[MD] Why does Pirsig write everybody's right about mind and matter although his theses imply the opposite?

[mail at tuukkavirtaperko.net]

dmb, all,


Lainaus Horse <horse at darkstar.uk.net>:

> Hi Folks
> This came through from Dave Buchanan but got messed up by the mail server:
>
> On 24/10/2016 13:35, david wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Tuukka said to dmb:
>> I find it possible to interpret your reply within a subjective or
>> objective framework. Furthermore, according to the primary empirical
>> reality I experience there's nothing else I can do with your message
>> that would be useful. But you state that I'd render your reply unreal by
>> doing so. I don't wish to render your reply unreal, so I'm compelled not
>> to address the rest of your message.
>>
>>
>  dmb says:
>
> The inconsistency that you think you've found in the MOQ is, I think, a
> product of your own misconceptions and misunderstandings.


Tuukka:
Classical logic wasn't invented by me, therefore it's not "mine".  
Either classical logic is a misconception in the first place or I  
haven't applied it correctly. But you don't examine my argument to  
check whether it's correct.


> Basically,
> you're trying to understand the MOQ from within the framework that it
> rejects.


Tuukka:

In ZAMM Pirsig tries to envision a world without Quality:

"Applied science and technology would be drastically changed, but pure  
science, mathematics, philosophy and particularly logic would be  
unchanged. Phædrus found this last to be extremely interesting. The  
purely intellectual pursuits were the least affected by the  
subtraction of Quality. If Quality were dropped, only rationality  
would remain unchanged."

Quality doesn't reject logic. What in the MOQ does?


> The questions and problems that you think you've discovered
> all pivot around subjectivity and objectivity, idealism and
> materialism, mind and matter.


Tuukka:
Do you imply that I mistakenly believe I've discovered something? If  
so, what is that?


> These are all features of SOM and they
> cannot be reconciled with each other within that SOM framework - but of
> course the MOQ isn't supposed to fit into that framework.


Tuukka:

How do you know reconciliation to be impossible? The Goldbach  
conjecture hasn't been proven or disproven, either, but that could  
happen in the future.

I didn't try to fit the MOQ into SOM. I tried to fit SOM into the MOQ.  
Isn't this what we're supposed to do here? Well, I found out SOM  
doesn't fit very well into the MOQ because:

* Why should we forgo consistency for the sake of declaring that the  
MOQ solves the mind-matter problem?
* Why should SOM be upgraded to the MOQ if the MOQ's not a good idea?
* Why should the MOQ claim to solve the mind-matter problem if it doesn't?


>
>  Think of it this way. The idealists or subjectivists reject the
> primacy of matter or objectivity. The MOQ also rejects the primacy of
> matter or objectivity. In that respect, the MOQ agrees with idealism.
> BUT the materialist or objectivists reject the primacy of mind or
> subjectivity and the MOQ rejects that too. In that sense, the MOQ
> agrees with materialism. Because the MOQ rejects BOTH, it can agree
> with the critiques that idealist and materialist throw at each other.


Tuukka:
According to Pirsig, all schools are right about the mind-matter  
problem. This statement isn't logically equivalent to: "Schools have  
rightly criticized other schools about the mind-matter problem." You  
posit the latter but Pirsig posits the former.


> The MOQ says they both make the mistake of taking either subjects or
> objects as primary but the MOQ says they are both secondary and that
> NEITHER of them is primary. In the MOQ, subjects and objects are not
> real. They are concepts derived from Quality, from Pure Experience.


Tuukka:
However, in the ZAMM citation I provided Pirsig states that if Quality  
were subtracted from reality logic wouldn't change. Therefore, logic  
is the gate between SOM and MOQ. Anything that is logically valid and  
sound is true regardless of whether we find it do be derived from  
Quality or not.


>
>  Hear me now and believe me later. 😉
>
> “The second of James’ two main systems of philosophy, which he said was
> independent of pragmatism, was his radical empiricism. By this he meant
> that subjects and objects were not the starting point of experience.
> Subjects and objects are secondary. They are concepts derived from
> something more fundamental which he described as ‘the immediate flux of
> life which furnishes the material to our later reflection with its
> conceptual categories’. In this basic flux of experience, the
> distinctions of reflective thought, such as those between consciousness
> and content, subject and object, mind and matter, have not yet emerged
> in the forms which we make them. Pure experience cannot be either
> physical or psychical: It logically precedes this distinction” (Pirsig
> 1991, 364-5).


Tuukka:
If logic is psychical how can pure experience logically precede  
subject and object? After all, logic doesn't exist at the stage where  
this precession should take place.


Thank you,
Tuk