From: David Morey (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Sun Nov 28 2004 - 18:18:12 GMT
Scott: I see trees and walls. I hear tunes and thuinder. I taste sourness
and
sweetness. I don't see, hear, or taste "pure experience".
DM: Try, this is tree quality, this is wall quality, this is sour quality,
experiences come and go, I draw no lines between the thisness
of experience and the thatness of the tree, experience is the pattern
that reflects my body in relation to the tree's body, the whole pattern
is mediated by the bodies, the awareness is in the wholeness.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott Roberts" <jse885@earthlink.net>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Sunday, November 28, 2004 3:33 PM
Subject: RE: MD Empiricism
> 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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