[MD] atheistic and content

[Ham Priday]

Platt and DMB (quoting Pirsig) --

On 13 Mar 2010 at 8:33 PM, Platt Holden wrote:

> Basic assumptions. I think you're saying that "being" depends on the
> "beings" of time and space.  Of course, this begs the question of what
> conditions are necessary for the beings of time and space? I presume
> this where your "Essence" makes its appearance.

[Ham, previously]:
> "Becoming" is the process whereby relational existence occurs (or is
> perceived).  As human beings, you and I are sensible agents "becoming"
> aware of otherness. What we value of this otherness is experienced as
> "being".

[Platt]:
> I take it then that "being" in addition to the above conditions requires
> "sensible agents," or more specifically, "value sensitive agents" and
> "otherness."  So we have the following conditions necessary for being,
> according to Ham:
>
> Time
> Space
> Value
> Otherness
> Sensitive Agents
>
> By comparison, Pirsig sees only one of the above conditions necessary
> for being, namely, Value. And he wrote a book, Lila, explaining why he
> believes that to be the case.
>
> The meta-theoretical principle of Occam's Razor says in effect: "When
> competing hypotheses are equal in other respects, the principle
> recommends selection of the hypothesis that introduces the fewest
> assumptions and postulates the fewest entities while still sufficiently
> answering the question."  (Wikipedia)

It is you who are begging the question by counting the attributes of 
existence, not metaphysical principles.  This complicates things 
unneccesarily.  Time, Space, and Value are not "requirements" for becoming 
but conditional aspects of cognizant experience.  The beginning of 
numerality is duality, and the primary split or fundamental division is 
between Sensibility and Otherness.  Once that dichotomy is actuated, the 
differentiation of sensing and otherness becomes experiential existence 
(i.e., individuated 'selves' experiencing multiplistic beingness).

> Perhaps Occam's Razor explains as well as anything my preference for
> Pirsig's metaphysics over yours, always with the knowledge that I could
> be wrong.

Look, MoQ's Quality has Value in common with Essentialism.  The principle 
difference is that Pirsig posited Quality as the "beginning and end all" of 
reality, whereas I have put Value into a metaphysical context (because it 
cannot stand alone).

David has come back at me with a plea to "listen and understand what Pirsig 
is saying here".  Not only have I listened, I will show you where his 
reasoning is flawed.  Here is the passage DMB has quoted, along with DMB's 
affirmation.  My comments are in brackets.  (I have omitted the first 
paragraph and a few sentences which deal specifically with James' Problems 
of Philosophy.)

"What the MOQ adds to James' pragmatism and his radical empiricism is the 
idea that the primal reality from which subjects and objects spring is 
VALUE.  By doing so it seems to unite pragmatism and radical empiricism into 
a single fabric. Value, the pragmatic test of truth, is also the primary 
empirical experience."

[Value is not empirical experience: It is the subject's psychic/emotional 
RESPONSE to experience.]

"The MOQ says pure experience is value."

[There is no "pure" experience: All experience is differentiated.]

"Experience which is not valued is not experienced.  The two are the same. 
This is where value fits. Value is not at the tail-end of a series of 
superficial scientific deductions that puts it somewhere in a mysterious 
undetermined location in the cortex of the brain. Value is at the very front 
of the empirical procession."

[True, but only insofar as the 'experiencer' senses Value.  Neither Value 
nor Experience can exist independently of the cognizant subject.]

[dmb adds his interpretation of the above]:
"The hardest thing to grasp here is the notion that it is NOT the subject 
having the pure experience."

[It's hard to grasp because it's NOT TRUE.  Who or what has (is the knower 
of) experience except for the sensible subject?]

"Since the claim here is that subjects and objects are CONCEPTS derived from 
experience that's more primal and fundamental, logic doesn't allow this pure 
experience to be the experience of a subject. You can't derive the subject 
from the subject."

[No, but only the Knower (subject) can "derive" experience]

"The idea here is that the value at the cutting edge of experience is 
neither not [SIC] to be found in the objective reality nor in the subjective 
evaluation of that reality but rather the quality of the whole situation 
before any conceptual sorting has occurred.  Subjects and objects emerge 
only in the sorting process."

[Who does the "sorting" if there is no subjective agent?  Atoms?... 
Trees?... The universe?]

"They're great ways to sort things most of the time.  As secondary concepts, 
they're fabulous.  But as when they are taken as the ontological realities 
that make experience possible, that constitutes SOM.  As you can see in the 
quote above, radical empiricism means rejecting that basic metaphysical 
assumption."

Sorry, Platt (and David), but the notion that subjects like 'you' and 'I' 
are "concepts" derived from some ethereal Experience which has no 
sensibility is a poet's fantasy, not the sound reasoning of a philosopher. 
Neither Value nor Experience exists prior to Sensibility, and only a living 
creature can be aware of either.  Value (Quality) is man's measure of a 
particular phenomenon relative to others.  Quality in the absence of a 
sensible subject is "unrealized value" -- an oxymoron.  All experience is 
differentiated by the subject.  "Pure" Value is inaccessible to experience 
because it is integral to the Absolute Source and cannot be differentiated.

I'll give you an 'A' for effort, though.

Kindest regards,
Ham