John B., David L. and all thinking organisms:
I'd like to focus on one particular issue. It's not that I wish to
ignore the rest of John's essay. And, honestly, I'm not trying to
squeeze some pet theory into the discussion of your paper. This issue
doesn't address the larger questions and criticisms, but it is
fundamental to the original MOQ and is a crucial part of what you're
saying in your ORGANISMIC MOQ. To keep it simple I'll focus on a single
assertion...
JOHN BEASLEY SAYS, "Mysticism is the abandonment of static quality by
people and is made possible by focusing on dynamic biological
experience."
AND HE PUT THE QUESTION THIS WAY... "I think the onus is on you to show
how saying DQ is even more primary than sensory data actually means
anything. It sounds like theology to me. I want to explore what these
fine terms mean. Can you do it?"
Good question. I'm not sure if I can answer it, but its worth trying.
But first let's see if we agree about the meaning of your assertion;
that mysticism is "made possible by focusing on dynamic biological
experience". If I understand this statement correctly, you're saying
that organisms experience the "primary empirical reality" in a kind of
pure way, unfettered by social and intllectual level values. And as the
reasoning might go, a mystical person is one who shifts their awareness
to the biological, to raw sensory data as I like to put it. Then the
"world" is seen exactly as it appears to the eye, so to speak. Aren't
you saying that mysticism is biological awareness, without any mental
filters, without any interference from the higher levels? I'm going to
proceed as if that is a correct description of your view. I think your
statement about mysticism and the question you posed both make sense in
light of this interpetation. Your question could be phrased as simply
as, "What's more primary than sense data?" Aren't you saying that
biological organism are experiencing the most basic reality directly and
that thinking there is anything more basic than that is just a matter of
faith or belief? Are we on the same page? Am I being fair in my
descriptions?
To try to answer your question, to show how DQ is more primary than the
biological sensory data, I have to take on two different prongs. We have
to see what Pirsig says about mystical experience on the one hand and
about biological senses on the other. (No pun intended.) Obviously, I am
disagreeing with your view and see each prong as a completely different
kind of experience. Quite simply, I'm saying that mysticism is not
biologically based. My reasons are terribly different than David Lind's
reasons, but I'll add some details and specifics that might be helpful.
THE MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE
This part of the answer is the more difficult of the two. And yet
mysticism is absolutely essential in the MOQ. Pirsig said that he once
thought of making the payote trip the "spine" of his book. I think the
MOQ is basically a metaphysics of mysticism. If someone asked for a good
book that would really explain what mysticism is, I'd tell them to read
Lila. Remember at the beginning when he's talking about how its a
degenerate activity to write about Quality. He was talking to the
mystics and he was saying, "Sorry guys, I know this knowledge is
supposed to be sacred and ineffable, but I've found a way to describe it
in intellectual terms, so get over yourselves." It takes a whole book to
explain it, at least. Its extremely difficult for we Westerners to
accept the validity of mysticism or mind-altering drugs. I can
sympathize if you're skeptical of the idea that a drug-induced mystical
experience could become the basis for a serious metaphysical system, but
that's the story. You read it. There is no escape from Pirsig's
mysticism. The MOQ wouldn't be the MOQ without it.
The teepee trip was much more pleasant than his insanity, but the latter
can be mystical too. His discussions about Lila herself and insanity in
general speak to the same issue. Here we find one of the reasons to
think biological perceptions are different than mystical experience. I
think he says that sometimes the insane are on a real dynamic journey
and other times its just physiological and can be treated with medical
help. Its a little weak, but it just one tiny reason to think there's a
distinction. On the same order, there is Pirsig's criticism of the
hippies. He says that one of the reasons they failed as a movement was
because they confused the mystical with biological values. With respect
to mysticism, I think he was saying that they turned sacred drugs into a
party toy and thereby denigrated the quality of the whole movement. Plus
they were hedonistic and way too hairy. But that's beside the point.
There's also the bit about electro shock therapy. Pirsig says he think
it works because it temporarily leaves the patient in a dynamic state.
It's a tough way to have a mystical experience, but its another example.
In all cases, whether by accident or design, whether in a hospital or a
teepee or a monastery, the mystical experience is direct unmediated
experience of DQ, which is the primary empirical reality. In each case
there is a radical shift away from ordinary modes of consciousness. Its
very hard to say what the shift is toward, because DQ is beyond our
static words and concepts, but Pirsig's descriptions of the state of
mind known as "dhyana" give us a pretty good idea of what it is about.
To over-simplify it just a bit, it is a state of undifferentiated
consciousness, where the divisions between the the thinker, the thought
and the "object" of thought are dissolved. By analogy, its like one of
those three dimensional cartoons. A shift in vision occurs and you
suddenly see what was right in front of you the whole time. The mystical
experience is like that, except the shift is not optical, its a shift in
consciousness. Rich Pretti's "meditation, metaphysics and marijuana"
post offers lots of good clues too.
BIOLOGICAL EXPERIENCE
Its a lot easier to say what mysticism isn't, if you know what I mean.
Biological experience is explained in the MOQ. We can see its place
within the levels of static quality. Compared to the mysterious DQ, we
get more concise and clear definitions when it comes to static quality.
Now we're not talking about mystical consciousness or even the
meditative state known as dhyana, we're just talking about ordinary
modes of consciousness. Surely you'd agree that our sense organs are a
part of ordinary awareness. And its sort of common sense to think that
it the beginning of all our mental content, but Pirsig paints a slightly
different picture. His primary empirical reality isn't the same as
sensory data. Pirsig's primary empirical reality is Dynamic Quality is
self, while his levels of static patterns put raw sensory data on the
biological level. So mystical experience and the sensory experience of
organisms are on opposite sides of the MOQ's primary distinction, the
dynamic/static split.
There is an even more nuts-n-bolts approach. Pirsig talks about our
ordinary ways of perceptions as they relate to the levels of static
qualtiy in his SODV lecture. I think this is a key to understanding the
epistemology of the MOQ. This passage from page 17 is discussing what
physicists can rightly think about their experiments and data, but it
has a lot to say about human perception generally. In describing why SOM
is wrong and why he and Bohr are correct, Pirsig writes,...
"In the MOQ we see that each higher level of evolution rests on and is
supported by the next lower level and cannot do without it. There is no
intellect that can independently reach and make contact with inorganic
patterns. It must GO THROUGH both SOCIETY and BIOLOGY to reach them. In
the past science has always insisted on the necessity of biological
proofs, that is, proofs in terms of SENSE DATA, but it has tried to
discard social patterns as a source of scientific knowledge. When Bohr
says we are suspended in language I think he means your cannot get rid
of the social contexts EITHER."
Pirsig is making a case that the scientific method needs social level
mediation, and Bohr's complimentarity supports this idea with the verbal
descriptions. But along the way we get a picture of the MOQ's theory of
perception. He's saying that ordinary consciousness, of scientists in a
lab for example, has to go through each static level. He's saying the
intellect is mediated by both the biological and social levels of static
quality. Which, obviously, make sense data a basic part of that ordinary
consciousness. There is nothing mystical about these normal modes of
perception. That is to say, Pirsig gives the biological a certain place
in his MOQ and it is clearly part of the second static level and is
involved in normal perceptions, and so its hard to imagine that the
biological could be dynamic or mystical.
Let's end where we started. You know that I'm operating on the
assumption that you think of the "primary empirical reality" as the
world exactly as the eye sees it, a kind of pure vision achieved at the
biological level. But this is contradicted by Pirsig's idea of
biological static quality. As I understand it. The eye IS itself a
biological static pattern. The eye is static quality, and as such it is
limited, finite and acts as a filter upon direct reality just as any
level does. How much of the electromagnetic spectrum is "visible" light?
The eye's experience is only of inorganic static patterns, and only some
of them at that. Notice how social and intellectual reality is invisible
to the eye? Matter is its medium and is the only reality it sees. In
some sense the primary reality GOES THROUGH inorganic patterns, then the
biological, then social, then we can have an idea about it. But the eye
is not primary. Its the second filter of the primary empirical reality.
That's precisely how he differs from the classical empiricist. Pirsig
says sense data isn't primary, DQ is the primary empirical reality. In
the MOQ, the subjects and objects and sensory data are all different
kinds of static quality that have evolved out of DQ. That's how DQ is
more primary than sensory data.
Thanks for your time
David B.
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