[MD] epistemological first musings and poetry's recognition

[Ham Priday]

Hi Ron --


[Ham, previously to Nick]:
> Freedom, Liberty, and Justice are values. Do you believe values are
>"intellectual patterns" that we can't sense or feel without intellect?
> Is the joy you experience from a walk in the woods something you have
> to conceptualize about? Are peace and beauty not directly sensed as
> an immanent part of your awareness?

[Ron]:
> May you touch freedom? may you see liberty? may you taste justice?
> Do animals sense peace and beauty?

Do you touch, see, or taste Quality?  Is Excellence an organic sensation?

You said to Nick:
> Nick, you use the terms "Justice" and "liberty" as though they stand for
> objective universal truths.  MoQ rejects objective universal views.

Yet, The Pirsigian notion of Quality (DQ) is a universal view.  And it is 
from this universal concept that "patterns of Quality" are said to be 
derived.  You told Nick that "Gravity is a concept, same as Justice and 
Liberty."

You see, Ron, this is why I prefer Value to "quality" as a term to designate 
what we sense as Goodness (or Evil).  Unlike Quality, which is an 
intellectual appraisal of something experienced, Value is an immediate 
sensibility.  In fact, it is the non-intellectual status of one's 
self-awareness.  Which is why I define the individual subject as 
value-sensibility.

Frankly, I don't know what animals sense, aside from organic sensation and 
the fear of predators they interpret from their five senses.  I do know that 
human beings are value-sensible creatures, and that this is the modus 
operandi of their behavior.  Humans are unique in the ability to create and 
achive what they value or aspire to.  This gives man a special role in 
existence beyond the survival instinct.

This is what I like about the Philosophy of Individual Valuism, as opposed 
to universal or collectivist Qualityism.  The anonymous author is clear on 
this point:

"Value is a property that exists within minds. Something can be valued
 by some people in the world, nobody in the world, or even everyone
 in the world, but there cannot be a value that is 'objective,' 'necessary,'
 or 'a priori'."

[Ron]:
> He starts from the assumption that reality is divided into subjects and
> objects, this is an intellectual assumption and proves nothing.

If we "kill intellect and all intellectual patterens" as well as sensibility 
in order to prove that all is Quality, we render emotion insensible and lose 
our capacity to realize value.  Okay, so Pirsig and I are at odds on this 
issue.  I'm not any happier about this disagreement than you are, but 
"unrealized value" is an oxymoron.  Without a subjective agent to realize 
value it doesn't exist.  I don't see valuation as an "intellectual pattern" 
but as the human ability to realize value "pre-intellectually" (to use 
Pirsig's term).  And where there is individual subjectivity there must also 
be objective experience.  It's the self/other dichotomy that characterizes 
existence.

Fortunately, it appears that I am free to present this anti-MoQ view on this 
forum, at least so long as I do not associate it with "right-wing" 
individualism.

Thanks for the critique, Ron.  I hope this clarifies my epistemological 
position.

Regards,
Ham