Jonathan, sorry for the delay....
>> JONATHAN:
>>> . . . for everything I
>>> perceive to exist, I can make an infinity of "true" statements and an even
>>> larger (:-) infinity of "untrue" statements. I do not consider these
>>> statements to be the REASON an object exists (i.e. ontology). They are a
>>> CONSQUENCE of existence.
>>
>> ELEPHANT:
>> I follow your point, but the confusion is in the thought that we perceive
>> things to exist and then come along and make statements afterwards.
>> ...*what* we perceive is the upshot of the statements we associate with our
>> perception, and before the throwing of that linguistic net there is no
>> *what*, but just the aesthetic continuum.
>> For this reason, your claim that
>> we can make an infinity of true and untrue statements about *what* we
>> perceive is in fact false. Consequently the conclusion you draw, that what
>> exists is unconnected to what statements we think of as true, is also false.
>> Existence, alteast with SQ entities like subjects and objects, is a
>> consequence of our intellectualising in pursuit of quality.
JONATHAN:
> This view does not fit with the way Pirsig describes the experience of sitting
> on a hot stove.
ELEPHANT:
Why not? I always thought this was the *only* veiw that could fit with
Pirsig's account of the experience of sitting on a hot stove. Could you say
a bit more to help me out here - at the momnet you're just asserting that
I'm contradicting Pirsig, and not telling me how it is that I'm supposed to
be doing this.
JONATHAN:
> Elephant, this is the whole issue of "preintellectual" vs. "intellectuallized"
> awareness. Pirsig brings up this subject repeatedly, nost noteably in the
> metaphor of the train and the cutting edge of reality (ZAMM).
ELEPHANT:
Quite so. Again: Could you please tell me how I'm supposed to be at
varients with what Pirsig say there?
JONATHAN:
> Elephant, please explain - I don't see the logic in your statement. I claim
> that once I perceive something to exist, I can then continue making true and
> untrue statements about that thing AD INFINITUM.
ELEPHANT:
Indeed you do. And I point out that your claim is false, because there is
no existence to the (static) object apart from the statements we make about
it. If objects are what they are in virtue of our intellectualisations
('object' being a term in grammar), then it follows that saying new things
isn't describing the same object differently, but talking about something
entirely different. In connection with this problem I direct you to the
following passages in Plato's Theaetetus: 187 - 190, and 208 - 209. Plato
riducules the empiricist idea that what makes it still 'the same' object
that we are judging differently about is that there is some special
'impression' which an object makes on our mental wax. In my opinion this
ridicule is exactly what the confused empiricist point of veiw deserves. In
my opinion, also, Kripke's account of the acquistion of "rigid designation"
is no less laughable. You cannot appeal to causal interactions between
objects in an account which is supposed to explain what it is to be an
object or to be designated or be referred to.
ELEPHANT:
>> Existence, alteast with SQ entities like subjects and objects, is a
>> consequence of our intellectualising in pursuit of quality.
JONATHAN:
> This is only a true if the division between subject and object is considered a
> PREREQUISITE for existence. That would seem to fit the definition of SOM. I
> believe that Pirsig has rejected this starting point repeatedly, consistently
> and unambigously in both of his novels.
ELEPHANT:
I just don't understand that comment at all. Obviously being an object or a
subject is essential for SQ existence, because that's pretty much what being
static amounts to. In saying this I am, as Pirsig does, making the
Static/Dynamic cut first, and the Subject/Object cut second (S/O isn't my
"starting point" any more than it is Pirsig's. That I make the S/O cut
doesn't make me a SOMist, any more than it makes Pirsig a SOMist. Do please
explain (I repeat): exactly *how* am I at varients with Pirsig?
Look forward to your explanations,
Elephant,
currently
.....
......Puzzled.
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