[MD] Does the MOQ invalidate Subjectivity?

[Matt Kundert]

Steve,

Steve said:
It’s no joke that I think you are very good at understanding the 
disagreements that we have around here and pointing out where underlying 
premises keep the two sides talking past one another.

Matt:
Well thanks.  I didn't know whether you were just teasing me 'cuz I 
popularized the phrase "begging the question" around here ;-)

Matt said:
What it does not allow you is what Ham wants: a special, milky  secretion 
that is different from all that, something called "the proprietary nature of 
experience" or simply "subjectivity."  Ham looks like a phenomenologist, 
somebody who thinks that the _actual experience of experiencing_ is 
different (and prior to) "patterns of value" or anything else we might call 
it or say about it. That's why he thinks the Subject/Object distinction so 
fundamental--because "patterns of value" will never get at our actual, lived 
experience.

Steve said:
"An experience of experiencing" sounds like an unnecessary extra term with 
no added explanatory value and as such should be dropped.

Matt:
You and me both.  But that last paragraph gave me the most consternation 
because it sets up exactly where some people disagree with me.  Though Ham 
still tends to misread what I'm saying ("I'm still mystified that what he 
admits to be 'our actual, lived experience' has no significance for him": no 
Ham, the bit you quoted was me spinning your response; I think I do just 
fine with actual, lived experience without the notion of "the propietary 
nature of experiece", I was just expressing how you don't think I do without 
it), I'm expecting that some people will see Pirsig in that last section.

The bit they'll see is "the actual experience of experiencing" and how 
that's "different (and prior to) 'patterns of value'".  The "actual 
experience of experiencing" is another placeholder for, what in an earlier 
conversation we were calling "qualia", which is another placeholder for 
Northrop's "concept of intution", which is another placeholder for 
"pre-intellectual experience".

What the above section does, then, is lay down the gauntlet again for why 
those above notions should all be shed: they are what Ham is talking about.  
Because Ham takes such notions as being a primary subject/object distinction 
and, so construed, I can't see that he's all that wrong.

That means either 1) Ham is a lot closer to Pirsig and certain expositers 
then many have thought or 2) we perhaps should rethink using Northrop's 
notion of "concept of intuition" to unpack Pirsig's "pre-intellectual 
experience".

Matt

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