LS Re: Markup of Martin's 'Noumenon of Quality.'


Martin Striz (striz1@MARSHALL.EDU)
Wed, 5 Nov 1997 04:38:41 +0100


Doug,

Great review. I'll have to take your comments into consideration,
especially the following:

> [One may infer from this interpretation of noumenon that it is an
> object
> which is undefinable. In SOM-land this is a self contradiction,
> right?
> In MoQ-land DQ is the realm of the undefined, right? DQ is NOT an
> object, right? Noumenon manifests a desperate SOM grasping for that
> which (TLS understands) reality is in: Quality. Without redefining
> the
> term it appears that we must leave it as one of the wasted
> accoutrements
> of the now subordinated SOM philosophy. 2NOV97 Doug Renselle.]

The noumenon, in phenomenological terms, is the 'essence' of a thing. I
suppose in SOM-land that could be interpreted several ways. Certainly
it could be the undefinable underlying constitution of a thing.
Undefinable because it would necessarily have to be the 'thing' stripped
of all perceivable values, so what could you possibly say about it?
Another interpretation of noumena could be something akin to Plato's
theory of Ideas. And to really complicated matters, from the standpoint
of many religions even a subject could have an noumenon: the soul. In
that case a 'person' would work on two levels, the noumen being the
underlying soul part and the phenomenon being the appearing personality
and perceiver part. What a headache!

The MOQ, being very much related to the empiricist school of thought,
agrees with phenomenologists like Sartre in that the noumena don't
exist. Remember Pirsig talking about Locke, I used that in the essay.
>From the MOQ standpoint, phenomena and subjects/consciousnesses are all
Values. The main point here is that the materialists, although claiming
a monism, draw a distinction between 'regular' matter and matter in a
state that is capable of perception. Idealists draw the distinction
between Minds and concepts. Even phenomenologists draw the distinction
between the phenomena and consciousnesses (the perceivers). These are
effectively dualisms in their own right. I think, and I hope you agree,
that from the MOQ standpoint, a subject and the perceived qualities it
senses are both Values. They are both static values (because they exist
through many 'nows'). In this way, they are effectively united. Bodvar
drills it into our heads over and over again that a 'mind' is an
intellectual static pattern of values. We've bridged the gap.

Static values are all the perceived things, the things we've come know
and intellectualize about. So they are describable. Dynamic Quality is
undescribable not because it has any relation to noumena, but because it
is on the edge of experience. Pirsig mentions a time-interrelated
metaphysical trinity in ZMM (and substitutes DQ for Quality in Lila),
and he says Quality (DQ) exists at a preintellectual moment of
awareness. We haven't thought about it yet, so it's indescribable. And
once we have thought about it, it goes poof! It becomes static.

And you are right about leaving noumena in the dust. Only materialists
seem to hold onto the 'objectivity' of things, the essences of objects,
so dogmatically. To them the atoms are the underlying constitution of
things that we've been calling noumena. But how do we know of atoms
except by instruments, by empirical perception of some kind? So even
these atoms are phenomena, or in our case Values.

As for the next half, that will wait just a little longer. Right now
I'm reading Husserl's "The Idea of Phenomenology" to make sure I'm
getting things right. I don't like my 'phenomenology can be reduced to
materialistic objectivity' argument, I don't think it is strong enough.

Cheers!
Martin

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