From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Thu Nov 14 2002 - 20:12:41 GMT
Scott, (and all, I have some bits about interpreting Pirsig towards the
middle, starting with "On universals and particulars..."),
I like your last line ;-)
In the way of numbers, Scott said, "The thinking of a mathematical entity
is the mathematical entity." Well, why can't other entities not be thought
of in the same way? You're saying that numbers are different in essence
from other entities such as a dog. That a dog is an essentially different
kind then the number 42. If we make this distinction, however, that brings
in a host of skeptical questions such as, "How do we know that? Is it 'cuz
the dog is 'out there'? How do we know its 'out there'? Come now, all we
really know is that we experience it in our mind, right? Just like
numbers, right?" I prefer not to let these skeptical questions get a foot
in the door. I would blur the line between dog and 42, between existence
and essence. Dog and 42 are both entities. It just so happens that dogs
are the kind of entity that we can see with our eyes and 42s are the kind
of entity that we can only think about. But this is no difference in
essence, it is a difference in existence. Rather then being essentially
different in kind, they are contingently different in kind. This allows us
to be able to think of dogs and 42 as relational, since they aren't really
different in essence, mainly since there are no essences that aren't
existents (the line, after all, being blurred). This is panrelationalism.
In the way of metaphysics, you're making metaphysics ubiquitous. To the
point, your making metaphysics the same as whatever language game a person
grows up in. The "sense of what is real" is given to us by our culture.
That's why the sense is different for different people. People have
different experiences, people have different senses. But if that's
metaphysics, then sure, everyone has a metaphysics. The problem is I'm
left without a name for those particular types of questions that attempt to
get at the real "sense of what is real," i.e. those that make an
appearance-reality distinction. I prefer to retain metaphysics in its
traditional sense (a preference, true, but one I think I'm entitled to).
If you've followed me thus far thinking what I've said is true, that
metaphysics is the same as a person's language game which is different
depending on contingent circumstances, then you can take my refusal to do
metaphysics as not a refusal to play a langauge game. I can't help but to
play a language game. There is a particular language game, however, that
I'll call the Platonic tradition of Western metaphysics or the metaphysics
of presence or that whole nest and brood of Greek dualisms or logocentrism,
that I do not want to play and that which Rorty's attacks are aimed at.
Certainly not at language games in general. If you didn't follow me, and
the "sense of what is real" you were refering to is an internal, a priori
"sense of what is real," a.k.a. the real "sense of what is real," then
you're begging the question.
In the way of nihilism, I'm curious. Are you saying that Rorty doesn't
fall into nihilism if he doesn't ask this question: "Are there absolutes?"
Hmm. Well, why can't I get rid of that question along with all the rest of
those bad metaphysical questions? How would that look? Or has Rorty (or
anybody else) already gotten rid of that question? Certainly if we got rid
of the question of absolutes we wouldn't be able to discriminate between
permanence and impermanence. Those are genuine questions, mind you.
On universals and particulars, you said, "what I am saying is that Rorty
treats universals as dependent on particulars, that he assumes that those
who treat them as essences are mistaking "just a word" for something
actual. What I am saying against this is that there is no "something
actual" without the universal." I'm not sure if Rorty does this (I'm
genuinely not sure, but see below with the Sellars formulation). But I'm
pretty sure that he doesn't have to do this. In rehabilitaing the Rortyan
position that is wounded by this attack, I would agree that a universal (as
in concepts) is not "just a word," but something actual. I take some of my
firepower from Sartre who, in Being and Nothingness, wrote a great little
piece on the existence of "absence" and how, at root, it was the same as a
chair and from Pirsig who said that, at root, all things that can be said
to exist are the same. Pirsig blurs the line between essence and existence
and says that the only difference between a chair and a thought is a
difference in the kind of existence they have. Rorty, thus configured,
would have no problem saying that for something actual we need a universal
and a particular. In fact, this seems to me simply a reformulation of the
Sellarsian linguistification of experience that "all awareness is a
linguistic affair."
Note, though, this is all post-language. I assume we can conceive of a
pre-language baby or gorilla as being able to deal with particulars without
universals-as-linguistic-concepts. Pirsig offers us a good way formulating
what the pre-linguistic universals they use would be: predictions of
patterns of behavior. They can set things into different patterns and
predict outcomes. If they couldn't, animals wouldn't be able to survive
and gorillas and babies wouldn't be able to learn language. Language is
simply an extension of this patterning, predicting ability that biological
entities seem to have. Now, Pirsig would also add that this continues down
into inorganic patterns. And this is what I find to be the most
fascinating about what Pirsig does: he blurs the line of who has and
doesn't have consciousness/awareness. He says that rocks have patterning
ability, too. It just doesn't seem to us, though, that they have
predicting ability. But that's an observational question, just as relating
language using animals to non-language using animals is: we observe them
behaving in a manner that resembles our own and we can use a word to refer
to both: prediction. Equally, we can observe rocks as behaving in a manner
that resembles our own (and the non-linguistic animals) and we can use a
word to refer to both: pattern. That is the stroke of genius that Pirsig
brings in in Lila.
Now, I think mystics (specifically you Scott, and I think Platt and Squonk
would say this) would want to say that not all awareness for linguistic
creatures is linguistic. This I deny. It begs the question with a
different langauge game that I've already left. Granted, I'm begging the
question in return with my alternative, but that's the nature of the game.
My only argument can be the assertion that the language game I'm working
with has greater possibilities.
A last observation of how Pirsig is commensurate with Rorty in this regard.
Pirsig argues that each level of patterns is morally higher then the one
below it. He also says that it seeks to control the one below. I would
interpret this to mean (in a Rortyan fashion) that each level supersedes
the one below. This means that, while an animal will carry ahead the the
inorganic patterns, the biological patterns, i.e. the predicting patterns,
supersede the inorganic ones as master. In the same way, linguistic
patterns (which, to linguistify Pirsig, I'm interpreting for the moment as
intellectual patterns) supersede the patterns below it. By superseding,
I'm taking to mean one can't shake free the highest levels to get to the
lowest one. You're still a biological creature looking at inorganic stuff,
you're still a social creature looking at biological and inorganic stuff,
and most of all, you're still a linguistic creature looking at social,
biological, and inorganic stuff. This is a way of interpreting Pirsig as
saying that "all awareness is a linguistic affair," as long as we realize
we are talking about linguistic users.
The first objection to this interpretation is that Pirsig says that there
is awareness outside of language, namely Dynamic Quality. My response is
that this is a mystic, appearance-reality remenant that can be safely
reinterpreted. Its a fairly smooth transition, too. There's always been
talk about where Dynamic Quality occurs. Dynamic Quality takes off from a
platform of static patterns. Whether you wish to interpret this as
"Dynamic Quality only occurs at the highest level of static patterns" or
"Dynamic Quality occurs at any level of static patterns" (I favor the
latter), a Dynamic Quality event at the intellectual (read: linguistic
level) would be entirely linguistic (unless it was a leap into some other,
entirely unimaginable plane of existence, which is a distinct possibility,
see below). To say that Dynamic Quality is an awareness of a
pre-linguistic Reality is to make an appearance-reality distinction that I
think Pirsig can do without, certainly without collapsing his entire
system. This interpretation makes it easy to see how Rorty and Pirsig
might match up and have things to add to each other.
I don't think the possibility of leaping to a "5th" level supposes that
there be a pre-linguistic Reality, either (this being a second objection).
This other level would be utterly incomprehensible to us, just as all the
other higher levels are entirely incomprehensible to the levels below it.
Part of this interpretation is that, no, the MoQ is not the 5th level. It
is simply another linguistic affair. A consequence of this view is the
possiblity that so-called enlightened "Buddhas" (I'm simply using "Buddha"
as term of designation, not in any specific way) are on the 5th level
(which I assume most mystics would argue). That Eastern Enlightenment is
this Dynamic jump beyond. As people existing on the fourth level, I don't
think there is any way for us to tell. None whatsoever. Buddhas may be
able to tell us that, "Yes, we are enlightened," but how are we to believe
them until we experience it? After all, when they tell us they are
enlightened they are condescending to the level below them. They can't
exactly communicate in a primitive level like language how to get there
because its incomprehensible how they got there (I realize I'm using a
spatial metaphor, but that's just for convenience). It is, in effect, a
leap of faith. Or, rather, we can weigh the alternatives before we take
our leap. I think the Buddhas have some useful things to say about
suffering, but I don't think they have useful things to say about world
hunger. That, in the end, is why I still favor not taking the leap of
faith in that direction. I don't think taking this leap of faith will help
the world ease suffering and cruelty. Or, rather, I think people should
still be free to decide their own path towards self-perfection and I view
the Eastern way towards enlightenment as just one more path towards
self-perfection, not as a 5th level.
People attempting to reach enlightenment can feel sorry for me and my
backwards way of thinking all they want, for feeling pity for another's
choice in incommensurable alternatives is another way of saying that "I'm
begging the question" and vice versa. I'm certainly begging the question
in my favor and don't see any way for either of us not to. My only hope is
that, at the end of the day, we can leave our private paths towards
self-perfection in our studys and sanctuaries and enter in the public arena
to do some hardcore policy debating. Because, once again, once we take
Enlightenment as the path towards the 5th, morally superior level, the door
is open for shutting down people's private rights to believe what they want
to believe in the way of the Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
I can only assume that the Nazis thought they were paving the way towards
some sort of enlightenment or a 5th level (to use MoQese). It is certainly
unfair for me to paint Buddhists as Nazis (and fairly uncalled for), but
the line I'm trying to draw is the same one I painted in the last post: if
we take ourselves as having found the True Way, we might be then led to
believe that we have a Universally Handed Down Requirement to show others
the way, in some cases by any means necessary. Mix that with the control
of the government and bad things happen. My caveat from the last post
still stands as well: this doesn't mean you can't be evangelical and
believe in a public/private distinction for the safety of politics.
Whew, this has gotten kinda' long already. Well, I'll continue ahead with
the rest of Scott's post.
Scott, you then addressed the paradox of awareness. I've already partially
answered this. When you say, "It is assumed that somehow awareness "just
happens" when neural systems get sufficiently complex," I can reply, "Not
on the interpretation I just gave." Awareness has already become
ubiquitous. Specifically, the issue and paradox that arises with awareness
and where it happens has been dissolved (at least, that's what I would
argue). In place of your statement about awareness "just happening," I
would place "language becomes a possible tool when neural systems get
sufficiently complex." I think the transition is easy and smooth.
On your reasoning about "seeing," you said, "We assume that we see because
photons striking the retina trigger a complex sequence of neural activity.
But we do not see photons, nor do we feel this activity. We see trees and
such. So how does this occur. The answer is that it can't ... because every
bit of matter is separated in space and/or time from every other bit."
Here I don't see a problem. We assume that we see because photons strike
our retina triggering a sequence of neural activity. Check. But not
seeing photons or feeling the activity causes a problem? I don't think so.
When can check on the activity by using science (MRI scans, etc.). Just
because we can't feel it doesn't mean that we can't explain certain
features of our experience by reference to things we don't "directly"
register. The physical explanation might be that the "touch" of the photon
is simply too light to be registered. We are bombarded by particles from
the sky constantly, yet we don't register these. So, I just don't see why
we need to see a photon analogously to the way we see a tree for the photon
to perform its function.
On physics, Rorty and I are certainly ready to except non-locality and
other quantum mechanic explanations. Its an issue for science to decide,
but we are ready to agree with what there expertise comes up with. For we
can certainly follow you in saying "that spacetime is contingent reality,
not absolute." But while following you in all this, I don't think we have
to follow the thought that science typically wants to imply i.e. that this
is how things really work. Science is simply a good way of predicting
inorganic and biological behavior.
I feel there's one last thing I should comment on and that's the status of
mind. For instance, you're claiming to reverse the assumption of the
"mind-brain identity" hypothesis. The problem with this when dealing with
people who take the linguistic turn is that they no longer talk about mind
and all of its hang-ups, which includes the need for the mind to be
identical with the brain. Instead of "mind" we talk about "language."
Language is a tool, rather than a medium of representation which is what
Kantians would like to make the mind into. Language is tool for predicting
things. The problems of awareness and non-locality just don't arise (as
far as I can see) when we make the linguistic turn (following Rorty) and
particularly after we make awareness ubiquitous (following Pirsig).
Matt
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 2.1.5 : Thu Nov 14 2002 - 22:10:52 GMT