> Responding to Steve Wehrenburg who wrote, in part:
> <I think Pirsig's point (and mine, for sure) is that it is UNFORTUNATE
> thatvalues are pre-conscious selection criteria. If experience can be likened
<snip>
>
> Although it may be just a disagreement over what the "edge" is, I think we
> disagree on a fundamental point (which I should point out is still a point of
> contention between "great thinkers" everywhere). In short, I am proposing (and
> interpreting Pirsig) to say that there is *NO* perception prior to the valuing
I detect a semantic difference here ... you use the term perception,
which I take to mean "requiring a perceiver;" you don't deny that there
could be existence prior to perception, do you? That would certainly
make it difficult to have a discussion, since we could be arguing about
the very meaning of existence (metaphysics).
Certainly, it seems difficult to imagine perception prior to valuation,
but I'm not willing to categorically deny the possiblility ... which I
think was Pirsig's original point (or mine, then, if not his).
> process. Far from "unfortunate", valuing offers our *only* possible connection
> with reality. Let me quote from Pirsig's later book, "Lila"
Ah ... here we must part company. The word *only* is too constraining
for my taste. Cognitive psychologists seem to believe that there are two
(or more) distinct processes involved in "perception." The pure signal
reception and pre-processing that is part of sensation, and the
application of meaning which precedes perception. I believe there are
many theories that suggest that data (output of sensation) can get into
the old brain unperceived (consciously) and unedited ... in fact, this
seems to be the raison d'etre of my colleagues in the psychology of
advertising. All I'm saying is that I cannot deny the possiblility
pre-valuation perception. Whether there is any practical importance
attached to this notion is arguable.
> <The Metaphysics of Quality ... says that values are not outside of the
> experience that logical positivism limits itself to. The are the *essence* of
> this experience. Values are *more* empirical, in fact, than subjects or
> objects. Any person of any philosophic persuasion who sits on a hot stove will
> verify without any intellectual argument whatsoever that he is in an undeniably
> low-quality situation: that the *value* of his predicament is negative. This
> low quality is not just a vague, woolly-headed, crypto-religeous, metaphysical
> abstraction. It is an *experience*. It is not a judgment about experience. It
> is not a description of experience. The value itself is an experience. ...
> This value is more immediate, more directly sensed than any "self" or any
> "object" to which it might be later assigned. It is more *real* than the
> stove.> (emphasis is Pirsig's)
>
> If true, there is no "original" to be had that is "unfortunately" filtered
> by later applying values. When you refer to immediate experience pursued by
> certain religions and drug users, I believe you are talking about *pre-
> conceptual* experience, not *pre-value* experience. In the value dimensions I
> outlined before, pre-conceptual experience would arise from Intrinsic valuing.
> As I interpret it, the altered states you referred to are altered *value*
> states, where one typically sheds one's habitual emphasis on extrinsic and
> systemic value to make sense of reality, focusing instead on the pre-conceptual,
> pre-expectation Intrinsic value dimension.
>
> Although this is the Learning-Org list, not metaphysics-L, I think this is
> still relevant because it is a critical point in one's "mental model" of
> learning itself, which surely must have practical importance to L.O. and
> consultants. If all learning arises from experience, and all experience arises
> from one's values, then clearly understanding value in general, and the variety
> of individual and organizational values, must be critical to understanding
> learning.
>
> Fred Reed
> freed@cc.atinc.com
>
>