[MD] Wanted: A proper foundation

[Ham Priday]

Marsha --


At 05:12 AM 1/27/2009, you wrote:

> I agree with Bo that the levels are important and that the MOQ perspective 
> is above the level hierarchy.  But I think a stronger impact can be made 
> from understanding the nature of the patterns
> that inhabit the levels.  So here I agree with you.  Once the nature
> of the patterns is understood, the usefulness of the level structure 
> becomes obvious.  I am concerned that the patterns are seen as independent 
> (inherently existing) entities, just a new name for objects. This I think 
> is the wrong view. RMP has stated that there are no thing-in-themselves in 
> the MOQ, and he has mentioned Buddhism and emptiness, though he has not 
> stated my interpretation
> directly.

So much of Pirsig's language is ambiguous that I sometimes suspect it gets 
in the way of our understanding.  You talk about the possibility of MoQ 
having a stronger impact by our "understanding the nature of the patterns 
that inhabit the levels."  What, exactly, is a "level" if not an 
intellectual pattern?  If a tree is a pattern, why isn't the biological 
process that produces it also a pattern?  If a leaf that grows on the tree 
limb is a pattern, why isn't the photo-synthesis by which it is sustained 
not a pattern?  Indeed, the nature of the earth -- its rocks and trees and 
living organisms -- is "goal-directed process".  What survives and remains 
of this process (at least long enough to be recognized and identified) is 
what you're calling a "pattern".  What perishes or never assumes physical 
form is past history or unrecognized phenomena.

[Ham, previously]:
> If Quality is ultimately "dynamic", why do we experience its patterns as 
> "static"?

[Marsha]:
> To create a sense of stability where one cannot be assured.   It works 
> most of the time, because we define the rules so we can play the game 
> successfully.  The rules are defined to our specification.  If they work 
> they become a pattern.  If they don't work or lose their functionality, 
> they slide into oblivion (or history).  This is my interpretation.

Since we can be aware of only a minute fraction of what goes on in the 
universe, we look for relatively "stable episodes" in this emerging process 
and ignore the rest.  Stability, like symmetry and intellectual 
comprehensibility, has value to us.  Your revered author once wrote: "A 
thing that has no value does not exist."  He's touching on epistemology 
here -- how we acquire knowledge; but he leaves this important topic 
undeveloped.  I would suggest that "patterns" are stabilized forms of 
"otherness" which are selectively valued and added to our knowledge.  They 
may be objects, processes, principles, or categories, depending on your 
intellectual or aesthetic sensibility.

> A pattern seems to be a static-making mechanism.  A tree, for instance, 
> has a long process of growth with many attributes and aggregates.  While a 
> static pattern of 'tree' will differ from person to person depending on 
> past experience, on the most superficial level there is shared pattern of 
> what is a tree.  And on a superficial level we just overlay this basic 
> shared pattern of tree onto our experiencing a tree.  We impose the finite 
> where none exist.  Am I making sense?

That, I believe, is how an SOMist might explain patterning, except that 
instead of defining the source of the pattern as "otherness", he/she would 
refer to it as Quality (an MoQ synonym for Value).  And, although Pirsig 
doesn't say so, the SOMist would probably regard Value as something outside 
of (external to) his/her subjective awareness.  In other words, the 
epistemology of SOM is that knowledge is acquired by the subject from 
objective value.  RMP would argue that there is no subject or object, but 
that they are both patterns of Quality (Value).

Now, I've been accused of unenlightened SOMism because I acknowledge the 
subject/object division of existence.  Yet, Essentialism is a valuistic 
philosophy.  The difference is that my ontology has a metaphysical 
foundation.  Like Lincoln said on the eve of the Civil War, "A house divided 
against itself cannot stand", I maintain that a divided ontology does not 
meet the test of Reality.  To put it simply, existence is not ultimate 
reality.  The self/other division that accounts for appearance is only a 
differentiated image of its absolute source.  What Pirsig calls 
"pre-intellectual experience" is not experience but value-sensibility. 
Experience is the psycho-emotional-intellectual process of differentiating 
Value into a world of finite beingness.  Individuated sensibility is the 
cognizant locus of that world, and each of us is a participant in 
actualizing it.

[Ham]:
> And can you give me an example of what you call a Dynamic Quality 
> experience?  (Kindly avoid Pirg's infamous "hot seat" analogy.)

[Marsha]:
> A dynamic experience is one without thought.  You are experiencing and 
> reacting without thinking.  I don't know what else to say.  I've had brief 
> little moments in all kind of everyday occurrences.  It's without 
> analysis.  It's spontaneous.  More likely when I paint, but once while 
> driving on a curvy, country road.  It was incredible.  But these are a few 
> moments, not a steady stream.

Moments of epiphany are rare, indeed; but I submit that value-sensibility is 
much less esoteric than the example you've provided.  As a painter dipping 
into your palette, don't the pigments individually have value for you?  When 
I look at a high-definition picture on a flat-panel screen, I'm aware of my 
sensibility to color.  Platt has often spoken of his sensibility to beauty 
in works of art.  There are passages in the music of Liszt, Wagner, and 
Tchaikovsky that literally mesmerize me.  Surely such "responses to" value 
are common experience for those who have nurtured their aesthetic 
sensibilities.  What we don't realize is that ALL of our experiences, 
whether aesthetic, physical, intellectual or social, are value-based.  Isn't 
that what Pirsig was getting at when he likened experience to the "cutting 
edge of reality"?

Human beings exist on the periphery of Essence, sensible only to its value. 
Everything else is an objective representation of that value.  Anyway, 
that's my epistemology.  I've been somewhat long-winded here, but hopefully 
it will help explain not only what "makes Ham tick" but why Value figures so 
prominently in my Philosophy of Essence.

Essentially yours,
Ham,