[MD] the subjective

[MarshaV]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ham Priday" <hampday1 at verizon.net>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Monday, August 04, 2008 12:30 AM
Subject: Re: [MD] the subjective


> 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 Or when you become aware of it, it no longer represents the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 ...

Greetings Ham,

Sorry I didn't respond sooner.

You wrote that "consciousness is not found in neurons or gray cells".  I 
agree.  But I cannot find consciousness anywhere.  I've seen it flow in 
meditation, but it wasn't any kind of entity.


>
> "...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'.

As I understand it, static quality is relational.  Quality is undefinable.

If by self you mean any kind of entity, I cannot find one.  There is a flow 
of conceptual and sensual experiences.  They are interrelated and 
ever-changing.  There are no boundaries or delineation that I can find other 
than what I name as me.  And the naming is merely a convention.   A 
collection of patterns called self.

I have no relationship with your 'unmoved mover'.  Do not compute.



>
> The dictionary defines phenomenon as "an object or aspect known through 
> the senses, rather than by nonsensuous intuition."

The dictionary defines the conventional understanding of entities.  Analogy.


 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.
>

Isn't knowing the same as experiencing which is the same as valuing? 
Quality is fundamental!!!  Subject and objects are nominally imputed by 
convention.

Now it comes to me.  The reason I put off responding was you seem to state 
things backwards, and it's hard for me to to untangle.  And I'm not sure it 
is necessary that we agree.  In the end, words can only kill it.

Marsha