From: David M (davidint@blueyonder.co.uk)
Date: Tue Aug 02 2005 - 19:39:46 BST
Hi Scott
Nice to be back, how you doing?
I will try to clear up the confusion, see below.
Scott: You say "DQ helps us to explain the coming into being of SQ"
DM: That is confusing. What I want to say is that my scheme helps
us to understand what we mean by DQ. Given my scheme where the
I-realm represents all possible SQ, we can see DQ as the 'activity' that
allows SQ to pass from one realm and into another. For example I
would suggest that when the SQ patterns we call hydrogen and oxygen
came together for the first time in the world-realm then the new pattern
(actually many patterns vapour, water, ice, etc) had to emerge from the
Infinite-realm into the w-realm as water had yet to appear in the
world-realm. Why H2O continues to give us water in this cosmos
and not one of its other possibilities (I am here rejecting determinism,
essentialism, reductionism) is another question, somehow DQ is committing
itself to one form of SQ rather than the other possible ones in the I-realm.
This is a mystery but an empirical fact given the notion of SQ. Of course
lots of 'events' occur in the w-realm that do not repeat and all we can
offer
to understand such 'events' (unique & non-repeating) is history, narrative &
description. In fact most of existence is non-ordered in this sense, so the
cosmos seems to be generally disordered with islands of partial order, which
is what we mean by SQ.
Scott:
At a crucial point, you become unclear. You've defined the p-realm and the
i-realm, and then you say: "One we share with others directly, the other
is shared only indirectly."
DM:
I mean that we share the perceptual-realm in the sense that we can point
or touch the same SQ patterns or objects in this realm. The individual-realm
is not shared in the sense that I can imagine a table and you can't see it.
Of
course we communicate one i-realm to another via the p-realm, so we can
talk and express what is in our i-realm via sounds that exist and can be
shared
in the p-realm. Our ability to transfer i-realm thought to each other via
the p-realm
is quite something and shows that our i-realms have a lot in common. To
clarify
there are many i-realms, one w-realm, one I-realm, as for the p-realm each
i-realm
has a different perspective so that there are many p-realms, but we share
parts of our p-realms too.
So I may be able to see the same hedge as you, but I may see something more
than you
because I am taller and can see over the edge.I suppose there is a kind of
PH-realm
of all human perception added together. Of course we rely on other
individuals p-realms.
EG you can tell me that there is a cat in my garden and I consequently have
that
information with out the cat ever entering my own p-realm. Also, of course,
the p-realm
may differ for us because our i-realms differ. So that what I see as blue
you see as green,
or some other interpretative or conceptual difference.
Scott: more precisely, the i-realm is shared through one
mediation (my talking to you), while the p-realm contains two mediations
(my turning perception into a description, and then relating that to you).
There is no direct sharing of the p-realm (which in my view knocks the
ground
out from any sort of materialist-based empiricism.)
DM: Yes i-realm SQs are shared via re-creation in p-realm. From thought to
spoken word.
Yes the p-realm is flux prior to there being patterns in the i-realm to cut
the p-realm up with.
I agree here with Pirsig that these patterns begin when i-realms respond to
the w-realm
in terms of positive/negative value/quality. What is this response? Do we
call it perception?
We could call it causality, where we see causality as just a responding to
our openness to the
w-realm, all response, all taking an interest in the w-realm is a form of
value, where all
sights, sounds, tastes, smalls, touches are either good quality or bad. Good
meaning good
for the flourishing of our i-realm. Surely we can share the SQ of the
p-realm in so far as we
can cut it up in the same way via the same i-realm SQ, otherwise the p-realm
remains flux.
I also do not doubt there is SQ in the w-realm which somehow we can identify
via i-realm SQ
creation, i.e. any theories that work well, but we can never be sure that
our i-realm SQs
are reflected in the w-realm, but that we can make any sense of the w-realm
shows that there
is SQ in it and it is not just flux. But generally we spend our time cutting
up the p-realm to suit
our interests, but we can keep cutting and re-cutting in our attempt to find
a way to narrate
the history and existence of all this SQ.
Scott: Lastly, aren't you contradicting yourself, by at one point saying:
"The
p-realm is just a flux until we cut it up as Pirsig says. The patterns we
use to cut up the p-realm are contained in the i-realm." and then at
another point saying "In the beginning there was only SQ in the I-realm.
Then DQ
pours it into the w-realm. Some how the p-realm gets going so that SQ in
the w-realm starts to perceive the separateness/differentiation of SQ in the
w-realm. Such perception is all about the interaction of SQ in the
p-realm." It seems to me that in the second quote you are saying that all is
NOT
flux in the absence of our "cutting it up". And so it does make sense that
our
i-realm activity with respect to the p-realm is not arbitrary, as the MOQ
would have it. Rather (and this is what I think), our i-realm activity is
working to align itself with the i-realm activity that we call the
perceived world.
DM: Interesting. I see the I-realm as able to exist on it own and first as
a One. Yes, then it must create the w-realm (a many) as a finite cosmos, a
subset
of the I-realm. Then the SQs in the w-realm begin to interact. This
interaction draws
new SQ from the I-realm into the w-realm.This chosing may take place at the
intersection of the I and w-realms but at some point we can start to talk
about
i-realms, realms of possibility that are connected to just a part of the
w-realm.
An i-realm seems to be a particular/individual/unique intersection with the
w-realm. This intersection creates a unique p-realm. But other
individual/particular
i-realms overlap to create very similar p-realms. In other words as
individuals we
encounter the same world as others and can create a common understanding
of the w-world via culture and the creation of a commonly interpreted
p-world.
Without this interpretation the p-world remains flux but the ability of
individuals
to create/share the same i-realm SQ makes the construction of a common and
inteliigible p-realm possible. Of course there is much trouble in the fact
of the
different perspective each i-realm has on the w-realm. Each i-realm will
have a partially unique/partiallycommon p-realm.
Of course from another perspective all the many i-realms added together
may re-construct what is the original and One of the I-realm. We can tell
the
story of the w-realm from the perspective of the I-realm or from the other
direction i.e. from the cultural products of the i-realms.
Does that help?
regards
David M
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