From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Mon Feb 21 2005 - 00:18:04 GMT
Howdy MOQers:
Sam Norton said:
...so far as I can discern the logic here, Pirsig is saying that we have
access to the Absolute (DQ) through "sentient experience" (= 'feeling')
which is to be understood literally (NOT analogically) as corresponding to
biological quality. So we have access to DQ through biological quality.
Which is where I get stuck - and why I suggested in my original question
that it would be of interest to try and work out what Pirsig means. Because,
having denied the analogical use of "sentient experience" it seems that
Pirsig is committed to saying that we access DQ through the biological level
(which I note you both agree is daft). My problem is that I cannot see how
Pirsig avoids that conclusion.
dmb says:
I think you have to be misreading Pirsig on the matter of "analogical use of
sentient experience". Either that or Pirsig is contradicting himself. To put
it simply, I think we can say that we literally sense DQ without having to
claim that it depends on biological sense organs. In any case, to understand
what Pirsig is saying about this primary sense of value maybe it would be
best to leave that sticky passage behind and look elsewhere for answers. How
about these Pirsig quotes from Paul Turner...
"In the MOQ empirical experience begins with Quality which generates
intellectual patterns. One of these intellectual patterns is named 'senses,'
but this pattern is derived from the study of anatomy and is not primary in
the actual empirical process."
"The MOQ agrees that the senses are primary in an anatomical explanation of
[the] empirical process. ...But at the cutting edge of the actual Dynamic
empirical moment these anatomical explanations are nowhere to be found."
dmb continues:
See? In the MOQ the sense of value comes first. And ideas of eyes that see
or bodies that feel, all that comes later. This is how the sense of value is
NOT perception by way of a biological sense organs. In the MOQ those
anatomical explanations are formed on the basis of a more primary sense of
value, in the wake of that experience. In SOM, sense organs come first and a
sense of value develops from that. Although he's not talking specificall
about sense organs, Pirsig makes this same basic point in ZAMM...
"This means Quality is not just the result of a collision between subject
and object. The very existence of subject and object themselves is deduced
from the Quality event. The Quality event is the cause of the subjects and
objects, which are then mistakenly presumed to be the cause of the Quality!"
[ZMM Ch19]
dmb says:
To talk about sensory experience and the empiricism of SOM science is to
talk in detail about the subject as it is understood in SOM. But in the MOQ,
we are talking about something else. In the MOQ, the idea that reality is
divided between subjects and objects is only that an idea. And even though
he doesn't use those terms, looking at the world by way of these
explanations is exactly what stands in the way of that more primary
empirical reality...
"In all of the Oriental religions great value is placed on the Sanskrit
doctrine of Tat tvam asi, "Thou art that," which asserts that everything
you think you are and everything you think you perceive are undivided.
To realize fully this lack of division is to become enlightened." [ZMMp.143]
How do you 'feel' about that? Does that help?
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