[MD] The birth of subjects and objects

[Ham Priday]

Hi David -- 

In your attempt to show that "feeling" is actually recognized in Pirsig's 
selfless Quality hierarchy, you describe it as "implied" by quality:

> Quality implies feeling, we do not begin by experiencing
> abstract qualities like blue, we experience engaged qualities
> that always have a felt meaning for us.  Experience is always
> of qualities that are more or less experienced as better or
> worse compared to other qualities, even indifference is an
> aspect of experienced quality.  We notice the various qualities
> of our experience because they are aspects of change DQ or
> re-cognition SQ.

This epistemology seems oddly construed and is difficult to follow.  If "we 
do not begin by experiencing abstract qualities," where does experience 
begin?

I agree that quality (value) implies feeling, but I don't understand what 
you mean by experiencing "engaged qualities".  Your reference to 
"re-cognition SQ" suggests that it may mean qualities recalled from memory. 
But there must be an initial encounter with the color blue, for example, in 
order for us to recall blue in a subsequent experience.

Try this on for size.  We are all "attuned" to Value because our core self 
is value-sensibility.  But since the self is finite and dependent on the 
limited capacity of the organic sensory apparatus, we differentiate value 
into experience and interpret it as objective phenomena (beingness).  Thus, 
the objects we experience are intellectualized constructs of Value perceived 
incrementally in space/time.  What we imagine as our psycho-emotional 
response to objects and events in an external world is actually a "virtual 
reality" created by our neuro-sensory breakdown of Value.

Like the developing organism, consciousness is a process in time, so that as 
the "field" of sensible value changes from one moment to the next, so does 
our apprehension of physical reality.  This is why I view existence (i.e., 
being-aware) as a "dynamic" system, rather than static.  The only "static" 
reality is the immutable source (Essence); but because we do not experience 
essentially but only differentially, the life-experience of each individual 
is a passing
panorama of events.  Sensible values are also "relational", so that our 
valuistic responses range from the ecstatic to the abhorrent, depending how 
we interpret a particular experience relative to our self.  The values with 
which we freely identify in the life experience, however they may be 
objectified as being, constitute our essential reality.  In Essence, they 
are what I call the individual's "value complement".

Does this epistemology, or any part of it, fit the MOQ scheme?  If not, I 
suppose future discussion is useless.

Thanks, David.

--Ham