[MD] the subjective

[Ham Priday]

Hi Marsha [Craig quoted]--


> Greetings,
>
> I would like to hear some thoughts about the
> "subjective experience".

So would I, Marsha.  Thanks for introducing this topic.

> Because the minute I become aware of it, it becomes an object.
> Seems there is no way to get at it without falling into an infinite 
> regress.
> Or when you become aware of it, it no longer represents the
> subjective experience.

That's because subjectivity is more than immediate experience.

As I tried to explain before, the subject is the "knower" (noue) of 
existence.  Knowing is the cognitive interpretation of one's being in 
relation to otherness.  It involves the intellectual construction of 
physical reality (experience) from value-sensibility, based on a continuum 
of self-awareness that is synthesized from memory.  The brain and central 
nervous system are the "physical instruments" of this integrating process, 
of course, but consciousness is not found in neurons or gray cells. 
Subjective awareness is a unique entity unto itself.   This is the 
"objectified subjective" that Pirsig refers to in your Copleston papers 
quote ...

"...the MOQ regards psychology, with its objectification of the subjective,
as metaphysically unsound."

What he wants us to believe is there is no subject, no self, no 
individualized awareness-- that it's all a myth, an "illusion", collective 
patterns of quality.  Now, Pirsig is a human being like you and me.  He 
knows himself as a 'noue' as we all all do, yet he subverts the concept of 
individuality in order to posit DQ as his "monistic" source.  He also knows 
that an evolutionary dynamic source cannot be absolute or immutable, which 
is why he refuses to define it.  But quality is a relational phenomenon --  
the self experiencing its value as an other.  This sensibility is not the 
fundamental metaphysical reality.  The MoQ is only a metaphor -- an analogy. 
if you will -- for experiential existence, not a thesis that  explains the 
origin of difference from an 'unmoved mover'.

The dictionary defines phenomenon as "an object or aspect known through the 
senses, rather than by nonsensuous intuition."   You say "Quality is the 
fundamental", and don't see a problem.   Craig has also made reference to 
the Copleston Annotations ...

[Craig, on 8/3]:
> [According to Green, to say that a thing is real is to say that
> it is a member in a system of relations, the order of Nature.--
> Copleston]  "The MOQ says experience is reality.
> It doesn't need a system of relations to be real."
> I still think "experience is reality" is too glib, out of context.
> Better would be:
> Experience doesn't need a system of relations to be real.
> It is already real.

Ultimate reality cannot be based on a phenomenon.  Quality requires a 
sensible subject in order to to be realized.  Therefore, quality is a 
phenomenon of S/O "knowing", just as all experience is.  Neither quality nor 
value is the fundamental reality.  And therein lies the metaphysical problem 
that the MoQ leaves unresolved.

Warm regards,
Ham