[MD] moq thought experiment 1.

[Ham Priday]

Squonk --

Frankly, I didn't expect to be talking to you again after my comments in the 
last post.  But now that you've classified your experiment as a project for 
"stimulating thought" and not a hoax, I'm even more vehemently opposed to 
the conclusions you have drawn.

You seem to be suggesting that the life experience has no purpose or meaning 
beyond its (theoretical) attachment to Dynamic Quality, and that 
"jump-starting" the path to DQ will lead to some utopian "buzz" (to borrow 
from the acid-head vernacular).  In effect, rather than supporting Pirsig's 
Quality thesis, you want to build consensus for the proposition that life 
has no value.  This is mindless nonsense.  Without the participation of a 
sensible agent in the relational world, there is no experience of value.

Since we've had no previous discussions, let me be clear as to my 
philosophical position.  I view the central idea of the MoQ as the 
realization of Value, whether it is conceived as hierarchical or essential. 
Pirsig used Quality as a synonym for Value, but fell short of defining it as 
the fundamental essence of reality.  In my philosoophy of Essentialism, 
existence is a self/other dichotomy in which being interrupted by 
nothingness is the "apparent" reality created by Value (Value being the bond 
that holds the dichotomy together).

I also maintain that existence is amoral, and that the esthetic realization 
of good and evil is a subjective function of the individual organism.  In 
other words, we bring Value into being by virtue of our psycho-organic 
sensibility, or what Pirsig would call "pre-intellectual experience".  To 
me, this is the very purpose of human life, as demonstrated by the 
individual struggle to survive and flourish, the rise of collective 
civilizations, and the innate ability of man to gain control over his 
environment.

Whether one interprets the life-experience as a "training ground" for some 
"hereafter", or a negational phase of Essence, this ontogeny clearly 
suggests a cosmic role for man as a value agent.  Needless to say, a 
physical world that automatically "moves toward betterness", with or without 
man's participation, does not live up to my concept of an anthropocentric 
universe.  This is what disappoints me about Pirsig's thesis.

So, you can understand why isolating the individual from the experience of 
otherness as a means of acquiring something called DQ is abhorrent to me, 
even as a "thought experiment."  It's the equivalent of castration, solitary 
confinement, and brain-death, all rolled into one.  Human beingness is a 
psychic-organic contingency for whom all knowledge is derived from 
experience.  Remove that experience and you create a breathing automaton 
without the capacity to realize value.

At least the MoQ, properly defined, holds more hope for mankind than does 
your proposed abortion of experience.  I respectfully suggest that you 
return to the drawing board and come up with a more "stimulating thought" 
experiment, perhaps one that celebrates the quality of life instead of an 
indefinable metaphor.

Sincerely,
Ham