Hey Patrick and all,
PATRICK
...do you mean by 'unvisualized' that our
> undivided field of consciousness (to use Nishida Kitaro's terminology),
> uh, is indeed undivided and that the perception of a field of colors in
> front of us might not exist if you move the static-qualities-filter VERY
> close to DQ?
RICK
No... I didn't mean that. Though it is pretty interesting. Let me
explain what I meant by 'unvisualized'....
Imagine that I take a video camera and hook it up to a computer. The
computer runs a program that converts the light into a digital image and
whatever I point the camera at shows up on the computer's monitor. Then I
point the camera at a wall that is painted half blue and half green (so that
the wall appears on the monitor). I also have a special blue/green optic
filter which removes blue and green light replacing them with shades of
gray. I can insert the filter into my camera set-up at point:
(1) If I put the filter in directly front of the camera (between the lens
and the wall) the picture on the monitor will change from blue and green to
two shades of gray because the green and blue light never make it into the
camera.
(2) If I put the filter between the camera and the monitor then the picture
on the monitor will change from blue to green to two shades of gray because
while the green and blue light enter the camera, they never reach the
computer and therefore, never reach the monitor.
(3) I can also write the filter into the program that coverts the light into
a digital image. If I do this the monitor will change from blue and green
to gray because while the light did enter the camera and get passed on to
the computer, it never made it to the monitor.
(4) I add no filter and the blue and green wall shows up on the monitor.
Now... The camera is an eye, the computer a brain, the light-digital
conversion program is a cultural definition of what is real and unreal and
the monitor is a field of vision.
Example 1 is a man wearing glasses that keep out blue and green light; the
light never reaches his eye at all.
Example 2 is a man who is blue/green colorblind; the light reaches his eye,
but 'dies' there b/c of some biological 'defect'.
Example 3 is a Natchez; the light reaches his eye and is passed along into
the brain, but it's filtered out by cultural definitions of what is real and
unreal before reaching the field of view (ie. before it shows up on the
monitor... 'UNVISUALIZED').
Example 4 is your average, everyday non-Natchez person.
PATRICK
Are there static qualities in perception as well, and not only in the
intellect?
RICK
The static qualities in the intellect are deductions from experience.
Guesses about what exists in the pre-intellectual.
PATRICK
Incidentally, *what* is Dynamic
> Quality? I asked Andrea if she meant that DQ perhaps is transcendental,
> that is, beyond or before our field of perception, but I didn't get an
> answer.
RICK
This is a bit too broad a concept for me to deal with right now
(understanding DQ is practically most of LILA). But I bet there are several
forum members who'd be happy to take this on with you.
>
> PATRICK
...The perception of a cat
> scratching a tree or climbing in it is, uh, dynamical, as opposed to
> static in the ordinary sense. Every moment the scenery of the tree and
> the cat change: The tree is moving in the wind, the cat is moving on a
> branch, you see it's head turn, sometimes you don't or do see it's eyes,
> etc.
RICK
This sounds like pre-intellectual awareness.
PATRICK
We transform the scenery into static qualities by thinking 'The CAT
> is in the TREE'. And when you know you're talking about a cat and a
> tree, you can make propositions about these things.
RICK
This sounds like intellectual awareness.
PATRICK
The thing is, you're
> inclined to use the static qualities (maybe a prototype...) CAT and TREE
> when thinking about them instead of seeing the moving cat and the tree
> blowing in the wind; the things as they really are. Like the famous
> Eastern (Buddhist?) saying: You shouldn't confuse the finger pointing to
> the Moon with the Moon itself... but our language does invite us
> strongly to confuse the finger and the moon, doesn't it?
RICK
Clearly it does.
thanks for the input
rick
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