[MD] Subjective self

[david buchanan]

In the thread that Ham titled "The MoQ agency problem" he said to dmb:
... Rejecting the subjective self as the locus of awareness not only contradicts epistemology, it forces the MoQist to replace human agency with hypothesized domains that are allegedly responsible for organizing/guiding conscious thoughts, ideas, morality, and intellectual enlightenment as functions of evolutionary process. By positing everything as "interrelating patterns of Quality", we reduce the individual to a mere pawn controlled by the forces of a physical universe. 


dmb replies:
Okay, I understand that your concern is with the agency of individuals. I can also see that you believe the rejection of the subjective self undermines the agency of individuals. Addressing your concerns would be several steps down the road. If we ever got that far down the road you'd see that the rejection of the subjective self has almost nothing to do with your concerns. If you are ever going to see that, the first thing to do is gain an understanding of what the subjective self actually is and the reasons for its rejection by James, Pirsig, Dewey and other radical empiricists. To that end, I offered you a passage from a Wiki article. I can tell by your response that you did not comprehend that passage, not even a little bit. (This is very frustrating for me.) Here's the line that really killed me....


Ham said:

Does "nondual 'sciousness'" add anything meaningful to ontology or metaphysics? It seems to me that any quality ending in 'cious' -- "precious", "delicious", "malicious", "fallacious", etc. -- may be categorized as a type of "ciousness", if one wishes to hide the meaning of the prefix.


dmb says:

Yes, this non-dual awareness adds something meaningful to metaphysics. In the MOQ, this non-dual awareness is called Dynamic Quality. It is the central topic of both books. If you don't understand this part of the MOQ, then you understand nothing about the MOQ. This non-dual awareness is also the starting point of James's radical empiricism, which is explicitly adopted by Pirsig. In that context, James refers to this non-dual awareness as "pure experience". As the Wiki article put it, Sciousness "refers to consciousness separate from consciousness of self" and this notion "throws the question of who the knower really is wide open". Also, Pirsig and James are both perfectly aware of the fact that this notion "contradict[s] the fundamental assumption of every philosophic school." That is precisely the point, to contradict that fundamental assumption. This is also the fundamental assumption behind your concerns, Ham. "James had founded a new school of philosophy, called 'radical empiricism,' and non-dual Sciousness was its starting-point." Again, James and Pirsig are deliberately contradicting those assumptions for a reason and you need to understand that before you can understand anything else about the new school of philosophy that we are here to discuss. Until then you will remain completely lost. 

The dualism they are rejecting with this non-dual awareness is called subject-object metaphysics or, as we refer to it around here, simply SOM. Rejecting SOM doesn't make people disappear. It doesn't mean we're mere pawns controlled by the physical universe. The MOQ says that Man is the measure of all things, is a participant in the creation of all things. You're unlikely to ever find a philosophy that is more centered on human agency than these guys are offering. It is human centered and freedom is the highest good but in a way that's more profound than even Jefferson could have imagined, but it's not about individualism or egotism either. I mean, your concerns that the MOQ would undermine such ideals is unfounded and only reveals a lack of understanding on your part. 

I have been trying to help - from time to time - but your response always shows that you're just not getting it.


"What the Metaphysics of Quality would do is take this separate category, Quality, and show how it contains within itself both subjects and objects. The Metaphysics of Quality would show how things become enormously more coherent--fabulously more coherent--when you start with an assumption that Quality is the primary empirical reality of the world...."