Erin,
It's actually green/YELLOW distinctions.... not green blue (how did I miss
that?).....
> RICK:
> (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.
>
> 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 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').
> ______________
> ERIN:
> Okay I don't get this filter that defines what is real and unreal. To me
this
> filter is our memories/language, etc.
RICK
The 'program' is our cultural definitions of what is real and unreal. The
'filter' would be the absence of a green/yellow distinction as one of these
definitions. Pirsig seems to suggest that the filter works PRIOR to
visualization. That is, an average westerner not 'seeing' the D-light, or a
Natchez not 'seeing' the yellow/green distinction is NOT simply a matter of
an ability to NAME a phenomenon. It is perceived (it gets into the eye
alright), but unseen (unvisualized b/c it's cut off by the cultural filter).
ERIN
The only way the green and blue would be converted to two shades of gray is
if they were colorblind.
RICK
Not the ONLY way! Colorblindness would be just one way. Besides, 'Gray'
was just a hypothesis. I don't know what Pirsig thinks the Natchez actually
sees, only what he thinks the Natchez DOESN'T see...Namely, a distinction
between green and blue.
ERIN
There are three color cones in the eye--red,green, and blue. For the
Natchez have a green-blue blindness they would need some physiological
defect.
RICK
Or they would need a cultural filter that operates after the light is
absorbed into the eye but prior to full cognitive 'visualization'. This is
what Pirsig apparently thinks is going on.
ERIN
If you can teach the green -blue distinction, then guess what there was no
defect.
RICK
Teaching a Natchez to see the distinction would entail getting him to 'let
go' of his cultural definitions of what is real and unreal. I believe
Pirsig suggests that if this can be done, the difference would appear the
same way if a westerner 'let go' of his cultural definition of what is real
and unreal D-light would appear. To read Pirsig as if he means what YOU say
he means would require a good deal of rewriting, like so:
PIRSIG 'REWRITTEN'---
The *Dharmakaya* light. That was huge area of human experience [ignored
because of] cultural filtering.... But he had [payed attention to] it again
on Lila tonight and he had [payed attention to] it very strongly back in
Kingston.... But nobody [notices] it because the cultural definition of what
is real and what is unreal [prevents recognition of] the *Dharmakaya* light
from 20th century American "reality" just as surely as time is [unrecognized
in] Hopi reality, and green-yellow differences [are ignored by] the
Natchez.... In a Metaphysics of Quality, however, this light is important
because it often [is recognized in association] with Dynamic Quality...
When there is a letting go of static patterns the light [is
recognized].....etc,etc.
RICK
I just can't believe the thoughts of a wordsmith like Pirsig would need such
revision to be comprehensible.
rick
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