[MD] Flying Spaghetti Monsters

[Ham Priday]

Hi Platt --


> "Pure experience cannot be called either physical or psychical:
>  it logically precedes this distinction." (Lila, 29)
>
> "The Metaphysics of Quality says pure experience is value." (Ibid.)
>
> "It adds that this good is not a social code or some intellectualized
> Hegelian Absolute. It is direct everyday experience. Through this
> identification of pure value with pure experience, the Metaphysics
> of Quality paves the way for an enlarged way of looking at
> experience which can resolve all sorts of anomalies that traditional
> empiricism has not been able to cope with." (Ibid.)

Okay, Pirsig is equating value with "pure experience."  That's definiting an
abstract concept, since what we experience is never pure, that is, devoid of
objects.  I would call it "undifferentiated sensibility", which we don't
experience either, because our experience is differentiated.  However,
semantics is not the real problem here.  It's the concept that experience
isn't physical or "psychical".  Well, what is it, then?

In order to experience something -- even value -- we must have a sentient
organism.  The last time I looked, my body was physical.  Also, we must be
psychically aware of the experience, which requires cognition -- a function
of the cerebro-neural gray cells.  So, from a scientific point of view,
experience involves both psychic and physical elements.

To justify this epistemology, Pirsig's "metaphysics" assumes that the
division of my being from the undifferentiated source (Quality) occurs with
every experience.  As someone here said, we have to "deduce" our selfness as
part of having an experience.  This doesn't make sense scientifically, and
it strains one's credibility philosophically, but it's Pirsig's way of
"overcoming" SOM.  He must posit the individual subject as a direct creation
of Quality.  That's also why he equivocates on the issue of a primary
source: for Pirsig it's got to be DQ.

For Value to be "pre-intellectual" doesn't mean that it occurs in the
absence of an intellect; it means that in the time sequence of man's
experience, Value is sensed before the intellect converts it to objective
experience.

My epistemology is actually much simpler and more plausible, because it
assumes a Creator (Essence) which establishes the primary division of
awareness from beingness.  Quality (or Value), then, is not the source but
the "ground" of physical existence.  Thus, I don't have to create myself
anew with each experience.  I exist as a "being aware" for the duration of
my life, attaching to the relative values that represent Essence to me.

Ham, previously:
 > What do you think is "missing" [in my philosophy of Essence]?
> A theory that would extend proprietary awareness to "all creatures
> great and small" -- plus atoms, rocks, and trees?

Platt:
> Yes, to all creatures great and small, plus atoms and trees, but not
> rocks.  Rocks are heaps, not holons.

What's a "holon"?  It isn't in my dictionary, so I suspect you're borrowing
someone else's invented vernacular.

> As I've said many times, I'm a panexperientialist. I look at my cat,
> UTOE, and see awareness, experience, valuation and purpose.
> Just how self-conscious he is I haven't a clue, except he seems to
> know the difference between his front paws and his tail, and keeps
> his distance from the bulldog next door.

As Micah suggested, you are anthropomorphizing.  You don't "see awareness,
valuation, or purpose"; you see behavior that appears to be based on
cognitive interpolation and valuistic judgment, when all that UTOE is doing
is following his survival instincts.  Sure he distinguishes his paw from his
tail, and you'll also see him tongue-washing his tail when it's perfectly
clean -- because that behavior is built into his behavior too.  You didn't
learn Micah's lesson, Platt.  Little UTOE, despite his cuteness and
independent behavior, knows only what he senses at a given moment -- fear of
the bulldog, hunger, movement, comfort.  Micah's point was that he does not
"know that he knows" because he has no self to be aware of.

I'm fond of cats, too, Platt; but only Walt Disney and his heirs can impart
human attributes to them.  (Personally, I think you're just having a little
fun with us.)

Cheers,
Ham