[MD] subject / object logic

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Platt]
Is the sun real? Is the wind real? Is a germ 
real? I would say yes. What say you?

[Arlo]
I would say they are inorganic and/or biological 
patterns that we "know" via intellectual patterns 
we use to describe our experience with them.

[Platt]
Yes, dreams are illusions. A dollar in my pocket 
is real. Myself is real. Otherwise who dreams? 
Who has dollars? Who has pockets? Without the self, nothing. No "thing."

[Arlo]
How are dreams "illusions", but memories of the 
past "real"? The "self" is a thought, albeit it a 
"meta-thought", that gives order and structure to 
our categorized experiences, without which we'd 
be in a constant stream of immediate experience. 
As such, the "self" has a real, pragmatic value. 
But, as I've said, the "self" does not hold some 
"ueber-reality" apart from dreams, memories, 
thoughts, or ideas. It is as "real" as they are, but also as "illusory".

This is what Einstein meant when he said, ""A 
human being is a part of a whole, called by us 
_universe_, a part limited in time and space. He 
experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as 
something separated from the rest... a kind of 
optical delusion of his consciousness. This 
delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting 
us to our personal desires and to affection for a 
few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to 
free ourselves from this prison by widening our 
circle of compassion to embrace all living 
creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." (Einstein)

Subject (selves) and objects are brought into 
concurrent, simultaneous existence by the Quality 
Event. Indeed, Pirsig reminds us that the 
illusion of "separateness" comes only after, 
"Phædrus felt that at the moment of pure Quality 
perception, or not even perception, at the moment 
of pure Quality, there is no subject and there is 
no object. There is only a sense of Quality that 
produces a later awareness of subjects and 
objects. At the moment of pure quality, subject 
and object are identical." (ZMM).

This is what I mean when I say the "self" is 
illusory, and that ties together Einstein's 
thinking with Pirsig's. The separateness we 
experience is the illusion, and hence the "self" 
as some sort of "forever-apart" reality in-itself 
is illusion. But, this illusion has significant 
pragmatic ramifications for allowing "us" to 
"act" in a way that transforms the world as-experienced.

[Platt]
Where I come from, "always" is an absolute. And 
to say "truth is not an absolute" is an absolute and thus self-contradictory.

[Arlo]
And, a road you act once again naively shocked to 
see, paradox, contradiction and recursion lie at 
the heart of any metaphorical system. It is 
absolutely unavoidable. All it "proves" is that 
language and reason are mirrors of experience, 
unavoidably distorted reflections. And we can 
move on pragmatically making use of the tools we 
have, but we have to, in the final analysis, 
recognize that are just that... "tools".

[Platt]
Do you deny that intellect and art (human 
characteristics) are at the top of Pirsig's moral hierarchy?

[Arlo]
Of course "intellectual patterns" are atop 
Pirsig's hierarchy of static patterns. But what I 
see as the real value to Quality is in its final 
dissolution of the "self" and "thing" into a moment of "grooving".

"Phædrus felt that at the moment of pure Quality 
perception, or not even perception, at the moment 
of pure Quality, there is no subject and there is 
no object. There is only a sense of Quality that 
produces a later awareness of subjects and 
objects. At the moment of pure quality, subject 
and object are identical. This is the tat tvam 
asi truth of the Upanishads, but it's also 
reflected in modern street argot. "Getting with 
it," "digging it," "grooving on it" are all slang 
reflections of this identity." (Pirsig)

[Platt]
Do you deny that Pirsig cites freedom as the highest moral value?

[Arlo]
I would say that I agree with Pirsig that 
"freedom" is itself simply "a purely negative 
goal". Pirsig writes in the afterward to ZMM, 
"This book offers another, more serious 
alternative to material success. It's not so much 
an alternative as an expansion of the meaning of 
"success" to something larger than just getting a 
good job and staying out of trouble. And also 
something larger than mere freedom." (Pirsig)

And I think if the MOQ teaches us anything, its 
that "freedom" is born out of "order". The two 
MUST be in balance. And, I side with the MOQ's 
idea that our concepts are always 
culturally-rooted. The Native Americans (to use a 
broad generality) would likely see many aspects 
of our modern lives as "unfree". We are quatered 
off from "private property", while they could 
roam, swim, hunt and fish wherever they so chose. 
The modern notion that "freedom" is inherently 
tied with material acquisition is nonsense.

[Platt]
Then Pirsig must boggle your mind. "The tests of 
truth are logical consistency, agreement with 
experience, and economy of explanation. The 
Metaphysics of Quality satisfies these." (Lila, 8)

[Arlo]
And yet its central term is undefined. Just 
listen to Ham's critiques, the MOQ is not a 
wholly rational metaphysics. It is an attempt to 
build some rational understanding around a mystic and undefinable "thing".

[Platt]
Pirsig influenced by Buddhism? Yes. The MOQ a Buddhist philosophy? No.

[Arlo]
The central tenants of the MOQ are drawn from, 
and are tied to, Zen Buddhism. While it is not a 
"Buddhist philosophy" in the sense that most 
Buddhists don't bother with metaphysics, it 
nonetheless begins with the primary notion of 
Quality as Buddha and moves from there.

I'm excising all your political and distortive 
bullshit. If you really want to get into it, 
create a "Why the rhetoric 'libs hate freedom' is 
a moronic con" thread, or perhaps "Why I am 
suddenly squalking 'tactics of moveon.org' like a 
good parrot" thread. I'll think about contributing.