From: Scott Roberts (jse885@earthlink.net)
Date: Sun Nov 28 2004 - 15:33:26 GMT
Simon,
[Scott prev:]> >This is what I am arguing against. I brought up the proof
of the
> >mathematical truth that the square root of 2 is irrational, as a
> >counter-example to the claim that "mathematical truths are verified by
> >sense experience." If you maintain that the proof is sense experience,
then
> >all rationality must be called sense experience, and so Spinoza's
arguments
> >are sense experience, and therefore empirical. This, of course, is
absurd,
> >so where do you make a distinction between empirical and non-empirical? I
> >say that mathematics is rational and not empirical. There is an
experience
> >of quality in doing mathematics, but that does not make it empirical, if
> >'empirical' is to have any distinctive use.
>
[SM]> The truth of a mathematical proposition is ultimately known by its
> intellectual quality i.e, it contributes to an intellectual harmony, it
is
> this harmony that has formed, is taught, and is immediately found in,
2+2=4
> and it is this harmony that is absent from 2+2=3. This quality is
empirical,
> it is sensed and experienced. This is distinct from the rationalist
> proposition that there are fundamental realities which can only be
grasped
> by reason and are not experienced in any way.
This is casuistry. I repeat, what sense experience is involved in knowing
that the square root of 2 is irrational? If you call reason a sense, then
what did Pirsig mean when he said "In the MOQ, reason is completely
dependent on the senses"?
>
> >
> >(And rationalists do not say that all that is conceivable is real. A
> >unicorn is conceivable, but not real.)
>
> What is stopping a unicorn being real to a rationalist? What is the
> difference between a unicorn and God? What are the constraints on
existence
> when experience is disregarded? Logical necessity?
The square root of 2 is known to be irrational through logical necessity.
Unicorns are known not to exist empirically. Do you really want to do away
with this distinction?
>
> The
> >question is: not whether one can speak of quality outside of the S/O
form,
> >but whether one can one speak of Quality without any form at all?
>
> One can experience Quality without any static form at all but as soon as
one
> speaks there is static form.
>
> >[Scott:] Isn't "the experience of observation" without an observer
> >and an observed a metaphysical assumption? Mystics, it is true, claim
this
> >experience, and I accept that claim. But accepting that claim is to
accept
> >the mystic as an authority. It is not empirical.
>
> I'm not even talking about mystical experience. In the actual empirical
> experience of everyday life there is no separation, there is just
sensation
> going on. It doesn't take much effort to see that.
Sensation is separation. We always see particular things. We never see
"everything". It takes a great deal of effort to perceive pure
undifferentiated nothingness.
>
> >I am not disagreeing with the MOQ in that it says that Quality produces
the
> >experience and the experiencer. What I am disputing is that the MOQ is
> >justified in calling itself empirical, and the claim you make that
> >experience is "just value". If I touch a hot stove, I experience pain,
not
> >"value", and I experience pain because I am a biological being.
>
> Pain is a description given to low quality. There is something on this
> subject in LILA'S CHILD:
>
> "When you examine pain closely you see that it is not in the mind. Pain
that
> is subjective, i.e. has no medical origin, is not considered to be real
> pain, but a hallucination, a symptom of mental illness. “Subjective
> valuation” of pain is a form of insanity. But you see that pain is not
out
> of the
> mind either. When a medical patient is unconscious, i.e., whose mind is
> absent, there are no objective traces of the pain to be found. Once can
> possibly find the causes of the pain with scientific instruments but one
> cannot find the pain itself. So if pain isn’t in the mind and it isn’t in
> the
> external world where is it? The answer provided by the MOQ is that pain,
> like hearing and vision and smell and touch, is part of the empirical
> threshold that reveals to us what the rest of the world is like. At the
> moment pain is first experienced it is not even “pain,” it is just
negative
> quality, a third category, outside of subjects and objects, whose
> definitions have not yet come in."
>
> Pain only
> >occurs in a setting of biological SQ. If there is no SQ whatsoever, there
> >is no experience whatsoever, S/O or non-S/O.
> >
> >The MOQ claim that there is "pure experience" prior to any division is
> >either a metaphysical a priori assumption, or it is an argument from the
> >authority of mystics. It is not empirical.
>
> Why do you have to rely on the authority of mystics? It is there all the
> time. If you don't know what I mean there is really nothing else I can
say.
I see trees and walls. I hear tunes and thuinder. I taste sourness and
sweetness. I don't see, hear, or taste "pure experience".
>
> >I wasn't saying that one needs the concepts of space and time to
experience
> >things spatio-temporally. She also has no category "value". She cries
when
> >she experiences hunger or a wet diaper, not when she experiences
something
> >called "low quality".
>
> So "hunger" and "wet diaper" are conceptual categories more fundamental
to
> the differentiation of one's experience than that of good and bad? Do
they
> precede quality in one's experience?
Are you saying that a baby experiences everything in one dimension: low to
high quality. She doesn't experience hunger differently from a wet diaper?
- Scott
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