[MD] Awareness and consciousness in the MOQ

[Ant McWatt]

Mark,

Here's a response to your last post:

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Mark Smith stated April 9th:

I only found one question that requires an answer in your comments:
 
Mark previously:
Yes, Pirsig wrote some good stuff, but none of it was new by any means.
 
Ant McWatt commented:
 
Not putting values ahead of subjects and objects in the empirical train of events wasn't a new idea?

Then adding in LILA that these values are evolving and can be ordered in a moral framework?
 
Where else have you read those two particular ideas (pre-Pirsig)?

 
Mark:
Well perhaps I can provide you with some education here.  I would
recommend you read Thomas Acquinas for some ideas of what has been
done before within the moral framework.  Then perhaps some of the
sutas from Buddhism, which Pirsig draws heavily from.
 
I am not sure if you are familiar with Husserl, or if you have read
his works and dismiss him as not relevant.  Before him there was David
Hume of course, which you must have covered in your Ph.D.
 
Let us not forget Parmenides and all those guys.  Pythagorus draws
heavily from Egyptian alchemy.  And then there is the Emerald Tablet.
 
We can discuss each of these things at length if you do not see the
context they provide Pirsig for his "new interpretation".  I would be
most happy to share this knowledge with you if you are sincere.


Ant McWatt comments:

That's a good selection of philosophers/philosophy that you have cited there Mark and you're correct they all have covered areas that Pirsig examined later on but, as I said previously, none of them put values ahead of subjects and objects in the empirical train of events or/and added that these values are evolving and can be ordered in a moral framework.  That is original to Pirsig.

Anyway, it's highly unlikely that anyone could have had the idea of "putting values ahead of subjects and objects in the empirical
train of events" before Rene Descartes "Meditations on First Philosophy" of 1641 as that was when modern day SOM made it's first appearance.  So that straight away knocks out Aquinas, the Buddha, Parmenides, the Emerald Tablet and Pythagorus out of consideration.

Edmund Husserl "the father of phenomenology" was close to Pirsig by placing values as some kind of inter-subjective phenomena 
but it's still not taking that Copernican revolution that Pirsig took in ZMM by making values primary and subject & objects 
secondary.


>Before him there was David Hume of course, which you must have covered in your Ph.D.

Yes, as it happened I did.  Again, because, Hume hadn't thought that subjects and objects could be considered as patterns of value, he left us with the "is-ought problem"; again another result of accepting Descartes' SOM dualism (at least implicitly).  If you do get round to reading Chapter 3 of my PhD, you can see that the "is-ought problem" can indeed be resolved by using Pirsig's MOQ:

"What is so exciting philosophically in Pirsig’s book is that we have finally found an answer to the argument of the sceptic Hume which has so totally undermined moral theory over the last two hundred years: that you cannot derive a (subjective) ‘ought’
from an (objective) ‘is’. [In the MOQ] all experience is moral and ‘objects’ are mere abstractions [i.e. static
value patterns].  (D.J. Taylor, 1992) 


Mark Smith continued April 9th:

But perhaps I misread what you are saying by your question.  If you
could explain the following statement to me so that I can respond
correctly I would appreciate it (humor me):
 
"Not putting values ahead of subjects and objects in the empirical
train of events"
 
Also, what exactly do you mean by "evolving".  If you are using the
standard biological definition, then species evolve in response to
environmental pressures.  What would the pressures for the evolution
of value be?  This would seem to tend towards the religious.  Perhaps
you mean something else by "evolving".  Please clarify.
 
Ant McWatt comments:

I haven't got anything to add to these two questions in addition to the considerable proportion of LILA that is used in dealing with them - they make it appear that you haven't read the book!?!  

Best wishes,

Anthony.




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