From: Paul Turner (paul@turnerbc.co.uk)
Date: Mon Dec 20 2004 - 20:43:16 GMT
Hi David, Mark and all
DMB said:
Paul Turner has helped me out on these sorts of issues and I think he's
absent from the forum mostly because he's working some MOQ things up.
Paul:
I've just started reading a few posts again and came across my name!
Speak of the devil...
The reason I have been away from the forum is mostly lack of time but I
have also been working on an exposition of Pirsig's work which has grown
from the organisation of material into a logical order. As it turns out,
I don't think it is really required anymore because Anthony McWatt's PhD
thesis now has a section which covers the same ground. As such I have
been giving Anthony some assistance instead of finishing off my work. If
I do have the time to finish it, as it only needs proof-reading and
referencing, I will ask Horse to host it on the forum.
In terms of Mark's question, and DMB's reply, I have some thoughts and
some quotes from Pirsig which may help although I think David's answer
is about right anyway.
MSH said:
Yes, this comment has always troubled me. "The world has no existence
whatsoever outside the human imagination." Is Pirsig an Idealist or an
empiricist or what? I can see how the laws of nature and logic might be
said to exist in our imaginations, but everything? Is this just some
poetic enthusiasm from way back, near the beginning of ZMM, to support
the ol' ghosts around the campfire setting? What do y'all think he
means? Is there something OUT THERE, or not?
Paul:
I think the first thing is that the MOQ proposes that the distinction
between "out there" and "in here" is not a fundamental unquestionable
reality but is also a result of the human imagination, as is the notion
of "existence" itself. I think Pirsig sees "existence" in the western
sense as coming in with the Greeks.
However, in answer to your question, the MOQ calls itself pure
empiricism and starts with the premise that the "something that is
there" is sense data but refers to the source of this sense data, prior
to any intellectual differentiation, as Dynamic Quality.
The thing is, even to talk of "experience" or "sense data" is to make
intellectual differentiations which, strictly speaking, is no longer
pure empiricism. Northrop makes the point in the "Logic of Science and
the Humanities" that in this strict sense the pure empiricist is the
philosophic mystic. Whatever you describe is always less than what you
experience so a pure empiricist should say nothing. This is kind of the
position of the MOQ in ZMM. In LILA, of course, being the degenerate
that he is, Pirsig constructs a metaphysics which has to make
propositional statements about experience and sense data. In this
respect, Pirsig recently had this to say about the relationship between
sense data and value in the MOQ:
"...propositionally speaking, experience is sense data but the sense
data has already been preselected by quality. We are flooded with far
more sense
data all the time than we can possibly absorb. We do not, for example,
sense even our own eye-blinks although our whole field of vision goes
dark
when they occur. These eye-blinks are not sensed because they are not
valued. So the MOQ is strictly empiricist but it says all sense data is
valued sense data. Scientifically speaking, that which cannot be
distinguished from anything else does not exist. The MOQ says that which
is not valued either positively or negatively is not distinguished from
anything else. Therefore sense data that is devoid of value does not
exist." [Pirsig to McWatt, 2004]
Further to this, and with reference to DMB's mention of the question of
"Which came first?" this quote from Pirsig may help. This was written in
response to a similar question from one of Anthony's students in April
1999:
"Yes, there is a chicken-and-egg problem here about which came first,
the inorganic level or the intellectual level. It is not unique to the
MOQ. The centuries-old controversy between philosophic materialists and
philosophic idealists centers about this question. The MOQ says that the
intellectual pattern, "matter was here first" has higher quality for
scientific explanation than the intellectual pattern "mind was here
first" but it notes that both of these statements are just mental,
intellectual patterns to explain sense data. We are trained to think of
this sense data as coming from objects but the whole idea of objects is
arrived at from primitive value judgments of the sort newborn infants
have before they have any idea of such a thing as an object and long
before they have an idea of such a thing as mind. The MOQ says it is the
unnamable source of these valuations that comes first, not mind or
matter. It calls this unnamable source "Dynamic Quality" for purposes of
intellectual reference, but carefully avoids defining it." [Pirsig to
McWatt, 1999]
Basically, the MOQ says that the "external world" is often the highest
quality pattern of intellectual knowledge we have to handle and explain
sense data but it remains no more than an extremely good hypothesis.
Furthermore, seeing as the external world is *deduced from* sense
experience it seems incorrect to presume that it is the *source of* the
sense experience. I find that this statement from Pirsig is a neat
summary of his position.
"I think that science is simply the best interpretation that can be made
of sense data and can function without a faith in an external objective
world. I also think that religion is the best interpretation that can be
made of sense data and can function without a faith in an external
deity. Sense data is reality enough.
It is easy for scientifically trained people to see that an external
deity that creates everything is just an imaginary being sustained by
social tradition. It is much more difficult to see that an external
objective world that creates everything is also just an imaginary being
sustained by social tradition.
The Metaphysics of Quality is a third conjecture that can be made about
the source of sense data. It does not contradict a deityless religion
such as Buddhism. It does not contradict an objectless interpretation of
science" [Pirsig to McWatt, 1999]
Cheers
Paul
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