[MD] Creative Freedom

[MarshaV]

Hi dmb,

On Sep 4, 2012, at 2:10 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:

> That's why you really have to believe me when I tell you that this is NOT about mysticism. It's about Pirsig's expansion and improvement of intellect - and Pirsig does this by putting undefined Quality right into the center of philosophy and science.


You want to exclude mysticism?  I suppose you want to exclude art and morality too?  


"The Metaphysics of Quality subscribes to what is called empiricism. It claims that all legitimate human knowledge arises from the senses or by thinking about what the senses provide. Most empiricists deny the validity of any knowledge gained through imagination, authority, tradition, or purely theoretical reasoning. They regard fields such as art, morality, religion, and metaphysics as unverifiable.  The Metaphysics of Quality varies from this by saying that the values of art and morality and even religious mysticism are verifiable, and that in the past they have been excluded for metaphysical reasons, not empirical reasons. They have been excluded because of the metaphysical assumption that all the universe is composed of subjects and objects and anything that can't be classified as a subject or an object isn't real. There is no empirical evidence for this assumption at all. It is just an assumption."
          (RMP, 'LILA')
 
 

Marsha