[MD] Uncertainty

[Ham Priday]

Hi Mati --

I don't believe we have corresponded before, and I want to welcome you 
belatedly to this forum.  (I also want to apologize for misspelling your 
surname in my previous post.)

In responding to Platt's statement about the practical side of philosophy, 
you said:

> I agree largely, but the issue is basically a need to fundamentally
> understand what is real in our world. Pirsig talked about it in ZMM.
> This need which is often relinquished to philosophers, clergy, and
> politicians to contend with.  And frankly SOM has allowed this
> situation to become a reality unto itself.  This has created a
> situation of alienation of so many toward the world of deeper
> metaphysical understanding.

As someone who doesn't regularly view the world in Pirsigian terms, I'm not 
sure I understand how "SOM has allowed this situation [skepticism about 
reality] to become a reality unto itself".  Personally, I think 'SOM' is 
misnamed.  Subject/object reality is not a metaphysical concept.  It's 
common knowledge -- a mental (intellectual) precept based on existential 
experience.  Pirsig has equated Experience with Reality, so there should be 
no metaphysical hurdle to overcome in accepting it.  To my way of thinking, 
metaphysics is the use of logical reasoning (and intuition) to surmise what 
may be the source (or creator) of existence and how we as human beings 
relate to this source.

> Now I think the issue in all of this is the intellectual level and
> the reality is creates.  SOM I think we all acknowledge is at the
> minimum an intellectual pattern and some of us agree that it is
> "thee" intellectual pattern.  So much of what we contend as real
> as intellect can fall into SOM and Bo and I contend it all falls into it.
> When we ask if something is real S/O can contend with so much
> of what we know as reality.  But ..... for the rest we have MOQ
> to make sense of what SOM is unable to. The problem is that
> we have failed so many times in really able to define intellect.
>
> Pirsig and his loyalists (I/m trying to say this in the most respectful
> manner) contend that Bo is wrong and that S/O is not thee intellect
> and is at best a single form of many forms of intellect.

I think what you mean is that Intellect _per se_ is not the Subject or the 
S/O duality.  But Bo's self-appointed mission is to "correct" what he 
regards as an error in the MoQ thesis, and he doesn't speak for the typical 
loyalist any more than I do.

Why not use the dictionary definition?  "Intellect: the power of knowing as 
distinguished from the power to feel and to will; the capacity for knowledge 
or rational thought."  If you define it this way, you can see that Intellect 
is only the faculty or capability of dealing with factual information, such 
as by induction or deduction, and coming up with a conclusion.  That hardly 
makes intellect the "being and end-all" of human consciousness, inasmuch as 
a computer can crank out conclusions based on factual inputs.  Clearly, what 
is essential to human experience is Awareness, and that involves "feeling" 
(value-sensibility) as well as "will" (desire or motivation).

> When the issue is pushed further, sides are drawn, and the stage
> is set...  I tend to understand that those who debate Bo quickly find
> themselves with a guy who has a passion for an idea that seems to
> answer all objections with some kind of rational insight that makes
> sense to me. ... I find Bo's passion for SOL no less than Pirsig's
> passion for MOQ, and that has made the world a better place.

Pirsig and Bo are both attempting to deal with existence as a hierarchy of 
levels, which to me is an allegory with about as much meaning as the 
question, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?  Dividing 
existence into inorganic, biological, social, and
intellectual is an arbitrary construct.  So many other categorizations would 
serve as well: Sensual, visual, auditory, and gustatory...Genesis, 
adaptation, growth, and death... Anamorphic, metabolic, and 
catabolic....Parmenides' earth, air, fire, and water...or, Hegel's thesis, 
antithesis, and synthesis, for example.

> Ham:
>> Quality and Intellect are both "real" only if our focus is restricted
>> to experiential reality.  But one of Bo's habits is to posit S/O and
>> intellect as stages of evolution, which again tethers the MOQ
>> (or SOL) to natural process, limiting the ontology to space/time
>> existence.  Like his mentor, Bo is unwilling to explore a
>>  metaphysical approach to reality which could resolve our dilemma.

[Mati]:
> Hmm.... On this issue again I have to side with Bo's staging of
> the issue. I also agree with MOQ and Pirsig that there is an evolution
> to reality that is a natural process. From my humble perspective isn't
> Bo's a approach a metaphysical approach? (Like many, I am at best
> a lay person who has a sincere interest in philosophy but not as
> accomplished as most.)  Is there another that provides us with a
> greater or simpler understanding?  ...If there is a more meaningful
> metaphysical way to understand the world, lay it on me.

The "simplest philosophy" is to take experience at face value.  Explore 
nature, live life to its fullest, and be kind to all creatures great and 
small.  Of course, most of us do this all the time. You are among those with 
an intellectual curiosity, which is why you're seeking metaphysical insight. 
I can only tell you what I believe; but you will have to decide whether it 
"makes sense" to you.

In short, I believe that the only "true" reality is a sensible Essence that 
encompasses all as a "not-other" to itself.  The phenomenal (space/time) 
world is actualized by Difference, the primary affect of which is to 
separate Awareness (value-sensibility) from Being (the 'not-other') to 
create being-aware (existence).  What holds this self/other dichotomy 
together is Value, which is the individual's inextricable link to Essence. 
I also believe that physical reality is anthropocentric, and that man is the 
free and autonomous "agent" whose proprietary awareness is an experiential 
construct of value.

I don't claim that this ontology is "simple", but I do think it suggests a 
purpose for existence which is considerably more meaningful than Quality 
moving the universe toward "betterness".  (I have published this concept as 
a "thesis page" on my website at www.essentialism.net/mechanic.htm, if you 
should be so inclined.)

Thanks for your candor and interest, Mati.

Essentially yours,
Ham