[MD] The hard question.

[Ant McWatt]

Ham Priday stated May 30th:

Ant McWatt commented:
 
> Ham,
>
> This is a lovely summary of one particular SOM position about
> Value. I nearly feel nostalgic.
>
> Anyway, where is this "sense of virtue" actually located?
 
I must have touched a responsive chord to hear from you, Ant.  

Ant McWatt comments:

Well Ham, your (SOM flavoured) Essentialism (being a whole metaphysics designed by one person) makes for a good comparison 
with the MOQ (also being a whole metaphysics designed by one person). 


Ham Priday continued May 30th:

This analysis was in answer to Mark's question: "Why cannot the whole expression 
of the universe be one of learning value?"  I was trying to convince him 
that value isn't something "learned" like history or math, but rather an 
emotional response to something beyond himself.  

Ant McWatt comments:

I think it would be better to say that value isn't a emotional response but is primarily experienced emotionally - at least for human beings. For a quantum particle, this "value response" will entail something different.


Ham Priday continued May 30th:

Value-sensibility is identified with a particular human being in the same way that consciousness is the locus of one's awareness.  Since sensibility is an 'essent', not an 'existent' like the physical body, it has no empirical location.

Ant McWatt comments:

That sounds like a important difference with the MOQ.  In the MOQ, I would suggest that this value sensibility of yours doesn't exist as biological patterns have a space-time location.

 
> If you're saying the mind (as it appears you are), how does
> your system deal with the charge of relativism (between different
> societies) or, for that matter, the various metaphysical problems
> that Pirsig takes us through in Chapter   of LILA that such
> a position entails?

Ham Priday continued May 30th:
 
First of all, unlike Pirsig, I don't subscribe to the view that "the world 
is composed of nothing but moral value," nor do I believe that the sense of 
Value is necessarily "moral" in nature.  

Ant McWatt comments:

Ham, it's worth keeping in mind that - to keep things metaphysically consistent - we have an expanded view (regarding traditional Western notions) of "moral nature" in the MOQ following  the lines (but expanding much further) of the Ancient Greek  notion of arete (see HDF Kitto's "The Greeks").  So, for instance, if a requested flute player doesn't play to their best ability at a wedding, then they would be regarded as acting immorally as far as the MOQ is concerned. 

If value is not placed as primary in a metaphysical system, you're either going to end-up concluding that it doesn't exist or with a logical conumdrum - as we see in the following:


Ham Priday continued May 30th:

...value is relative to the observer, to the space/time perspective of the individual subject.  

Ant McWatt comments:

Yet Ham, you asserted above that "value-sensibility... is an 'essent', not an 'existent' like the physical body, it has no empirical location."  We seem to have a move here from no empirical location to an empirical location.  That doesn't seem to be ontologically consistent to me and is at least confusing!


Ham Priday continued May 30th:

That means what is valued -- whether it is morality, aesthetics, or truth -- will differ from one culture or society to another.  

Ant McWatt comments:

I think this statement confirms my charge of cultural relativism which makes Essentialism redundant in this modern world.

>From Northrop's cultural assessment (in "The Meeting of East and West" and "Logic of the Sciences & Humanities") of the modern world (which more or less still holds) you can see - for the sake of long term world security and survival - that for any future metaphysical system to be of any use it has to be able to incorporate all the different norms and value judgments of all the primary global cultures.  Otherwise, we're not going to understand where we all coming from dispassionately.  And, of course, thats just a start for world peace....


Ham Priday continued May 30th:
 
I don't claim valuism to be an "empirical" view as Pirsig claims for his brand of "qualityism", and I never 
understood how subject/object experience qualifies as a "metaphysics".

Ant McWatt comments:

Well, historically, someone somewhere decided that dividing experience into subjects and objects was a good way of looking at the world.  I don't think SOM is some kind of kantian hard wiring of the brain that we have when we are born as Buddhist philosophy would have got off the ground if it was.  Pirsig is questioning whether that division is actually fundamental and, further, if not, then what is the best way of dividing reality (presuming that's how you are using the term "experience" here).  


 Ant McWatt commented:

> God knows why you haven't yet found a more suitable
> philosophical discussion group to introduce your Essentialist
> ideas to but you're undoubtedly sincere in your beliefs and
> you at least deserve credit for that.
 
Well, I do have a website on the subject, and published a book in 2008. 
Unfortunately, neither appears to have elicited much interest.  Do you get 
many requests for your doctorial thesis?  Perhaps you can offer some useful 
marketing suggesions.


Ant McWatt comments:

As I suggested to Tuukka recently, a Facebook page is a good start.  

It also sounds like you need to write another book (or five) a la Ken Wilber!

 
[Mark]:
> DQ is not an absolute source in the Essence-like way.  It is not a
> sum total of all being.  It is more like a pallet of colors that are
> mixing in combinations to create colors.  It is like the sum total of
> all your knowledge and experience mixing to form coherent thoughts;
> it is what thoughts are made of.
 
Ant McWatt commented:

> I'm glad someone cleared all that up then... DQ isn't like a pallet of
> anything.  It isn't helpful to conflate it with intellectual static patterns
> either!

Ham asked May 30th:
 
Let me ask you this, Ant, now that I have your attention: If the terms DQ 
and SQ didn't exist, how would you define the Value that Pirsig equates with 
Quality?  For if the universe is "composed of value" as Pirsig says, it 
would have to be parceled out on some fashion for humans to realize.


Ant McWatt comments:

Firstly, the trick is having an undefined element such as DQ within a metaphysics.  We've been discussing "expanded rationality" here and, in one sense, Pirsig's work with the MOQ is just that.  It pushes rationality as far as it can go.  

Moreover, as G.E. Moore indicates, there are at least three different understandings (or definitions) of the term "definition". 

'When we say, as Webster says, The definition of horse is A hoofed quadruped of the genus Equus, we may, in fact, mean three different things: 

(1) We may mean merely When I say horse, you are to understand that I am
talking about a hoofed quadruped of the genus Equus. This might be called the arbitrary
verbal definition: and I do not mean that good is indefinable in that sense. 

 
(2) We may mean, as Webster ought to mean: When most English people say
horse, they mean a hoofed quadruped of the genus Equus. This may be
called the verbal definition proper, and I do not say that good is indefinable
in this sense either; for it is certainly possible to discover how people use a
word: otherwise, we could never have known that good may be translated by
gut in German and by bon in French. 
 

But (3) we may, when we define horse, mean something much more important. We
may mean that a certain object, which we all of us know, is composed in a certain
manner: that it has four legs, a head, a heart, a liver, etc., etc., all of
them arranged in definite relations to one another. It is in this sense that I deny
good to be definable. I say that it is not composed of any parts, which we can
substitute for it in our minds when we are thinking of it. We might think just
as clearly and correctly about a horse, if we thought of all its parts and
their arrangement instead of thinking of the whole: we could, I say, think how a
horse differed from a donkey just as well, just as truly, in this way, as now we do,
only not so easily; but there is nothing whatsoever which we could substitute
for good; and that is what I mean, when I say that good is indefinable.'

(G.E. Moore, Principia Ethica, 1903, Chapter 1)

 
Possibly, the term "Dynamic Quality" can be considered (2) a "verbal definition proper" (because it is possible to discover how
people use the term) while the MOQ (as explained by Pirsig's two books) is a type of (3) a definition of the Good as defined by Moore's third definition of definition!   

I think if were seeking to improve on the MOQ, you'd take a close look at Northrop's books with the caveat that much of his own metaphysical writing is cumbersome and, in my opinion, unnecessarily detailed in places.

You could also have "unconceptualised Quality" and "conceptualised Quality".  As we know, Pirsig further divides "conceptualised Quality" into four levels of cosmological evolution.  I really can't think of a better, universal and impartial way of doing this - for all sentient beings; for all time.

And, of course, certain people have tinkered with the ends of the MOQ evolutionary spectrum.  For instance, Doug Renselle suggested that you could have another level under the inorganic. I guess if you wanted to divide the inorganic, you could do that by dividing it beween macro elements that can be described by Newtonian mechanics and micro elements that are better described by quantum mechanics.  Again, that further distinction might be useful for a physics conference while for a social science 
conference rather redundant.

And, of course, at the other end of the MOQ evolutionary spectrum, we have the "code of Art"...


[Ham to Mark]:
> I'm disappointed that you would revert to MoQ terminology
> in order to refute Essence.
 
Ant McWatt commented:

> Ham, I found this a rather strange comment. I'm disappointed
> that you are disappointed about the use of MOQ terminology
> on MOQ Discuss!
>
> Isn't such a use at least helpful in bridging what Essentialism is
> all about and what the MOQ is about?!

Ham Priday continued May 30th:

Yes, that's true as an overall objective.  However, in order to grasp an 
author's ontology sufficiently to make a comparison, the fundamental terms 
must be understood as the author intends them.  Mixing the metaphor and 
terminology of two theorists (as Mark was doing) only compounds the 
confusion.  There's enough of that already in this forum.

Ant McWatt comments:

OK, I see your concern here.  That returns us to Northrop's warning about clearly defining your metaphysical 
terms and not to presume that the same word is describing the same phenomena in two different systems.
Having said that, on this forum, it should be the responsibility of the person introducing non-MOQ terms 
and philosophies to "translate" them properly.  And, if "translation" is not possible, explain why!


Ham Priday concluded May 30th:

Anyway, I'm pleased to have gained your interest, Ant, and appreciate the 
vote of confidence in my sincerity.
 
Respectfully yours,
Ham



Ant McWatt comments:

My pleasure Ham,

Best wishes,

Anthony