From: Paul Turner (paulj.turner@ntlworld.com)
Date: Sun Mar 07 2004 - 20:30:58 GMT
Chris
Chris said:
I never said innate, I just said apriori. Makes me wonder if you
understand me when I say Kantian categories, are you familiar with Kant?
Paul:
It's been a number of years since I read Kant so I may have forgotten
something important and misunderstood your comparison. From what I
recall, Kant saw his categories as necessary and universal *conditions
for* objective experience although they didn't *arise from* experience
and therefore must exist *prior to* and *independently of* experience
itself.
By contrast, the MOQ holds that experience (i.e. value) is fundamentally
prior to intellectual concepts, yet is the starting point and ongoing
source of reality and is therefore the starting point and ongoing source
of any "categories" that are invented by the intellect. In the MOQ,
nothing exists prior to or independently of experience.
I think Kant arrived at his conclusion because, in his metaphysics,
experience is something a subject does to an object and subjects and
objects are all there is. Therefore, as the source of experience is
objects (or things-in-themselves), and as objects don't contain
conceptual frameworks themselves, the frameworks (or at least some
fundamental aspects of them such as space and time) must already exist
in the subject or a "transcendental ego."
In the MOQ, pre-intellectual value is the source of both the subject and
the objects. The conceptualisation of experience is neither universal
nor final, but cultural and evolutionary. That is a big difference.
As I said in the last post, I find that an eagerness to jump from
similarity to identity often hinders understanding - just because the
MOQ "categorises" static patterns into levels it doesn't mean that they
are "categories" in the Kantian (which is a very specific and unusual)
sense.
Chris said:
It does not matter whether Pirsig said it or not, this may sound haughty
but I just look at the two words: STATIC LEVELS. Nothing or 'nothink' is
static.
Paul:
Perhaps "stable" would be more fitting to your experience?
Chris said:
What do you do when you say that something is static? You fixate it,
that is what all metaphysicians do, fixating.
Paul:
Why just "metaphysicians"? Who doesn't "fix" reality with concepts? I
think you are forwarding the mystic understanding of reality which is
central to the MOQ and in one sense I agree. However, in another sense,
saying that "there are no static levels" is as useful as saying there
aren't actually seven days of the week, there aren't actually any states
in the USA, there is no difference between murder and manslaughter,
there is no difference between science and gossip........
Chris said:
Do you really think when somebody says 'contingent (static) levels' that
that makes any sense at all?
Paul:
Yes. What is wrong with that?
Chris said:
Further if the levels would not be apriori the there should be ways to
check that by empirical means; how do we do that?
Paul:
By "empirical" I think you mean a subject experiencing an object and all
ideas belong in the subject, hence your question. In other words, as
ideas are not in the object where do they come from? I believe this
question bugged Einstein and is the question Kant answers with his a
priori categories.
In the MOQ, valuation, and not objects, is empirical reality and ideas
are patterns of value, so the quality of ideas is empirically verifiable
- some explanations are better than others. Imagine what science and
indeed education would be like if no explanation was better than any
other.
An empirically verifiable part of the MOQ levels, as with all theories,
is, "Does it provide a good explanation or not?"
Chris said:
Have you ever noticed the aporetic character of the discussions when it
comes to discerning what (events, 'things', developments etc..) belongs
to which level? Ever wondered why?
Paul:
I think people have their own idea about what types of experience the
levels define, that's all. I believe "scientists" still argue about what
is dead or alive. Also, I think people sometimes make the mistake of
trying to assign things entirely to one level or another.
Chris said:
And where are these levels to be found, where does this 'perspective'
come from?
Paul:
I'm not sure what you are asking here. "The levels" are a description of
experience. The MOQ perspective came from Robert Pirsig, his life
experience, education and personal insight.
Regards
Paul
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