggests.

You then tried to convince me that sparrows and fish have
self-consciousness.
To which I replied:
> If the sparrow had self-awareness it might well care that you
> are aware of it.  Likewise the fish.  Instead they survive and
> flourish by virtue of their natural instincts.  Man is a very different
> kind of creature.  ...If man depended solely on his natural instincts
> to survive, he would have died out long ago.

Gene:
> I think the problem is that I don't see a good reason for
> denying a sparrow consciousness and self-awareness. What
> reason can you give me for denying self-awareness to a bird?
> Dolphins certainly appear to be self-aware. They have names
> for each other. A series of sounds that identifies a single
> individual in the collective, assigned to them by that collective. ...

I'll admit that sparrows, fish, and dolphins are a level above rocks, and
that these creatures have sensibility and a degree of perceptual awareness.
Whether this amounts to "self-awareness" may be a debatable point.  But I
think ascribing "intellect" or "subjective judgment" to animals is largely
based on anecdotal accounts that have not been validated by the
naturalists.  That dolphins have names for each other is a very recent idea
being circulated by a marine biologist and has yet to be proven.  The fact
remains that the behavior patterns of birds, fish and animals have been
fixed since their appearance on this planet. You don't see birds building
bird houses or flying north for a winter venue, or dolphins discussing the
weather in Bermuda.  You don't see animals (except for Platt's cat)
listening to Beethoven or organizing themselves in some new way to better
their environment.  Animals do what they were biologically designed to do;
some can be trained with the reward of food, but this also is instinctive.

One will always hear about exceptions to the rule.  But when we talk about
humans, we can be confident that this creature possesses cognizance,
creativity, intellectual judgment, and esthetic sensibility -- plus a host
of communicative and manipulative skills which these attributes make
possible.  Even an ignoramus or moron exhibits more mental acuity than the
lower animals.  What troubles me is that modernists in their zeal for
"multi-culturalism" are no longer willing to credit the individual human for
his innate genius, originality, and creativity and are continually seeking
to make mankind a collective species.  Soon, I suppose, we'll be hearing
demands for animal rights to entitlements.

> If you don't see something as enlightening, I think it might be because
> you're missing something. I don't mean that in a rude way, just a matter
of
> factly way. Clearly others think something is there. Although I guess you
> think it's just in their minds.

What did you find enlightening in the "Stone Mind" koan besides the
punchline (which I failed to copy in my last post)?  "Your head must feel
very heavy," observed Hogen, "if you are carrying around a stone like that
in your mind."   Yes, it's amusing, but how did it change your life?
Everything is "in our minds", but what is it you think I'm missing?  Perhaps
you can explain it to me.

> I think a big part of Zen Koans is to try and remove logic
> and right thinking. If you think you're right, you're probably
> only seeing half the picture. The master clearly proves to the
> young monk that he's wrong, stuff in our minds is real.

I don't see how his comment proves that.  Actually, he appears to be
ridiculing that concept.

> I think mine show's that the monk is wrong, not
> everyone is just in our minds. It's both, at once. Everything
> is real, and everything is in our mind. It's all there, it's all true.
> I don't see a real problem with that.

As long as by "our mind" you mean our "individual" (proprietary) mind, I
have no problem with that either.  But I still think we have to distinguish
our awareness from the things we are aware OF.  Things are the content of
awareness; without them we would have no awareness.
The two go hand-in-hand.  Subjectivity and objectivity are the sound of two
hands clapping.

Essentially yours,
Ham