[MD] Essentialism and the MOQ

[Ham Priday]

Hi David --

You asked:
> In what way does PA imply anything not implied
> by experience?

"PA" is an acronym for proprietary awareness suggested by Laramie which I
have extended to include "pure" awareness (PPA).  If you define experience
as everything felt, desired, remembered, or conceived in consciousness, the
only thing PA "implies" is that experience is exclusive to the individual
who has the experience.  That equates to solipsism -- the notion that the
self is the only reality there is.

I make a distinction between what is considered "experience" in the
objective sense and what amounts to "sensibility" in the subjective sense.
In the former category are the intellectualized and recalled images of
external things, persons and events, and factual knowledge (including the
quantitative properties and principles of nature and mathematics).  In the
latter category are propriocentric sensations such as neuro-physiological
status, psycho-emotional feelings, moral or ethical predispositions, and the
qualitative attributes of experienced objects as differentiated by the
intellect.

While all of the above may be regarded as proprietary to the individual,
only phenomena in the "objective" category have universal correspondence,
that is, refer to phenomena that can be empirically corroborated.
Sensibility is the individual's pre-intellectual response to Value as
differentiated by organic sensibility and consciously perceived as one's
"state of mind" relative to the particular phenomenon experienced.

One's propensity toward value is to some extent pre-determined, for
metaphysical reasons I won't get into here, except to say that sensibility
to value is as unique for each person as one's identity is to another's.
There is no correspondence between my values and yours beyond what I can
verbally communicate to you.  For example, I might be enraptured by the
beauty of a woman you find quite ordinary, or moved to tears by a Brahms
symphony that you'd prefer not to hear.  Your greater exposure to Pirsig's
writings may have convinced you that the MOQ is the most inspired philosophy
ever conceived, while I may find it devoid of meaning.  Although these
examples illustrate personal preferences, value choices encompass a host of
conditions and propensities for which each individual is his own appraiser.

Inasmuch as none of us has direct access to another's value-sense, the
implications of what the "experience" of value signifies relative to the
entire population of mankind may be infinitely variable.

I don't know if I've answered your question, David, since Value is treated
in the MoQ as a universal principle rather than as the individual
perspective of reality.  Also Pirsig seems to have included sensible
awareness, consciousness, intellection, intuition, morality, and esthetic
judgment all under the single term "experience".

I'll be happy to elaborate on this at greater length, if you're interested.

Best regards,
Ham