From: david buchanan (dmbuchanan@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat Oct 08 2005 - 03:36:42 BST
Matt and all MOQers:
Matt Kundert said:
I think this conversation has become fruitless. There really doesn't seem
to be much point in continuing it. Either I have to go out of my way to
explain every little thing I write or you have to
go out of your way to try and understand what I do have written. You seem
unwilling to do the latter and I don't have the time or energy to do more of
the former than I've already tried.
dmb says:
I know it takes time and energy. That's why I always try to remember to end
by saying "thanks" to the readers. Naturally, I'm all the more grateful for
a written response. In fact, it seems that you are going out of your way to
explain the jargon and I've been reading on the side in an effort to locate
your position. As a result, I think there we are very close to having a
genuine disagreement, nearly on the same page about some central issues.
That's some kind of progress, even if there's no fruit.
After Matt calmed down a bit, he said:
...What I was in passing suggesting was that Pirsig's use of Northrop's
"undifferentiated aesthetic continuum," with the emphasis on _aesthetic_,
was enough of a description to make us wary of any experience described as
the "absence of some kind of judgment." I was suggesting that Pirsig's hot
stove example from Lila, as his description of the pre-intellectual
experience in action, should be enough to dissuade us from accepting Hayes
because Pirsig's purpose, in that example, was to show us how valuing,
_judging_, is at the very core of all experience. I was suggesting that
Pirsig's description in Lila of reality as being coextensive with morality
(morality being all about judging) should be enough to make us think twice
before accepting that Hayes and Pirsig have the same descriptions of "pure
sensation."
dmb says:
This helps. This is where we begin to have an actual disagreement, rather
than simply talking past each other. Or so I hope. As I understand it, it
is incorrect to put the emphasis on "aesthetic" in the way you're doing
here. The kind of move that turns this "pure sensation" into a "creative
judgement" is supposed to be precluded by the first word in Northrop's
phrase; undifferentiated. If that primary aesthetic experience is concieved
as a judgement, then it can not rightly be called undifferentiated. It would
be like saying the pre-intellectual experience is an intellectual
experience. Iit would be like saying that unpatterned Quality is patterned,
like saying the undivided reality is divided. In other words, it simply
contradicts the meaning of the terms. This is why I think Pirsig and Hayes
ARE saying the same thing. They're both talking about an experience in which
judgement is absent. I would even go so fat as to say that taking the
"undifferentiated aesthetic continuum", the "pure sensation" or "immeditate
experience" as a reference to some kind of "valuing" or "judging" is to
inappropriately let SOM's subjective self creep back into the conversation.
But the main idea here is simply that an aesthetic judgement is, by
definition, NOT undifferentiated. Those "creative judgements", like "static
patterns", ARE differentiations. So what you've done here is turn DQ into
sq. You've turned the undivided into the divided, which effectively removes
DQ altogether and leaves us only with sq. Does that make sense? Notice how
Pirsig CONTRASTS aesthetic quality with rational decisions and descriptions
in the hot stove example...
"The negative aesthetic quality of the hot stovein the earlier example was
now given sme added meaning by a static-Dynamic division of Quality. When
the person who sits on the stove first discovers his low-Quality situation,
the front edge of his experience is Dynamic (pure sensation). He does not
think, "This stove is hot," and then make a rational decison to get off. A
'dim perception of he knows not what' gets him off Dynamically. Later he
gererates static patterns of thought (creative judgements) to explain the
situation." LILA page 116
Matt continued:
Be all that as it may, you could possibly convince me, maybe not that Pirsig
is in any way suggesting that some part of our experience is not valuing or
judging, but that static patterns are where all the creativity happens
(maybe not as Pirsig describes them, but as _we_ should, pace Pirsig,
describe them). I've been traveling down that road for some time and it
seems like a good one.
dmb says:
Oh, we're very, very close to an actual disagreement here. Bravo! I am most
certainly "suggesting that some part of our experience is not valuing or
judging". As I understand it, that's exactly what DQ is, an experience in
the absense of judgement, an immediate experience that is prior to any kind
of cognitive discrimination or intellectual assessment. Also, I'm not saying
that "static patterns are where all the creativity happens. Not exactly.
I'm saying that static patterns ARE creative judgements. I'm saying the
divided world is composed of these static creations, these persistant
judgements.
Matt moved from wariness to total agreement:
>However, the real crux of our differences is the use of "pure sensation" at
>all. Not in describing what Pirsig thinks he's up to. Oh no, I totally
>agree there. That's why I totally see what your pointing to in the
>relation between Pirsig and Hayes on "pure sensation" (though I think it
>unhelpful because he would appear to be up to something a little different
>than Pirsig for the above reasons). Our difference here is summed up by
>the fact that you, Pirsig, and Hayes all think "pure sensation" or some
>synonym is a good concept, term, or phrase to use in a philosophy. I think
>you, Pirsig, and Hayes are all wrong. (And I know I'm in the minority
>here.)
dmb says:
I'm glad to be in such good company in my wrongness. So I got that going for
me. Ha! If the four of us were in a room together, then you would be in the
minority, but when it comes to the world of philosophy, I think Hayes,
Pirsig and I are part of a tiny minority. In any case, let's see if we can
get at why you think "pure sensation" is not a "good concept", shall we?
Matt continued:
This is actually a good place where everything I've been saying comes to a
head. If you thought my problem was that I didn't see the distinction
between pure and sullied sensation, or pre-intellectual experience and
post-, or DQ and static patterns as highlighted by those descriptions, in
Pirsig and others in the mystical tradition (school of thought, whatever),
then you were wrong. I understand that. I just disagree with it. What
I've been trying to suggest to you for the last few weeks was that we can do
without that distinction (in a certain qualified sense) and still get
everything we want out of mysticism.
dmb replies:
As the explanation above tries to show, I think you are having trouble with
the distinction, you have converted DQ into sq, which simply denies the
distinction. You seem to be saying that we can get everything we want out of
mysticsim by converting it into a part of our patterned, conditioned
interpretation, which effectively eliminates anything like pure experience,
unpatterned experience. I think that getting rid of the distinction gets rid
of the mystical experience itself. It cuts the MOQ in half and throws one
half into the philosphical dust bin. Stay with me here, thanks to your
reluctnat explanations, I think I'm about to go beyong simply repeating
myself...
Matt continued:
>I know you disagree with this. You think that distinction the very heart
>of mysticism. In one sense, I agree, but in another sense (the sense I've
>been trying to elaborate), I disagree. For instance, I can generally agree
>with you that "music and lots of other art is basically a non-verbal
>experience," that fucking is generally a non-verbal experience (unless
>you're into talking dirty, which muddies, so to speak, the example). If
>its obvious to you in the sense that THERE'S NO TALKING, then we are in
>agreement here. That's the general obviousness I see. However, these
>experiences can be talked about. Some people love to talk about music and
>art. Some people love pillow talk. When I said that pragmatism "makes a
>virtue of necessity," I was talking about the fact that we can talk about
>_anything_ and that we do, in fact, talk about everything. I was saying
>that once you start talking, that's when pragmatism comes into its own.
>And once we start talking, once we start trying to describe our
>experiences, pragmatism is suggesting that in epistemological conversations
>(in other words, when talking about the nature of knowledge or knowing) it
>is best that we stay away from the concept, term, phrase "pure sensation"
>or "unmediated experience." I'm suggesting that in _those_ contexts, those
>conversations, when you use "pure sensation" or "unmediated experience" you
>are almost inevitably led towards the appearance/reality distinction.
dmb says:
As I understand it, the distinction between DQ and sq does not "inevitably"
lead to anything of the sort. I think you are interpreting Pirsig's
assertions about pre-intellectual experience as if he were talking about
something like Kant's things-in-themselves or Plato's forms, as if he were
talking about some pre-existing, epistemologically inaccessable reality. But
he's not talking about some unknowable reality behind the appearances. He's
talking about a certain kind of experience. But what could be futher from an
epistemologically inaccessable reality than pure experience? As the labels
indicate, immediate apprehensions, direct experiences, pure sensations are
thoroughly accessable. Remember all that talk about epistemological
pluralism? Remember that we are here talking about two categories of
congnition? As I understand it, in the MOQ, there is no distinction between
reality and appearances. In the MOQ there is no distinction. In the MOQ,
there is no pre-existing, epistemologically inaccessable reality, there is
only experience. See, unlike Kant's things-in-themselves, there are no
"things" in the "undifferentiated aesthetic continuum". Otherwise, we'd have
to call it the "differentiated continuum" or somthing like that. This is why
we can also use the term "no-thing-ness" to refer to to this continuum. In
the MOQ, the divided world is not supposed to correspond to any kind of
pre-existing reality. We don't get into the problem of trying to adequately
describe nothingness because there is literally no thing to describe. The
MOQ's test of truth does not depend on appearance corresponding to reality
in that sense at all. The MOQ only says that high quality intellectual
explanations have to agree with experience. In that sense, the MOQ is just
as anti-realist as any neo-pragmatist. In that sense, the MOQ rejects the
distinction between reality and appearance too. See, I think you're trying
to put Pirsig's assertions about DQ into an historical conversation about
the relationship between subject and objects and are taking DQ to be some
kind of mystical object or mystical reality. But in the MOQ, the claim is
only that DQ is INTELLECTUALLY unknowable, beyond intellectual definitions.
Philosophical mysticism asserts that this primary reality can be apprehended
ONLY through non-rational means. This is why "pure sensation" is contrasted
with "creative judgements" and "pre-intellectual experience" is contrasted
with "static patterns". Both of them describe a non-rational experience, a
purely aesthetic experience without all the usual divisions or judgements.
Matt continued:
But all I'm suggesting is that the unmediated/mediated distinction isn't
very useful. ..."The divided/undivided distinction isn't very good." ..."No
it isn't, it makes you fall back on the appearance/reality distinction."
"... what's the distinction _for_ if not epistemological conversations?"
Why do we need it to describe experience? To what purpose does it serve?"
"Yeah, but _how_ is it useful?" "If that's (we need it to adequately
describe our experience) your only answer, then you're in trouble." ...The
reason Y's in trouble is because "adequacy" only comes into play if
you are trying to _represent_ something already there (i.e. experience or
reality). That's representationalism to a T. And if you have
representationalism, as you tacitly agreed to earlier, then you have the
appearance/reality distinction. If Y doesn't say adequate, and can't really
think of a replacement purpose for keeping it around, then that's a good
reason for thinking that the distinction has outlived its usefulness.
dmb says:
See, I don't think I'm talking about "adequacy" because I'm not trying to
"represent" something already there. I'm talking about the nothingness that
humans experience directly and which can not be represented, can not be
intellectually known or ratinally defined. Huge difference. See, I think the
MOQ would and does go along with the anti-realist idea that there is no
pre-existing reality with which our interpretations must correspond. (And I
don't think it makes any sense to talk about experience as if it were
"something already there" either.) I think this anti-realist stance does
lead to a rejection of epistemology, but only in terms of subjects and
objects. I don't think it prevents us from having epistemological
conversations within the context of the MOQ in particular or philosophical
mysticism in general because it rejects SOM and the appearance/reality
distinction along with it. See, in the MOQ subjects and objects are BOTH
static patterns. They're both creative judgements. Its not that pre-existing
subjects are making judgements about some pre-existing objective reality,
its that both of them ARE creations produced by our intellectual divisions.
The static/Dynamic split puts both subjects and objects on the static side
of the equation.
Matt concluded:
...If you want to resurrect my spirit for this conversation, my request is
that you not try and beat me down for everything I say, but focus on the
narrow point above: what is the purpose of the distinction between
divided/undivided reality that avoids "adequacy" and similar cognates. We
can work from there if you want, or if there's some similar, narrow point
you'd rather talk about, we can go from there.
dmb says:
What's the purpose of making a distinction between divided and undivided
reality? As I understand it, we're talking about the MOQ's first and most
important distinction. We're talking about the static/Dynamic split. There's
more than one reason, more than one purpose, but I suppose the main reasons
for making this distinction is "to explain Indian mysticism". ( page 109)
"with the identification of static and Dynamic as the fundamental division
of the world, Phaedrus felt that some kind of goal had been reached. This
first division of the MOQ now coverd the spectrum of experience from
primitive mysticism to quantum mechanics." (page 120) As you can see, these
lines come pretty early in the book and you've probably noticed how the
first division is developed and continued RigHT on through to the very last
pages. But I think its pretty clear that static/Dynamic split grew out of
the desire to create a system that does not exclude mysticism the way SOM
does, or even the way a classic/romantic split would. Its only a little bit
of an exaggeration to say that the whole point and purpose of the MOQ is to
create a system which does not dismiss enlightenment as some kind of brain
fart or crazy platypus. I seem to recall that he said something about values
and morals too, but its pretty clear mysticism is central to the whole
project.
The distinction is made to include a category of experiences that were
previously excluded, to bring in a whole range of human experiences and put
them on the philosophical table for consideration. Pirsig introduces the
distinction to make a place for things like mysticism and yet you say that
"we can do without that distinction and still get everything we want out of
mysticism". I don't think that statement can be squared with a proper
understanding of the MOQ. As Pirsig says late in the book, when "Dynamic
Quality is identified with religious mysticism it produces an avalanche of
information as to what Dynamic Quality is." (page 377) From beginning to
end, that's what its all about. So when you suggest no harm would be done by
erasing that distinction, I tend to freak out. That's when I get all
dramatic and tell you you're taking the engine off the bike with this move,
that this move rips the heart out of the thing. But its not too hyperbolic.
I mean, I hope I've at least begun to explain the difference between DQ and
those other things you want to keep out of it, like the appearance/reality
distinction or some epistemically inaccessable Kantian reality or Plato's
bad table manners or whatever else you have up your sleave.
Thanks for your time,
dmb
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