[MD] (Fwd) Re: John Carl Critiques Pure Experience:INST01

[John Carl]

On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 1:09 AM, <skutvik at online.no> wrote:

Right, the MOQ must be the strangest case in history where a thinker
> sets out with a revolutionary thesis - like Phaedrus did - then going
> through the ordeals he did and coming out like Pirsig who launched a
> watered-down version. And it's the intellectual level everything turns
> around. In ZAMM the SOM is seen as Quality's first product and
> identical to the Classic (read "static") part of the Romantic/Classic
> (read: dynamic/static) dualism and also called "intellect" .. this
> fact is the fulcrum ...the 4th level ought to have remained SOM!!!!


Bo,

I don't know how much help I can be.  My quest is to overturn the
anthropocentric hierarchy of intellect being the most moral of the levels.
 I believe values derive from man's relationship with nature, this is the
essence of Deep Ecology and the one thing that has been lacking in the Deep
Ecology Philosophy is a fully fleshed metaphysics, which I hope the MoQ can
provide - with a little tweaking of the levels away from this hierarchical
dominance model.

This weekend I have been reading up on Biocentrism and I think this may
provide the final key.  I still think the insight of DQ is vital to an
understanding of how human intellect perceives and interacts with the
underlying harmonic energy which is the cosmic generator of reality and I
think we (me?) are very close to the perfection of the perennial philosophy,
as Pirsig points out in his comments on Absolute Idealism.



Now, Phaedrus' in-out turn of the metaphysical "sock" is an axiom that
> can't be proved, yet it dissolves SOM's paradoxes and produces none
> of its own as far as I know and that makes it a strong case. But
> Pirsig launched this vague 4th. level that looked a lot like SOM's
> mind - a realm of ideas - and that made the MOQ nil and void and has
> caused the stalemate that this discussion has been in for a decade.
> Each time I forward the (original) SOM=intellect interpretation DMB
> strikes at it, and his academical credentials carries a lot of weight.


Well I did expect more of a response to my attack on Empiricism; Dave's been
pretty quiet lately.  He's either thinking hard and trying to come up with a
response or he's throwing his hands up in disgust and pursuing more
interesting endeavors.

We'll soon see!


John quotes Pirsig:
>
>    It has really been a shock to see how close Bradley is to the
>    MOQ. Both he and the MOQ are expressing what Aldous
>    Huxley called "The Perennial Philosophy," which is perennial, I
>    believe, because it happens to be true.



Bo]


> Pirsig so badly wants similarities with other well-known names in
> philosophy, but as long as those persons never came close to his "in-
> out-turn" (that SOM is a sub-set of a greater "system") it's
> counterproductive.
>


The presentation of Pirsig's thought on Idealism led me to the opposite
conclusion: that he DIDN'T want similarity with Idealism, but got stuck with
it because it is actually there.  Quality is ultimately the "big picture" -
an Idealistic framework - and radical empiricism is the reductionistic
mechanism thought (by some) to prove/produce its existence.



> John:
> > ...  I'd say the MoQ and Idealism are both
> > attempts to understand reality, and comparing their paths builds a
> > higher understanding in a dynamically intellectual way.
>
> No, and no again. Idealism is just the other side of SOM's mind/matter
> "coin" and the toughest obstacle for understanding the MOQ. The
> matererialist (obstacle) was tough when P- wrote ZAMM , but has
> crumbled completely.
>

Idealism, also "just a brand", contains a lot of different ideas, sometimes
even conflicting ones, under the same label so it's so easy to pigeonhole
and then dismiss.  Think of Quality as the highest ideal our intellect can
comprehend, and even then, since we perceive its undefined nature, it's hard
to say how much we do actually "comprehend".  But "through a glass darkly",
somewhat...  It is to be fervently hoped... but however you approach it,
Good is an Ideal.



> > Quality is undefinable, but you know what it is.
>
> Pirsig says that value is experience itself and tries by many examples
> to prove it, but to SOMists it's just as obvious that "what we like" is
> subjective. The Quality=Reality is an axiom and can't be proven, only
> the MOQ built on it can "prove" itself by doing away with SOM's
> platypuses. But - phew - to Pirsig the Quality=Reality is the main thing
> while the MOQ is secondary.
>


John]


You can't equate value and experience totally.  Value is the generator of
experience but experience does not create Quality.  When you bring in the
idea of Quality, I think you need the idea of Judgement as well - the
subjective apprehension of Quality.  Thus the MoQ would replace the Subjects
and Objects with Judgement and Quality - and escape the outmoded traps of
"stuff" and "mind" while acknowledging the intellectual platform of self and
other.

John]

>
> > That "knowing" is an interesting idea in a empirically-oriented
> > world because one problem empiricism has is linking the empirical
> > facts of another to one's own "accredited knowledge". The
> > philosophical assertion that the other has an undefinable but
> > knowable experience solves this problem in a unique way.
>


Bo]


>
> Please  ;-)


 I actually got this from the most perceptive critic of Radical Empiricism,
and if you want, I'll quote you the whole argument that Royce brings against
empiricism's accredited knowledge.

But you'll have to beg before I actually inflict the whole thing on you.

:-)


John