Elliot:
So what do you mean by objective reality? only
quality?
Gary's Response: "Objective Reality" is a term Pirsig
uses in ZMM. I got it from him. He uses it to
contrast with "Subjective Reality". Check out
Pirsig's map in chapter 20 of ZMM. The word
"Subjective" has a very loaded semantic reaction,
implying a notion that it is all in your head and
therefore invalid. I decided to replace those two
terms with External and Internal Reality.
EX=Objective and In=Subjective. Having said that, 1st
remember that to avoid the Aristotelian logic tool
trap these words are not in opposition. They are
describing a Non-Aristotelian continuum from Internal
to External. Everything that is in a human mind:
feelings, thoughts, emotions, non-verbal experience,
non-verbal sense data, words, ideas, beleifs, dreams,
stream of consciousness prattlings, etc. all of that
stuff that is in and a product of the mind is to be
designated as Internal Reality. Everything else not
found in a human mind is external to that mind and
therefore External Reality. So that is everything
from energy, to sub atomic particles, atoms,
molecules, inorganic chemicals, organic life forms,
humans, human products, planets, solar systems,
galaxies, etc. Everything external to the mind is
External Reality.
Elliot said:
I understand your point but its difficult to say that
a person exsists and
a tree exsists before the quality event because these
things are recognized
named and therefore brought into exsistance only after
the quality event.
It is useless to talk about there exsistance prior to
the exsistance of
concepts, words, illusions and distinctions.
Gary's response: Quality is the ordering principle of
the Universe from External to Internal. A Quality
Event is the interaction of a single External object
with a another External Object. Now when that
interaction involves a human then we have some
interesting things going on. Start with a simple
example/experiment you can try this at home [just
don't blame me for the result!:)!] You will need two
people. The victim and the testor. The victom closes
his/her eyes the testor lights a candle and then puts
the victim's hand in the flame. The victom will pull
his/her hand away from the flame "instictively' as the
body reacts to the pain, then the victom will say
"Ouch!' or some other expletive remark and lastly the
victim will begin to ask what the hell happedned. The
pain sensation, the jerking the hand away, the saying
ouch will all have happened before the victom's
conscious mind had a chance to process the data! As
Pirsig says in ZMM Preintellectual experience/Romantic
Quality comes first! No Words. Then Intellectual
understanding/classic Quality comes after. Sense data
comse in and we process it non-verballly. I posted a
reference to a psych experiment which involved playing
cards. The images were flashed on a screen so fast
that the subjects were certain they saw nothing yet
they "guessed' with 100% accuracy what the cards were.
The Pre-verbal experince always comes first, verbal
comes later. Korzybski and Lao Tsu told us that words
are not the true Tao. Things exist before we name
them. The force of gravity existed before Isaac
Newton. The human construct and the words gravity was
the invention of Newton. The Quality event is a
pre-intellectual, non-verbal, no words interaction of
Externally real things/humans included. Words come
after the Event!
Pirsig re-read Chapter 24 of ZMM and focus on the
Train metaphor. "Romantic Quality isn't any part of
the train, it's the leading edge of the engine."
Romantic Quality is the pre-intelectual/non-verbal
leading edge. "Traditional knowledge is only the
collective memory of where that leading edte has
been." Knowledge = words. Knowledge comes after the
leading edge has been processed and understand.
Words are after the Quality Event. Check out what
Pirsig wrote in ZMM and re-read my essay. Check out
Alfred Korzybski and Non-Arsitotelian systems in
"Science and Sanity." check out the web site:
http://www.general-semantics.org/
Gary Jaron, "People shape, and are shaped by, ideas."
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Shopping - Mother's Day is May 12th!
http://shopping.yahoo.com
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:02:15 BST