[MD] Value and the Individual

[Ham Priday]

Ron said, previously:
> Pirsig tends to stray from anthropic principle, if you ask me,
> which is the whole point of his metaphysic, busting that notion
> of otherness as an absolute entity in itself.  He supports the
>> idea that objective reality is a subjective interpretation.

Ham responded:
> Pirsig has posited Quality in place of a primary source,
> and has made it a "moral absolute" rather than a
> metaphysical absolute.
>
>  By supporting the idea that "objective reality is a
> subjective interpretation," he has allowed for subject
> and object, which refutes his claim to have overcome
> duality.

[Ron]:
> I think you are picking and choosing what to take literally.
> By placing Primary experience BEFORE intellectual
> distinction (s/o being one of many ways to make
> intellectual distinction) he has overcome duality.

Despite what James and Pirsig say, the term "primary experience" conflates 
epistemology.  Experience is always an intellectual distinction.  Localized 
"uninterpreted experience", such as the pain felt when nerve endings are 
traumatized by heat (Pirsig's famous hot stove analogy) becomes an 
experience only after one relates it to the stovetop and his butt.  It is 
impossible to describe an experience without distinguishing its relations. 
Instead of "pre-intellectual experience", I maintain that Value SENSED by 
the subject psycho-emotionally in immediately interpreted by the intellect 
in terms of differentiated phenomena.  This is what I meant by the statement 
"our intellectual interpretation of experience is prejudiced by the very 
nature of our subjectivity.

> Agree, but being aware of this fact and placing the
> focus of our value decisions in immediate first hand
> experience moves away from the Social/intellectual
> values and towards a more certain value assessment
> of an experience.

What experience is not "first hand"?  All experience is proprietary to the 
self.  If I experience something it is MY "first hand" experience; I'm not 
getting it second hand from somebody else.  The values I realize from 
experiencing social events or contemplating intellectual ideas are MY 
values.  The totality of my life experience represents my being in the 
world.  I don't see that any single value assessment I make is "more 
certain" than any other.  Value realization has nothing to do with Truth but 
everything to so with Sensibility, which is man's essence.

> But it does not mean that existence is ultimately meaningless,
> it means that "meaning" is self derived, that it is important to
> recognize this and not go looking for meaning outside of ourselves.
> The most certain of experiences - pre-intellectual ones are the
> ones in which meaning holds the most value.

Again, I do not acknowledge "pre-intellectual experiences.  Can you provide 
an example of one?

[Ham, previously]:
> In my view, belief that the only meaning is that which is
> invented by man ...assumes that this process which
> encompasses everything in the universe  is a cosmic accident.

[Ron]:
> Ahh, but it does not ASSUME anything.
> It leaves all possibility open.
> It avoids assumptions.

I fear this is an irreconcilable difference between us, Ron.  It's 
inconceivable to me that a life-supporting universe whose cognizant agent is 
the measure of value is simply one of many "possibilities".  And I strongly 
suspect that Pirsig has contrived this multi-level hierarchy mainly to avoid 
acknowledging a "supernatural" source.

[Ham, previously to Marsha]:
> [I]t's true that if process ceases, there is no individual.
> But it's also true that if there is no individual there is no existence.
> For existence (the object of experience) and the individual
> (the subject of experience) are mutually exclusive contingencies.

[Ron]:
> Ah, ah, ah.  Existence or experience is neither the object
> of experience or the subject of experience, those are
> intellectual constructs to understand experience, not
> experience itself.  Experience IS.  Before Intellection.
> Thus no dualism just as James terms it "raw feels" or
> open awareness.  Consequently it is most moral because
> it is raw virgin naive sense and feeling before it get
> sullied and tainted by thoughts about it derived from
> culture and other peoples say-so's or personal bias.

You continue to confuse me with this notion of "raw experience" before 
intellection.  How can experience BE without a cognizant subject?  Please 
give me an example of this "most moral" of all experiences.  It sounds like 
mysticism to me.

[Ham, previously]:
> Together [subject and object] actualize value sensibility
> to create physical reality.

[Ron]:
> As intellectual understandings in western culture yes.

As experienced in all cultures, whether understood or not.

[Ham, previously]:
> Isn't this really what Pirsig should have said?
> Does all this analysis of levels by the numbers add
> anything of philosophical value to this ontology?

[Ron]:
> I agree, and I think the application of the levels to objective
> evolutionary theory drives a division in meaning and
> doesn't further the understanding of MoQ in the least. ...
> MoQ is not a cohesive Metaphysic in this aspect and Pirsig
> would do well to follow Willam James approach of divorcing
> the two concepts as he did with Radical empiricism and
> Pragmatism. (which are very similar to MoQ).

I don't subscribe to James' philosophy, and I don't understand Bo's 
metaphysics.  For me, a philosophy that doesn't recognize existence as an 
anthropcentric system is not worth studying.  But I'm glad you think our 
conversation is "getting interesting".

Essentially yours,
Ham