From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Fri Sep 05 2003 - 18:39:42 BST
Hi
Did you know Colereridge was a very big reader & copier of Schelling as was
also Heidegger, and some people
believe Heidegger owes a lot more to Schelling than he admits.
DM
----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott R" <jse885@spinn.net>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Friday, September 05, 2003 4:33 AM
Subject: Re: MD Dealing with S/O pt 1
> Paul,
>
> I won't be responding in detail. You seem to be thinking that what I am
> doing is in effect to partially restore SOM, when all I want to do is keep
> the philosophical meaning of subject and object around in our discussion,
so
> that we can consider them in an anti-SOM way in a deeper way than Pirsig
> does. It appears that the problem is that I need to explain better the
role
> of the logic of contradictory identity in my approach to the MOQ. Perhaps
a
> little intellectual biography might help.
>
> I read, and loved, ZAMM when it came out. Years later, but before Lila
came
> out, I had my Aha! realization that I described recently to Andy, which
was
> that a computer couldn't be conscious because no spatio-temporal mechanism
> could be. At that time, recalling ZAMM, I realized that the move to make
was
> to treat awareness as prior to the separation between one supposed
> space-time thing that is aware of another supposed space-time thing.
> Awareness creates the subject and object in each act of experience (in
> humans at this stage of our evolution), just as Pirsig had said for
Quality.
> In other words, Quality and awareness are the same thing, just that one
> emphasizes the value in experience, and the other emphasizes knowing, or
> perceiving.
>
> Then Lila came out, and I read it and was somewhat disappointed. I later
> realized that this disappointment was that it didn't address things that I
> had been thinking about, in particular that awareness/Quality was not only
> prior to subject and object, but also prior to space and time (see Samuel
> Avery's "The Dimensional Structure of Consciousness" for an interesting
read
> on this theme). But once I got over that somewhat parochial view, I saw
that
> Lila was Good Stuff.
>
> Except for the lack of, let's say, appreciation for the S/O divide. Here,
as
> I've said many times, Barfield's account of the rise and value and
> disease-aspect of the intellectual level is superior to Pirsig's, but as
> I've also said, that does not detract from what Pirsig was trying to do in
> Lila, namely to show how morals conflict. But with the demotion of the S/O
> divide to a static pattern of intellectual quality one loses the ability
to
> integrate Pirsig with Barfield. The same goes with what Bo calls the
> annotating Pirsig's definitions of the intellectual level.
>
> Barfield is just as anti-SOM as Pirsig, as is Coleridge, and as am I. But
we
> need the concepts of subject and object to make our point. Which is that
> though all -- or most all -- our experience comes in S/O form, that form
is
> NOT primary. Prior to that is awareness, or Quality, or Intelligence, or
> Love -- there are 99 names of God -- which produces that form, and all
other
> forms. But the S/O form is particularly typical of how we see ourselves
(as
> even that phrase indicates). (From your comments, it might be better to
say
> that we describe all our experience as coming in S/O form, but the
> distinction is no different -- see below -- as that between saying that
> everything is in DQ/SQ form, or is described in DQ/SQ form)
>
> Furthermore, that form is not of two things, a subject and an object, and
> this is where the logic of contradictory identity (or what Coleridge calls
> polarity, and what the Taoists call yin/yang) comes in, and that is that
on
> analysis, the subject is seen to constitute the object, the object is seen
> to constitute the subject, yet they are at the same time diametrically
> opposed. This same logic pops up on analyzing a number of term pairs, such
> as continuity/change, being/becoming, and one/many.
>
> And it pops up on analyzing DQ/SQ. Of course these are undefinable (n.b,
SQ
> is just as undefinable as DQ, though one can categorize instances. How
does
> one define "pattern" except in some equivalent term, like "form",
> "structure", "system", etc.). That they are a polarity can be seen in that
> DQ without SQ would be nothing. It requires SQ to "exist", and of course
SQ
> requires DQ. But DQ/SQ is more general than subject/object, which latter
> only occurs -- as far as we can tell -- in the human intellect, while
DQ/SQ
> is at all levels.
>
> Nor is there any conflict with what I am saying (which is just repeating
> what others have said) with Zen philosophy. Nishida, from whom I got the
> phrase "logic of contradictory identity", was a long-time Zen
practitioner.
> The history of the logic goes back to Nagarjuna, one of Zen's heroes. The
> logic of contradictory identity is not a thinking that tells us what
> enlightenment is. It is a means of clearing out debris, like SOM. In terms
> of the MOQ, it is a way to remind us that the DQ/SQ distinction is also
> self-contradictory. There is no self-existing DQ. There is no
self-existing
> SQ. There is only their mutual and simultaneous constitution and
> contradiction.
>
> Furthermore, since the S/O form is so familiar to us (it *is* us as we see
> ourselves in our fallen state), it is our avenue to
> understanding/not-understanding DQ/SQ. As I said a while back, while the
MOQ
> gets rid of a lot of SOM dualist platypi, it does not get rid of the
> many/one dualism. The logic of contradictory identity doesn't get rid of
it
> either, but it recognizes it as another name for DQ/SQ. And in the
> subject/object form we experience it in action: Awareness produces the
many,
> and in the same productive act, turns it back into one.
>
> All of this is lost if we just try to not think in terms of philosophical
> subjects and objects. Indeed, I see that attempt as falling into the
> pre/trans fallacy. We need to work through and transform the S/O form, not
> reject it. The major act in "working through" it is to see that S/O is
> self-contradictory, that I, as subject, have no permanent self-existence.
> But though it is self-contradictory, it is real. Hence pictures 9 and 10
in
> the Ox sequence. Emptiness is not other than form, form is not other than
> emptiness. The S/O form is completely real and completely empty.
>
> - Scott
>
>
>
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