From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Tue Nov 04 2003 - 19:32:21 GMT
Hi Anthony
What are values?
I would like to suggest that values
are the reason SQ emerges from DQ. DQ is freedom and
creativity and change and nothing. To move from nothing
to something is to end change. This means that DQ has to
repress its creativity, it has to allow repetition. Why should DQ
do this? DQ allows what it has created to re-occur or to repeat
because it values it, it is worth doing again. SQ is the withdrawing
of DQ or the sacrifice of transcendence to the Given and the Same.
And this movement from the One to the Many leads to bondage
and the loss of freedom. Material existence, and causality, is
precisely the withdrawal of DQ. A rock has little DQ. However,
life is the re-emergence of DQ. Conflict, of course, is therefore
always a conflict of values. The value of being a rock versus
the value of being a human head, unfortunately the rock has more
SQ materialisty.
Regards
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: <ant.mcwatt@ntlworld.com>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 2:39 AM
Subject: MD Re: NEW PIRSIG WEBSITE (Reply to Andy Bahn)
On October 30th 2003, Andy Bahn said:
Hi Anthony,
I am not nearly as fast a reader as others around here. I have only made my
way through the first two chapters. I will say that the work you have done
is extensive, but I was surprised about a few things.
------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Andy and DMB (David Buchanan),
Thanks for encouraging remarks concerning the textbook. I will get round to
arranging hard copies at some point.
------------------------------------------------------------
Andy:
1.I constantly felt the pressure towards "narrowing my topic." I know your
topic was the MOQ, but you had to take on all of philosophy. I don't think
you would have ever gotten away with this topic for a PhD. in the US.
However, I am quite sure this would be a condemnation of US graduate studies
and not your own work.
------------------------------------------------------------
Ant:
The Head of the Philosophy Department at Liverpool University contacted my
dissertation supervisor of my MA before accepting the MOQ thesis (and just
on a provisional basis for a year) so, at first, it was really touch and go.
At least, they had the open-mindedness (as true churchmen - in the ZMM
sense?) to give me the opportunity. In hindsight, I would have had an
easier time if I had narrowed the thesis down (for instance: the MOQ and
time) but a far less interesting one.
------------------------------------------------------------
Andy:
2. I was surprised that some of the discussion here at the MOQ made its way
not only into your dissertation.
------------------------------------------------------------
Ant:
Well, much of it is good stuff. (Always especially liked David Thomas's
material and is why he is quoted here and there in the textbook). Twenty
heads are also better than one!
------------------------------------------------------------
Andy:
...but also had enough impact to elicit a comment from Pirsig. In particular
I am talking about John Beasley. Beasley said, "Pirsig loses the core value
of his core term, 'quality' by equating it with too many terms, and
ultimately reifying it; while at the same time asserting that quality cannot
be defined and ignoring the resulting paradox."
To which you quote Pirsig in reply "To reify means to regard an abstraction
as if it had a concrete or material existence. You don't lose the value of
quality by treating it as if it had a concrete or material existence. You
lose the value of quality by treating it as if it had only an abstract
existence. That is the fundamental point of the MOQ. Beasley's unease is
caused by an inability to understand the basic assertion of the MOQ. He
assumes it is in error because it contradicts his prejudices but never
explains why his prejudices is superior."
Well, this may be so, but isn't Pirsig on shaky ground here. You don't give
this much more discussion but seem content to dismiss Beasley with Pirsig's
brush-off.
------------------------------------------------------------
Ant:
If this particular section (Section 2.3.2) is taken by itself your assertion
that "I don't give this much more discussion" is accurate.
However, much of the following thesis (which you hadn't read when making the
above statement) is devoted to analysing the consequences from 2.3.2.
------------------------------------------------------------
Andy:
What does Pirsig mean when he says:
"You don't lose the value of quality by treating it as if it had a concrete
or material existence."
Quality has a concrete and a material existence?
And this is a "fundamental point of the MOQ?"
Uh-oh, have I just missed something here?
------------------------------------------------------------
Ant:
Possibly.
------------------------------------------------------------
Andy:
What is it? I don't know what quality is, but I don't think it has a
"concrete or material existence." If it does, could someone help me see why
this is so.
------------------------------------------------------------
Ant:
An important question to which I'll try to give a different spin from the
one given by DMB.
Firstly, the experience that exists now from which you and your surroundings
are embedded in doesn't come with a name. It just is.
As you will be aware, people over the ages have invented names for it such
as the Universe, Tao, nothingness, sunyata, reality, immediate experience
and, of course, Quality.
In addition, people usually don't leave the naming process just there but,
also relate further fundamental properties in connection with the label they
use.
Hence, the label "nothingness" is used by Mahayana Buddhists because they
think that there is nothing permanent or independent in itself.
Another example is "mind" as used by British idealists such as Berkeley
because they consider everything that exists is an idea of God or other
sentient beings.
There are also other people (traditionally termed mystics) who think this
naming and property making process of immediate experience is a mistake as
any assertion will unavoidably distort. This, of course, is noted by Pirsig
in LILA (chapter five):
"Some of the most honored philosophers in history have been mystics:
Plotinus, Swedenborg, Loyola, Shankaracharya and many others. They share a
common belief that the fundamental nature of reality is outside language;
that language splits things up into parts while the true nature of reality
is undivided. Zen, which is a mystic religion, argues that the illusion of
dividedness can be overcome by meditation. The Native American church
argues that peyote can force-feed a mystic understanding upon those who were
normally resistant to it, an understanding that Indians had been deriving
through Vision Quests in the past."
However, if you still want to have some grasp at understanding the 'world of
everyday affairs' you will require some type of metaphysics.
In the West it tends to be SOM and, unfortunately, this system tends to
reify physical objects (materialism/behaviourism), minds (idealism) or both
(dualism).
Unfortunately, as noted by reams of philosophers from John Locke onwards,
the problem with SOM's division between mind and matter is that it doesn't
correlate with actually how experience works. This is noted in more detail
in Section 4.3.1 of my textbook. The advantage with the MOQ is that its
explanation of reality (in the form of values) doesn't have the millstone of
the mind-matter problem (and its related problems such as Hume's Dilemma and
free-will and determinism) round its neck. I do note your concern that
Pirsig's implication that Quality has a 'concrete or material existence'
certainly seems intuitively false and absurd. However, taking a pragmatic
point of view, you have to think about what works better as a metaphysics
and try to remember the mystic's assertion that we really don't know what
reality is in itself (other than as direct experience). I perceive
metaphysical systems as models that shouldn't be taken too literally.
"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain;
and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."
Einstein quoted in J. R. Newman, "The World of Mathematics" (New York 1956).
If it makes you feel any better, Andy, Einstein also stated
"If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it."
Quoted from D. MacHale, "Wisdom" (London, 2002).
On occasion, I'm afraid some Western philosophers and scientists have taken
things too literally (by reifying material objects, for instance) and the
difficulty for this tradition, certainly until the 20th century, was that
contemporary (i.e. Newtonian) science supported SOM's understanding of mind
and matter.
I suppose this is a hilarious consequence (as a mystic, I'd say serve them
right!) though as my textbook shows in Chapter Seven, having the wrong
metaphysical view of the world can lead to personal alienation. As seen in
this chapter, I agree with Campbell "that our individualistic culture has a
much greater need for emphasis upon cooperative ideals" but disagree with
Rorty (if Andy's portrayal of him is accurate) that a metaphysics isn't
going to help us achieve these societal goals.
This isn't to say that having a better metaphysics (than SOM) by itself is
going to change anything and is why I'll harp on about Northrop yet again.
As seen in his work, he always suggests practical applications derived from
his metaphysical thinking (much of which is near to the MOQ). I guess that
having lived through the Two World Wars before the age of 53, concentrated
Northrop's mind so he realised that the only way human beings can develop
properly (or survive even) is to understand each other's cultures. And only
a metaphysical system that can incorporate both ideas from the West and the
East (such as the MOQ) can help us to do that. To state it another way, you
need a common ground (of debate) to start from.
A metaphysical framework such as the MOQ is also necessary for solving the
metaphysical problems of SOM that have been so intractable within Western
philosophy. As I note (in Chapter Four of the textbook) it was Descartes
and Locke's understanding of Newtonian science that established SOM (as we
know it today) and it is only by analysing their work and correcting their
metaphysical assumptions that the problems of SOM become solvable.
Especially in the light of modern physics, the MOQ can now disregard
Descartes and Locke's metaphysical assumptions and assume that mind and
matter are the same kind of stuff without reducing the ontological status of
either. As can be seen in the three main strands of SOM, this particular
permutation (of ontological status and monism) is unavailable to this
metaphysics.
Unfortunately, it seems likely that Western philosophy is destined to keep
making similar errors (such as SOM) over the next few hundred years until it
realises (as the Far East did 2500 years ago) that reality is the hereness
and nowness of immediate reality and not the postulated entities of atoms or
quanta or superstrings etc. The latter are models of understanding that can
help us manipulate reality (and can help guide our metaphysical
constructions) but they are provisional. As Newton's ideas were replaced
with Einstein's and his, in turn are being replaced by the M-Theory, this
process (all being well with the planet.) will continue. This process is
noted by Pirsig in Section 6.6. of my textbook:
"Classical scientific reality keeps changing all the time as scientists keep
discovering new conceptual explanations. Every year they have to say 'Well,
last year we thought it was this way, but now we know what it is really
like.' .even when it is explained to them carefully the SOM people are so
inured to their way of thinking that they still don't understand." (Pirsig,
1997d)
Moreover, as I note in my Review of Beasley's essay (on MOQ.org) if Quality
is dismissed as a synonym for reality then the problem of value as being
just subjective (and therefore relative) is returned. As Pirsig (LILA,
Chap. 8) explains:
"The Metaphysics of Quality can explain subject-object relationships
beautifully but, as Phædrus had seen in anthropology, a subject-object
metaphysics can't explain values worth a damn. It has always been a mess of
unconvincing psychological gibberish when it tries to explain values. For
years we've read about how values are supposed to emanate from some location
in the "lower" centers of the brain. This location has never been clearly
identified. The mechanism for holding these values is completely unknown.
No one has ever been able to add to a person's values by inserting one at
this location, or observed any changes at this location as a result of a
change of values. No evidence has been presented that if this portion of
the brain is anesthetized or even lobotomized the patient will make a better
scientist as a result because all his decisions will then be "value-free."
Yet we're told values must reside here, if they exist at all, because where
else could they be?"
If values are not reality as a whole or just a subjective part of it, then
what are they? Beasley never supplied any answers himself to this quandary
and I've never read any credible solutions other than Pirsig's. This is, at
least, one advantage of the MOQ over Taoist and Buddhist philosophy (not to
mention SOM) though as I note in Section 2.3.3. of the textbook, the
understanding of the term Quality in the Far East is very similar to the one
found in Pirsig's work:
'Quality' goes far beyond makers boosting productivity and production
technology. excellence must be cultivated in the hearts and minds of all
involved. (Clark & Itoh, 1983, p.119)
However, if anyone has any better ideas about what values are (or even any
tenuous suggestions) then let's hear them.
"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us 'Universe,' a part
limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings
as something separated from the rest as a kind of optical delusion of his
consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to
our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our
task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of
compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its
beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such
achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner
security."
Einstein quoted in H. Eves "Mathematical Circles Adieu" (Boston 1977).
------------------------------------------------------------
Andy:
3. I was particularly struck by this Pirsig quote, "They have their genesis
in
society the same way that society has its genesis in biology. Without
biology
there is no society. Without society there is no intellect since there would
be
no one to talk to anyone else and thus no language to speak and thus nothing
to
contain the ideas." From here it seems there is just a small step to saying
truth is a property of language. I am not disagreeing here I am just noting
for
others the "linguistic turn" that Pirsig has taken. To DMB, in particular,
it
seems Pirsig notes the importance of language to truth.
------------------------------------------------------------
Ant:
OK, I think DMB developed this thread (in "Two Theories of Truth") in a
pretty big way so anyone interested in this issue should follow his
discussion with Andy which starts before this posting on November 2nd.
------------------------------------------------------------
Andy:
I will continue to make my way through your manuscript. I might have a few
more
comments later, but for now I simply say, "nice work and congratulations."
------------------------------------------------------------
Well, maybe we will see an MOQ paper on economics from your good self one
day?
Anyway, thanks again, Andy (and David).
Anthony
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