Jonathan B. Marder (marder@agri.huji.ac.il)
Wed, 20 May 1998 10:11:16 +0100
-----Original Message-----
From: Horse <horse@wasted.demon.nl>
To: Multiple recipients of <lilasqd@mail.hkg.com>
Date: 14 May 1998 05:27
Subject: LS Explain the subject-object metaphysics
...
>Pirsig makes the point that SOM is a system which excludes
Value/Quality
>as a major part of the metaphysics or at least reduces it to 'mere'
>subjectivity and then reduces subjective to "just what you like" - in
>other words, 'mere' opinion.
>This is reminiscent of the Logical
>Positivist view. If a statement cannot be tested or measured or
>expressed mathematically then it is meaningless.
In my first post to this group, I suggested that it might be useful to
equate Pirsig's Quality with MEANING. Pirsig says that Quality CAN be
assessed by the observer provided he CARES to do so! That is an
interesting quality word - "cares". Might that be related to Dynamic
Quality. The Logical Positivist view is not wrong, but needs to be
bracketed with something else - "A statement WILL NOT be tested or
measured or expressed mathematically if no-one cares to do so."
Pirsig hasn't really done away with the SO at all, but has incorporated
it into his MOQ. If we consider subject as the observer and object as
the observed (things that happen), Pirsig has created multiple
non-exclusive subjects. The observer observes at the molecular level, or
is an organism observing at the biological level, or a society observing
at the social level etc. Thus subject and object become relative terms.
Objectivity thus also becomes relative - (-: depending, of course, on
how you look at it :-).
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