[MD] Social Intellectual

[david buchanan]

Pirsig said:
"This may sound as though a purpose of the MOQ is to trash all subject-object thought but that not true. Unlike SOM the MOQ does not insist on a single exclusive truth. If subjects and objects are held to be the ultimate reality then were permitted only one construction of things - that which corresponds to the 'objective' world - and all other constructions are unreal. But if Quality or excellence is seen as the ultimate reality then it becomes possible for more than one set of truths to exist.  ... There are many sets of intellectual reality in existence and we can perceive some to have more quality than others,.. ... Both are simply intellectual patterns for interpreting reality and one can only say that in some circumstances rectangular coordinates provide a better, simpler explanation." (Lila 100) 


Bo replied:
"Intellectual patterns for interpreting reality" is SOM to the hilt. An objective reality "out there" with countless subjective interpretations "in here". We see how the QUALITY/MOQ meta-metaphysics fits this.  Quality now the objective realm with the MOQ one of the many subjective interpretations. Good Grief.


dmb says:

This is probably THEE central misconception from which all of your nonsense flows. You are interpreting this as if Quality were an objective reality, which is exactly what it is NOT. So-called objective reality is what it is regardless of what we think about it and there can only ever be one so-called objective truth because there is only one objective reality, the physical universe. The MOQ rejects that notion and replaces it with Dynamic Quality. DQ is direct everyday experience, not matter or material reality. It is not an objective reality that is what it is regardless of whether or not anyone knows about it. As William James put it, "realities are what they are experienced as". This assertion is positioned AGAINST the idea that reality is "out there", separate from our experience of it. Instead, the idea that reality is "out there" is relegated to secondary status. It's just an idea, derived from the primary empirical reality, which is just the cutting edge of experience itself and not a thing, not a substance, that is not yet sorted into categories like "physical" or "psychical".


This is the central idea in both books and if you don't get that part then nothing else will make much sense. And that's exactly the part you don't get and that's why your equation makes no sense. 

And what the heck is "the QUALITY/MOQ meta-metaphysics"? If that's not a conceptual mess, nothing is. That's gotta be one of the most convoluted and distorted uses of language I've ever seen. Your posts are full of such meaningless, jargonated, hairballs of thought. 


You are wasting everyone's time, Bo. Your theory is a drag and a distraction and it has never been used to make a positive contribution to any line of thought. According to Pirsig, there is nothing in the MOQ that should lead to the conclusion you have drawn and that conclusion undermines the MOQ.

You've rejected the Pirsig quote above on the premise that Quality has now become the objective realm. But the central point of the quote is to get rid of the "objective" world as the ultimate reality and replace it with Quality as the ultimate reality. You are equating the terms that Pirsig uses in opposition to each other. You keep accusing the "weak" interpreters of relapsing into SOM but that is just a failure on your part to understand how and why a Quality centered metaphysics rejects and replaces the notion of an objective reality out there. DQ is immediate experience and Pirsig equates it with what James calls 'pure experience'. 


As the Stanford article on James says,..


James's fundamental idea is that mind and matter are both aspects of, or structures formed from, a more fundamental stuff — pure experience — that (despite being called “experience”) is neither mental nor physical. Pure experience, James explains, is “the immediate flux of life which furnishes the material to our later reflection with its conceptual categories… a that which is not yet any definite what, tho' ready to be all sorts of whats…” (ERE, 46). That “whats” pure experience may be are minds and bodies, people and material objects, but this depends not on a fundamental ontological difference among these “pure experiences,” but on the relations into which they enter. Certain sequences of pure experiences constitute physical objects, and others constitute persons; but one pure experience (say the perception of a chair) may be part both of the sequence constituting the chair and of the sequence constituting a person. 

And as the Wiki article on Radical Empiricism notes,...


John Dewey, who in his Experience and Nature, attacks the same dichotomies that bothered James: objectivity/subjectivity, mind/body and so on. His position is more or less the same as that of James, although he does not himself use the term 'radical empiricism' but rather 'immediate empiricism'.


The fact that James, Dewey and Pirsig all radical empiricism and use that as the way to reject SOM is really quite helpful. It gives us three different ways of looking at SOM, at why SOM is a problem, at what this empiricism does to resolve this problem. It shines light on the issue from three, slightly different angles. It gives us a really good view of the subject matter.

And Bo, I'm telling you that you simply don't get it. When I offer these explanations, they just don't register. You might think your replies are good ones but it's quite clear to me that you don't even understand what the problem is, let alone the solution. 

"...he [James] meant that subjects and objects are not the starting points of experience. Subjects and objects are secondary. They are concepts derived from something more fundamental which he described as 'the immediate flux of life' ... James had condensed this description to a single sentence: 'There must always be a discrepancy between concepts and reality, because the former are static and discontinuous while the latter is dynamic and flowing.' Here James had chosen exactly the same words Phaedrus had used for the basic subdivision of the MOQ. ...Value, the pragmatic test of truth, is also the primary empirical experience. The MOQ says pure experience is value. ...Value is at the very front of the empirical procession."

Notice that James and Pirsig are saying that concepts are static while reality is dynamic. They're saying that "reality" is the dynamic, flowing flux of experience itself. That is nothing like an objective physical universe, which an objectivist will tell you is THEE reality regardless of whether or not it is experienced by anyone or anything.

So to say there is a distinction between reality and the MOQ is to say there is a distinction between direct experience and the concepts derived from it. It is the distinction between DQ and sq. On this view, so-called objective reality is just a secondary concept derived from an immediately experienced reality.

Now everything is all straightened out and perfectly clear to you, right? And now you'll finally give up on your hair-brianed equation, apologize to everyone, right? Now you're gonna send Pirsig a box of chocolates and long-stemmed rose, right?

Ha, ha, he, he, ha, ha, etc..

I'm not gonna hold my breath on that one.



 





 		 	   		  
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