From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Wed Jul 06 2005 - 18:15:43 BST
Hi Reinier --
This will be a response to both of your latest posts which arrived together.
I had said:
> I hope to convince you otherwise. The notion that space is an attribute
of
> physical reality that extends objects in three different dimensions
relative
> to the observer is a construct of the human brain. From the perspective
of
> an "absolute being" there is no space. There is no time either, since
what
> we experience as the passing of time is our serialized view of a static
> "present". The existence of time and space as a cosmic system containing
> differentiated things and events is a rationalized precept resulting from
> our fragmented sensibility of otherness.
You replied:
> Except for maybe the wording, I totally agree with the above.
Please re-write the above with the wording you prefer, so we can thrash out
what significant differences remain.
> The moment a proton comes to existing is the moment that some
> portion of quality is valued as a proton. It's experienced isolated
> from the whole of quality, and the value placed upon it is proton.
> But not only this happens, also the remainder of the whole
> quality is labeled not-proton.
I follow your reasoning. But, again, I have difficulty understanding this
as a "value" process. Certainly the label "proton" is not a value, nor is
the fact that it is recognized as a proton and not as anything else. This
is a logical assumption based on reason (rationality). Whatever "value" the
proton may have for me (and it is minimal at best), the fact that I have
detected a proton out there (a poor example, since I really can't) only
means that I have distinguished the proton X from the not-X. In other
words, I've delimited the proton from what it is not -- all other. This is
the cerebral process I call "intellection", and it has nothing to do with my
concept of "value". If you could accept my terminology for purposes of
this discussion, it would minimize our differences.
> Yes, but if I can make an addition, do not automatically asume
> that something has to be experienced by human beings to be
> speaking of experience.
I will allow that something can be experienced by a lesser creature than
man. But it must be a sensient creature. How do you account for
"experience" where there is no proprietary sensibility?
Pirsig doesn't acknowledge physical attributes, and it that sense, pain is
just a much real as the stove or the ass, just on a different level.
More than a "level" difference is implied here. I'll concede that the pain
in my ass is as real (to me, at least) as the hot stove I sit on. However,
the mental conception of a stove is quite a different experience that the
feeling of pain.
I said:
> If the truth be told, the
> author in his elegant simplicity has avoided defining either quality or
> value in an epistemologically useful way.
> Please define 'epistemologically useful'.
Epistemology is the study of how knowledge is acquired -- how we "know" and
become aware. What I meant was that Pirsig's analogy does not provide a
useful definition or epistemological theory to account for experience.
Sensibility to pleasure and pain, goodness and evil, quality and shabbiness
is a valuistic judgment call. Recognition and differentiation of physical
phenomena is a function of rationality. He has not made this distinction,
and his metaphyics suffers because of it.
> Values are already weighed. But a value 'beautiful' is
> much more weighed individually, while a value 'stone' is
> weighed very long a ago in evolution, and incorporated
> in other values that have evolved since then.
What agency or sentient entity does the "valuing" in pre-historic evolution?
How do you explain value where there is no cognizance or awareness of it?
Likewise, how do you explain "time" and "space" where there is nothing to
measure it?
> But you look at value as a distinct from a physical object,
> hence still supporting SOM, while I believe there will not be
> found a smallest, physical, dimensional particle. So as Pirsig
> has stated: 'You can replace particle by value and all laws of
> nature stay intact' (not a literal quote).
> This is not just a linguistic issue. This means that matter=value!
You are talking about the organization (teleology) of the cosmos that is
presupposed by rational creatures. I don't subscribe to the concept that
evolution occurs because inanimate particles or energy waves "value" each
other, or the ultimate goal, to create the universe as we know it. First of
all, the universe is the way it is BECAUSE of the way we "experience" it
[see my long-winded opening section on Experience.] So, if value is implied
here, it's the value of the observer (man) and not the value of insensible
matter. Secondly, that the physical world is an ordered system designed for
sensible life forms is a manifestation of a teleogical value --
specifically, the value of its Designer (Essence). Of course Pirsig rejects
all such concepts in the MoQ. Accordingly, he is forced to make value an
attribute of Nature -- a "no-no" in classical metaphysics.
> In this case the value is chair.
> In other cases the values is pile of wood.
> They're both true.
The fact that what may be conceived as a pile of wood may also be conceived
as a chair is true. But it does not make either premise, or your
conclusion, a "value". The invalidity of this argument is not a matter of
logic or linguistics. It's your concept of value that is faulty. I
maintain that value must be experienced, hence requires an observing subject
and an observed object, conditions which you'll only find in an SO reality.
> So everything you recognize as something is compared to a mental picture
you
> already have. ...
Yes. Re-cognition means being recalled to an initial congizance or concept.
> You have those mental pictures either because of your memory,
> or because of your genetic ability to recognise dark/light,
> noise/silence, pressure/no pressure. But still, if you think in values
> it's all still perfectly explainable. In your life you learn to put values
> on everything because a picture looks like an already values picture
> in your mind, or because your organic body has placed value
> on it somewhere down the evolution (pain).
If I put values on things, it's because they arouse certain feelings within
my sensient organism that relate to my proprietary desires, state of mind,
sense of beauty or pleasure, etc. The value I experience is a measure of my
"esteem" for a particular thing, not a means of physically distinguishing it
from some other thing.
> If in a universe there's an 'A', but nowhere in that
> universe at no time there's a 'not A' then people
> will not be able to experience A.
I admitted:
>You have me intrigued.
> Well not much to explain about it. It's just simply true.
> And it also predicts something: If you stop valueing
> (which in my opinion is judging) something, it disappears.
Well, I consider that a slight exaggeration. I'm usually able to judge but
one thing at a time. Does this mean the rest of my environment "disappears"
during my evaluation? I may momentarily lose sight of it, but I know it's
there. If it were all to disappear, I would be regarded as having an
hallucination, to say the least!
I understand what you're getting at; indeed, it's Pirsig's hypothesis. But
I think we have to distinguish what we experience in our existential (SO)
world from the ultimate reality that "admits to no other". That reality is
the immutable Essence.
Ponder on that thought, Reinier. Then let me know if you still find it
unacceptable to your philosophical belief system.
And thanks for a stimulating dialogue.
Essentially yours,
Ham
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