From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Sun Apr 17 2005 - 10:21:32 BST
David --
Ham asked:
> You begin by saying that the MOQ structure "divides DQ from sq and
> subdivides sq into the four levels." Please tell me how this explains the
> epistemology.
>
dmb answers:
> The levels of the MOQ are levels OF EXPERIENCE, kinds OF EXPERIENCE.
> The whole structure is based on EXPERIENCE.
If the whole structure is based on Experience, then why isn't Experience,
rather than Quality, "the primary empirical reality of the world"?
> Pirsig points out that the senses are just one level
> of experience, the biological level.
> And this is the sense in which you are
> using the idea of empirically-based facts.
Right. But I can't "know a fact" without intellectualizing it. So
empirical experience must also involve Intellect. Also, some of the facts
we know, if not most of them, relate to inorganic objects and social events.
Therefore, it seems to me that -- unless the experience referred to is
nothing more than an itch or a toothache -- sensible (sentient?) experience
involves all four of Mr. Pirsig's pattern levels.
I still want to know the cause or the agent responsible for setting up these
"static pattern" levels (and I don't mean MoQ's author). Is there something
significant about the fact that they've been defined as four in number? If,
as you say, "there is nothing magical about it", then whatever causes DQ to
divide into four levels should be readily explainable -- possibly even
empirically, or at least identified. Why is this not a legitimate
epistemological question? And why hasn't Mr. Pirsig or yourself addressed
the origin of this multi-level heirarchy?
You balk at the notion of a "prime mover" or creator, and you make a "low
quality thing" out of faith; yet the implicit trust that you and your
cohorts profess for this quaternary blueprint of reality is no less than
what I'd expect if Moses himself had handed it to you on a stone tablet
brought down from Mt. Sinai.
dmb says:
> Who or what does the dividing?
> Pirsig did, but he is only re-introducing what Modern science had
collapsed.
> I mean, we can find epistemological pluralism all over the place.
Exactly. There are all kinds of epistemological schemes out there. So why
is this one so sacred?
> If intellect was not BOTH individual AND universally available
> how could we ever have a
> philosophical discussion? So what's the problem?
Well, one problem is that you don't know that "intellect is universally
available". You have no proof that Intellect exists in the abstract (which,
for me, rules out Level 4 as a legitimate static pattern). That phrase
simply means that you can find human beings almost anywhere with the
intellectual capacity to deal abstractly with empirical knowledge -- and to
construct theories like this to explain things about which they have no
empirical knowledge.
Ham finally asked:
> What on earth do you find "anti-modern", "anti-intellectual", and
> "reactionary" about the fact that there is nothing empirical except the
word
> itself in Mr. Pirsig's theory, and that it wouldn't help if there were?
dmb says:
> Huh? What I find to be anti-intellectual and reactionary are faith-based
> assertions about Absolutes, Esssences and Gods for which there is no
> evidence.
Would it surprise you to know that I find your assertions about a
multi-level heirarchy of existence arbitrary, ill-defined, and
metaphysically incoherent?
> I'm saying there is no evidence of any
> kind, from any level. Or rather, if there is no one here has ever
> successfully presented it.
Ditto the MoQ!
> Again, is there any
> evidence of any kind WHATSOEVER that we live after death? Please put it on
> the table.
Aside from NDE accounts, many of which have been recorded and published by
reputable physicians, reports of out-of-body experiences by mystics in Tibet
and the Far East, and Christian claims of a resurrected Jesus (none of
which, of course, can be verified empirically), I contend that there is some
evidence in reason and value:
1) Human beings have a genetic propensity for belief in a supernatural
intelligence,
and almost universally place a high value on survival during and after
life.
There is no existential or biological reason for this tendency, except
to point
man toward a psychic after-life transition.
2) Along with many scientists, I believe that the universe exhibits
intelligent design.
This not only implies a primary Designer, but a teleology for the
design.
For the design to be meaningful to man, the purpose of his
creation would logically extend beyond finite existence.
3) Were we to have access to empirical proof of continuity hereafter,
it would violate the principle of man's autonomous freedom;
hence such proof is disallowed by the Intelligent Creator.
In fact, the absence of such proof tends to confirm the concept.
> Unfortunately, my little boy experienced death very early in life (his
> grandfather had ALS) and it prompted too many difficult questions. When he
> was only three he asked me why things die. I like to think that I gave him
a
> MOQish answer. I told him that if nothing ever died then everything would
> always stay the same, but because everything dies there can be change and
> things can get better. I told him that things have been dying and getting
> better for a very long time so that now things are very, very good. He
> seemed to like like that explantion quite a bit - and so do I.
Your story is most touching, and the answer you gave your son is a good one,
as far as it goes. I would only question your statement that "things have
been dying and getting better for a very long time so that now things are
very, very good." Why are things better now than they were before? Death
is a biological end for all living organisms, but I don't see how many
deaths over time improves things. Is this merely a "feel-good" metaphor, or
is there some other philosophy than MOQ behind it?
Peace,
Ham
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