[MD] [MD} The SOM/MOQ discrepancy

[Ham Priday]

Greetings, Andre --



> Ham, I'm sure you've heard of the expression: 'If you can't beat them,
> join them'. Pirsig found that the value of this S-O connection was
> wrought with dangers and misunderstandings (in the sense that it did
> not adequately reflect/explain reality). Secondly, the premisses of a
> S-O reality were seen to be false.

Why is S-O reality false?  We are all 'existents' in that our experience of 
reality is proprietary to our self-awareness.  What we experience is things 
and events in process.  Is this not objective reality?  Is being-aware not 
the subject of existence?  And what "dangers" are wrought by common sense? 
It would seem to me that there is more danger in a belief system that 
rejects the self by redefining intellect and society as cosmic levels.  It 
fosters 'collectivism', among other things.

> To apply changes and stay within the SOM framework would have
> meant too many compromises and have rendered his 'reasoning'
> meaningless....woolly in SOM's eyes. And SOM'ists would have
> again missed the point he was trying to make. Hence a metaphysics
> based on Quality.

My metaphysics is based on Quality, too, although I call it 'Value' and 
attribute it to the sensibility of a free agent in relational existence.  Do 
you really think that tossing out the scientific view of the natural 
universe and substituting a hierarchy of evolving levels is not an 
intellectual "compromise" fraught with dangers and "woolly" obfuscation? 
Must Reality be limited to an arbitrary set of levels and patterns posited 
by an English major who is opposed to scientific methodology?

[Ham, previously]:
> It is a DYNAMIC world:  its creation is dynamic;
> evolution is dynamic; birth and death are dynamic;
> human history is dynamic; the entire universe is a
> dynamic system. And whatever exists must be CREATED
> by some source that transcends finitude and process,
> including that which is "responsive to Reality".

[Andre]:
> Agree with this Ham, and what I tried to say was that static
> PoV's interact with each other in the way that Pirsig
> describes the way the welder fixed his chainguard
> ( ZMM p349). There is a mutual 'responsiveness' in
> progress as the welder displays his craft which really is art.

There is much value to be realized in art, Andre, but it is not philosophy, 
and certainly not metaphysics. Taking poetic license by redefining the world 
so as to glorify Quality may tickle our creative fancies and make us feel 
good, but the bottom line is that it's only allegory--one man's vision of 
experiential existence that dismisses thousands of years of philosophical 
theory and empirical knowledge. Why this compulsion to regard the MoQ as a 
gift bestowed on us from on high?   Are we not free to discover the value 
and meaning of life for ourselves, as subjective individuals?  Indeed, is 
this not why we are all here?

[Ham]:
> Value is born and comes into being through the experience
> of a sensible agent.  Value is what draws us to the Source.
> It is the basis for our survival "instinct", our compassion, our
> joys, fears, and sorrows, our morality, and our quest for truth.
> The cognizant Self is spawned from Difference: the difference
> between sensibility and otherness.  And what holds this
> dichotomy in perpetuum is the Value of Essence.

[Andre]:
> And here Ham, not meaning to be unkind, you are from Mars
> and I am from Venus. The MoQ posits that there are no
> objects or subjects 'differentiated', there are static patterns
> of value, the 'static' continuously experienced sense of reality
> about which we can intellectualise, realising we are an integral
> part of this process. And what holds this process 'in perpetuum'
> is DQ/SQ.

I admire your perspicacity and loyalty to Pirsig.  But when you ignore the 
differentiation of nature in process and the integrity of the individual, 
then call the MoQ an "intellectualized" concept, it lacks credibility.  The 
DQ/SQ cosmology has never made sense to me.  Things and events in process 
are "dynamic", and  Quality, Value, and essential Reality are not "things'. 
Only a sensible agent can realize Value, and neither subject nor object 
could exist in the absence of a non-relational source.

But I thank you kindly for expressing your position.

Essentially yours,
Ham