From: Joseph Maurer (jhmau@sbcglobal.net)
Date: Thu Mar 17 2005 - 19:41:28 GMT
On Wednesday 16 March 2005 5:09 PM Ian writes to Matt:
[Ian] I say ...
Not sure what you mean by "trying to get rid of" - trying to deny
that's what Pirsig meant ? I actually think I agree with Dan. However
I tink the subtley is linguistic - the very point we recognise the
phenomenon and put a name to it mentally - we have brought in millenia
of cultural conditioning already, even if we didn't "think" about it.
The name of the rose.
[Ian] It's all linguistics / evolutionary psychology as you, Bohr and Pirsig
sem to agree.
Hi Ian, Matt, and all,
A law of gravity helps us discuss the inorganic level. A law of supply and
demand helps us discuss economic issues. I want to talk about linguistics
morality/propaganda to another. Pirsig proposes three levels in an hierarchy
as the basis for morality. The tsunami mixed all the levels.
I attribute active DQ, passive SQ, or neutral DQ/SQ to a level, and morality
changes. Propaganda is immoral in that social- active mistreats
intellectual- passive. Intellectual- active (weapons of mass destruction)
mistreats social-active (seeking self-determination). Neutral is a hell of a
problem. Listen, I’ll tell you! Direct, Pure, Immediate go nine different
ways, with 27 variations of linguistics. Man, it gets confusing.
Joe
----- Original Message -----
From: "ian glendinning" <psybertron@gmail.com>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2005 4:28 PM
Subject: Re: MD Whither "direct," "pure," and "immediate"?
> Matt,
>
> You said
> As for the idea of "pre-intellectual experience," this is the exact
> concept I would like to get rid of in Pirsig .... that's just going
> along with common sense, which is what Dan is trying to convince us is
> all that Pirsig meant.
>
> I say ...
> Not sure what you mean by "trying to get rid of" - trying to deny
> that's what Pirsig meant ? I actually think I agree with Dan. However
> I tink the subtley is linguistic - the very point we recognise the
> phenomenon and put a name to it mentally - we have brought in millenia
> of cultural conditioning already, even if we didn't "think" about it.
> The name of the rose.
>
> It's all linguistics / evolutionary psychology as you, Bohr and Pirsig
> sem to agree.
>
> Ian
>
>
> On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 12:16:25 -0600, Matt Kundert
> <pirsigaffliction@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi Ian, Dan,
>>
>> Ian said:
>> IMHO - the use of pure / immefiate / direct in Pirsig / MoQ terms is to
>> signify "pre-intellectual" experience. The more modern problem I see is
>> that
>> people may think it's being used to distinguish qualia from pre-cognitive
>> experience, in which case we are generally not concerned with that here.
>>
>> Pre-intellectual, I'm talking raw, as in before reflective /
>> rationalising
>> interpretation of what is being experienced.
>>
>> Pre-cognitive, I'm talking raw, as in quanto-electro-chemical phenomena
>> before their immediate interpratation as qualities like red, hot, pain,
>> experiences.
>>
>> (Personally I don't think I believe in qualia, which may undermnine the
>> distinction for me, but I think it's the distinction being confused.)
>>
>> Matt:
>> If I understand you correctly here, what you call "pre-cognitive" would
>> be
>> something like our brain states (C-fiber stimulation, etc.) as opposed to
>> our descriptions of them (as red, hot, etc.). If this is what you mean,
>> then I would agree, qualia as an epistemological concept is suspect and I
>> think "immediate" as a differentiation between the two types of
>> description
>> (roughly, a brain description and a mind description) is equally suspect.
>> For pragmatists like Rorty, we can describe phenomena equally well in
>> both
>> types of descriptions, but neither one reduces to the other (this is the
>> mind/brain identity thesis).
>>
>> As for the idea of "pre-intellectual experience," this is the exact
>> concept
>> I would like to get rid of in Pirsig. Sure, we can make a distinction
>> between our "immediate" impression of something before we think about it
>> later more. But that's just going along with common sense, which is what
>> Dan is trying to convince us is all that Pirsig meant (with the
>> difference
>> between being at a baseball game and watching on TV, or watching a
>> baseball
>> game from wherever and thinking about it later). I don't think it's as
>> apparent as that. I think Pirsig is trying to draw specifically
>> philosophical consequences out of his idea of "pre-intellectual
>> experience."
>> It seems to me that Pirsig is trying to say that our "pre-intellecual
>> experience" of low Quality _happens before language_, and this
>> pre-linguistic experience is closer to Quality than post-linguistic, that
>> language is a mediation between us and reality. As he says in the famous
>> hot stove example, "the low value comes first, then the subjective
>> thoughts…." (Ch 8) Value first, thoughts, i.e. language, second. As far
>> as
>> I can see, there is no way to draw any philosophical consequences out of
>> the
>> idea of "pre-intellectual experience" that does not tie you into
>> traditional
>> problems. For pragmatists, there is no way to unhook language from
>> experience, just as Pirsig agrees to when he says with Bohr that we are
>> "suspended in language." It seems to me that Pirsig equivocates between
>> a
>> commonsensical notion of direct experience and a specifically
>> philosophical
>> sense, and this equivocation is what allows him to gain plausibility for
>> a
>> specifically philosophical concept.
>>
>> At least, that's how it seems to me. If it were otherwise, I'm not sure
>> why
>> Pirsig would spend so much time talking about the "pre-intellectual
>> cutting
>> edge of reality" and how that's supposed to cure some of our specifically
>> philosophical ailments. Its understood that common sense contains
>> Platonic
>> and Cartesian formations, as Dan alluded to elsewhere when he said, "Of
>> course the [baseball] analogy is 'Cartesian theatre' in as much as our
>> language is grounded in such a manner." But aren't we supposed to be
>> changing such things in as much as we want our language to be better?
>>
>> Matt
>>
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