From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Sat Apr 19 2003 - 04:07:22 BST
Platt,
> STEVE:
> > Platt, when you say, "Experience (Quality) is always the primary
context.
> > Thus, truth is experience-dependent, experience being the germinal
context
> > from which all other subsidiary contexts (such as historicism) are
> > derived," I'm not sure I understand what you are referring to. If you
mean
> > experience *of* something, you aren't talking about the Quality event.
> > These "experiences of" occur within specific contexts. Truths that we
can
> > write down describe "experiences of" not Experience and so are context
> > dependent.
>
> SCOTT
> >This is why I suggested looking on DQ as "primary context", not
> >"primary" (and note that I said Quality is beyond the "context/in-
> >context" distinction, since a context and its contents is form). Another
> >way to say "primary context" is "ultimate background". What I am
> >getting at is that to be aware of any piece of SQ requires that the SQ
> >"exists" (etymologically: "stands out"), for which it needs a
> >background. Now one layer of SQ can serve as background for
> >another, but behind them all is what? I nominate DQ, but the next step
> >is to say that this ultimate background is the "pure perceiver". Since
> >this in turn is an undecideable non-thing, the mystery of DQ remains.
>
PLATT:
> I think Scott and Steve may be saying the same thing. But I'm not sure.
> Would you help settle the question for me? Are you both together on
> the concepts of Quality, DQ, SQ and the Quality Event?.
I agree with Steve on being nervous about "Experience (Quality) is always
the primary context", and for the same reason: for me, "experience" is
"experience of", and so is necessarily the experiencing of SQ. But that is
just the way I am accustomed to use the term. That is why I think of
"mystical experience" as an always problematic phrase, even though I use it.
I have been interpreting the concepts of Quality, DQ, and SQ so that they
will conform with Franklin Merrell-Wolff's use of the phrases
"Consciousness-without-an-Object", "Pure Subject (or Nirvana)", and
"Universe (or Samsara)", respectively. (I have not as far as I recall used
the concept "Quality Event". To refer to what I think you mean by it, I
would probably use Maslow's phrase "peak experience", and would mean by it
an occasion where DQ peeks through due to a momentary dimming of the ego.)
As mentioned in a recent post, Merrell-Wolff had two Realizations, the first
that of the Pure Subject, and the second a transcending of it where Nirvana
and Samsara were "not different". Rather than saying he "experienced" the
Pure Subject, or the High Indifference, he uses the phrase "Knowing through
Identity" -- he became it.
Anyway, the question arises whether my interpretation is not Pirsig's, and
in a way it clearly is not, in that it goes beyond what he says. I feel,
though, that it is consistent, in that when Pirsig speaks of mystical
experience as being a case of DQ breaking through, Merrell-Wolff gives a
detailed account of such an event. Where I do go beyond Pirsig is that with
Merrell-Wolff's second Awakening, one gets "DQ is SQ" or as he, and
Buddhists in general say, Nirvana is Samsara. Again, this is not
inconsistent with Pirsig, but he doesn't mention it. (note: since it is also
the case that DQ is *not* SQ, one is confronted once again with the logic of
contradictory identity.)
- Scott
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