[MD] Intellectual Level

[MarshaV]

Happy New Year Ham,


On Dec 29, 2010, at 7:46 PM, Ham Priday wrote:

> 
> Holiday Greetings, Platt, Marsha, Arlo, and All  --
> 
> In the unlikely hope that fresh insight might clear the air as we approach the new year, I'd like to address the epistemological misconception that has led to this discussion.
> 
> On Wed, 12/29, at 8:17 PM, Platt Holden<plattholden at gmail.com> wrote:
>> No matter how you slice it, the intellectual level (described by Pirsig
>> as manipulation of abstract symbols) presumes the subject/object
>> division and is thus the SOL.
> 
> 
> On Wed, 12/29, at 9:06 PM, Arlo Bensinger<ajb102 at psu.edu> responded:
>> A subject-object metaphysics is in fact a metaphysics in which the first
>> division of Quality - the first slice of undivided experience is into subjects
>> and objects. ... What he had seen is that there is a metaphysical box that
>> sits above these two boxes, Quality itself. And once he'd seen this he also
>> saw a huge number of ways in which Quality can be divided.  Subjects
>> and objects are just one of the ways. (LILA)
> 
> On Wed, 12/29, at 9:58 PM, Marsha V<valkyr at att.net> quoted the MoQ Textbook:
>> Pirsig uses the term 'subject-object metaphysics' (SOM) for any
>> metaphysics (explicitly or implicitly) that perceives reality as either mind
>> and/or matter such as idealism, materialism, and dualism."
> 
> I don't know the "MoQ Textbook" or its author, but Marsha's definition (read in the context of the LILA quote) reveals the source of all this confusion.
> 
> In fact, subject-object duality is NOT a "metaphysics", despite Pirsig's pronouncement of it as such.  Subjects and objects are simply the way the actualized world (relational existence) is experienced.  

Marsha:
I use a very simplistic definition of metaphysics: the philosophical study of the nature of reality.  So how the world is experienced says much about one's definition of reality.  I once understood reality to be comprised of self and an external, independent array of objects; now the world is experienced in mindfulness as patterns of value, and sometimes there is unpatterned experience. 


> There is no "undivided experience".  

Marsha:
Of course there is.  When one's mind isn't busily knowing, dividing and defining, there is a peaceful, unpatterned experience.  


> This notion, in fact, is the fallacy which has led to unending and unnecessary debate in this forum.  Once we understand that experience serves to "differentiate" Value (Quality), the SOM/SOL contradiction disappears.  

Marsha:
Through contemplative introspection (meditation) there is such a place for those who wish to follow the good advice to "know thyself."


> Everything we experience is added to memory, which enables us to make intellectual and moral judgments relative to our existential position in Reality.  Intellect functions to make sense of experience, which is the basis of man's innate rationality.

Marsha:
Patterns are re-membered and reinforce their existence sometimes adding dynamic variation.  Man's innate rationality???  Hahaha.  Good one!   Man's belief in is "innate rationality" is a static pattern of value; no-thing more.   


> Cognitive awareness, sensory experience, memory recall, and intellection (reasoning) are all proprietary to the self.  By suggesting that Intellect is a level of Quality, rather than a function of the subjective mind, Mr. Pirsig has made epistemology incomprehensible and the self undefinable.  To regard a "hierarchy of levels" as a metaphysical ontology is in itself something less than intellectual.

Marsha:
To my mind, the MoQ's epistemology is experientially relative and pragmatically reinforced; the MoQ's ontology is indeterminate.  Nothing confusing about it.  


> Metaphysics properly begins with the problem of "division" which is not a "slice of Quality" but the difference between sensible awareness and its undivided Source.  In the absence of proprietary sensibility there is no existence.  Indeed, were it not for the separation of cognitive agents from the primary Source, there would be no experience by which to measure the value of goodness, greatness, virtue, or truth.  All of these "qualities" are relational, whereas the Source is absolute.  Take away the difference between selfness and otherness, and you eliminate finitude.  Since what is absolute can possess no other, finite "beingness" can only be actualized  by the negation or "exclusion" of value-sensibility from its undivided Source.

Marsha:
There are times I can actually intuit agreement with you, but not here.   Huh?   


> Happy New Year,
> Ham



Marsha  


 
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