From: Scott Roberts (jse885@cox.net)
Date: Sun Jul 17 2005 - 02:46:42 BST
Mark SH,
Scott prev:
And it is interesting to ask why you see it as a psychological
question. Are we back to the "religion is for wimps" business?
msh 7-16-05:
I don't think so. I think there's a psychological element involved
in one's choosing to assume G rather than g in developing one's
metaphysics. It might be interesting to explore that element, that's
all.
Scott:
Well, it has been pretty heavily explored by Feuerbach, Nietzsche, Freud,
and others, but I can't see that much has been demonstrated but their own
prejudices. We all have suspicions of psychological hangups in those with
whom we have disagreements, and we also all have psychological hangups,
which to me means (and experience in tbis forum bears out) that going into
the psychology behind having one belief or the other is only going to
generate heat, not light. Better to stick to the ideas actually stated.
scott previously:
You don't accept the possibility that God, or Nothingness, or the
Tao, or whatever, might not serve one as an intellectual hypothesis?
msh 7-16-05:
Sure I do. Pirsig assumes Quality as G, which he directly equates
with the Tao. Both you and Ham are criticizing RMP, remember?
That's why I asked the following question...
msh before:
If the theory of "otherness" or "contradictory identity" allows you
to incorporate an assumed primary source into your metaphysics, why
won't the same theory support Pirsig's assumption of Quality as the
primary source?
Scott:
Well, as I qualified what I had said earlier, contradictory identity puts
the source/product division into question as well, but in answer to your
question, put in terms of "primary source", I agree that Quality is the
primary source. But I also maintain that Quality presupposes, and is
presupposed by, Consciousness and Intellect. Since Pirsig just assumes
Quality, his metaphysics can't come to grips with consciousness or
intellect.
Scott previously:
As to its striking you as gibberish, it is a straightforward
application of the Buddhist tetralemma, the cornerstone of 2000 years
of Buddhist logic. If you have a way of describing or explaining
consciousness, or intellect, or quality, in Aristotelian logic, I'm
all ears.
msh 7-16-05:
Being old doesn't keep an idea from being gibberish. But I've
already conceded that it just may be beyond my ability to understand.
What's disappointing is that those of you who claim to understand it
are unable to help me see the light. When I was a kid, television
was a mystery to me. How do we send pictures through the air? But I
had no problem finding someone (my father) who could explain it to
me, and the mystery disappeared. My feeling at this point is that
"contradictory identity" theory is about maintaining a mystery, not
solving one.
Scott:
In a sense, contradictory identity *is* about maintaining a mystery, in that
it prevents one from falling into one or the other ways of "telling oneself
he understands" (from your Vonnegut quote). It is not an explanation or a
description. One can only explain or describe something by putting it into
terms of something else. But if the "it" under question is the basis of
everything, there is no explaining or describing it. That is the difference
between television and, say, consciousness.
I suspect the only way to get any kind of handle on contradictory identity
is to immerse oneself in a problem that has no Aristotelian solution (though
one might not know that in advance). For me, this happened after spending
some years wondering how a spatio-temporal entity (such as a computer or a
brain) could be aware of anything extended in space and/or time. It finally
occurred to me (with some help from quantum physics, and some familiarity
with mystical thought) that it made more sense to assume that the
spatio-temporal aspect of things was produced in the act of perception,
rather than being the framework in which perception is to be explained. But
this leaves the problem of the impossibility of imagining a
non-spatiotemporal reality. Subsequently, I read Barfield and Nishida and
others, and recognized this situation as a case of contradictory identity
(Barfield's term is polarity). It cannot be pictured, because it is the
source of all picturing. One transcends space and time (in ordinary
perception) by creating space and time. It cannot be explained, because it
is explanation. And so on.
Mark said:
As for an explanation of consciousness, I think them nogoodnik
positivists have come a long, long way toward understanding the
relationship between the brain and awareness. This doesn't mean they
have the final explanation, or that they ever will. Science says "We
don't have an answer to the question of what causes consciousness,
but so what? Saying G caused it, or G IS it, is no answer, either."
Scott:
They will never, as positivists, get past the problem of the transcendence
of space and time inherent in every conscious act. They are committing the
fallacy of seeking an explanation of perception in terms of the product of
perception (spatio-temporality). But you are right that saying G caused it,
or G is it, is not an answer in the sense of being a description or an
explanation, since (see above) it is not an attempt to describe or explain.
Instead, it is the decision to use it as the basis for all other
descriptions and explanations, to reverse the positivist assumption that
only descriptions and explanations in terms of "objective reality" count.
- Scott
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