From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Sun Sep 21 2003 - 00:58:03 BST
David M,
----- Original Message -----
>
> I would really like to get up to speed with this
> debate because I find I agree closely with your posts
> and really like the Barfield and L of CI. But I cannot see
> why this cannot be used to support the MOQ as it stands
> without contradiction.
Well, it seems that the difference is that I see the "I" as a locus of DQ/SQ
tension, while Pirsig sees the "I" as a set of SQ "capable of responding" to
DQ. It could be that this is a difference that makes no difference, and it
is true that for the purpose of Lila (discussion of inter-level moral
conflicts) it doesn't. My argument for my position is that it does make a
difference when it comes to how one understands oneself, or rather, doesn't
understand oneself (since I am a contradictory identity), and so what one
does to "know thyself".
L of CI is very close to Francois
> Laruelle and his version of open dialectic it seems to me.
> Laurelle was discussed in Radical Philosophy Magazine 121 last month by
Ray
> Brassier..
Is there a web pointer to this? I am unlikely to run across it locally.
> By the way my book is all about free-life and limitation if you want to
read
> it.
Not now. Any chance of your putting bits of it online?
> The point of L of CI seems to me to hold onto both unity and choice or
> openness as not simply prior but implicit in any form of dualist pairs.
Yes, but also that when you press on either of paired items, it seems to
turn into the other. For example, to say that SQ can be changed by DQ
implies a unity across the change, so SQ seems to be dynamic, while DQ,
since it is the permanent factor, seems to be static.
> Laurelle suggests that unlike all other kinds of metaphysics decision is
> essence. Decision implies splitting asunder that which is originally a
unity.
> Decision of course implies dynamic quality. Human experience is nothing if
> not full of dynamic quality. The emergence of static quality in human
experience
> is an effort, memory and intelligence are required. Analysis/choice
requires a
> separation/alienation of what is given. Eg into Kants: noumenal/phenomenal
or Hegel's
> subject/substance. This activity/choice is entirely dynamic and creative
because you have
> created whatever distinction you have set up between the two. And the
distinction implies
> both the difference and the unity ot the two distinct poles because the
distinction also implies
> the givenness of the two terms, hence different but inseparable. I think
this is what L of CI
> is also getting at. When we turn to talking about human beings we have to
see the
> full complexity: static biological patterns: we all have 2 hands, dynamic
biological patterns
> all individuals grow and in non-determined ways e.g. brain cell
connectivities as related to
> environment, static social patterns-we all sit down to meals, dynamic
ones -some
> individuals change class, static intellectual patterns -common usage of
English, dynamic writing of
> poems,etc. The problem with SoM being loss of focus on dynamic quality and
therefore also the unity
> of static/dynamic in undifferentiated quality. We need the unity to keep
challenging the creative
> differentiation, so you can question when we get bogged down in one
approach to reality. We SO need
> to be flexible and dynamic in our numerous language games (emphasis more
on play), and stop
> trying to reduce experience to yet another cut of reality, often focusing
on just one of the
> poles after the cut is made.
Wholly agree.
> When you say the subject is a mystery I assume you are pointing to the
> dynamic quality of the subject. Equally the object is a mystery, why is
there anything rather than nothing.
Since I assume the subject only exists in polar relation to an object, I
would prefer saying that the S/O divide is a mystery, not that subject or
object is a mystery. Or rather, they are derivately.
> For me awareness is possible because really subject and object is a unity,
Da-sein or Being-there is what
> being an aware human being is. Da-sein is not bordered by the outline of
the human body, the object and
> subject of awareness are equally Da-sein or what it is to be human. Put a
human body in total isolation and
> you no longer have a human being. And of course we can only start talking
about subjects and objects as part
> of human experience when we have the language to make them start
appearing, as we divide up our
> experience. Hence for early cultures your spirit can occupy a tree, still
does rather obviously I would
> suggest, if the tree is not full of your spirit how do you know it is
there?
I think it is the other way: the tree's spirit can occupy us, though in the
end this may be that a common spirit occupies both (and, by the L of CI,
both are different from the common spirit, that is, are individuals).
I cannot think of awareness as anything other than primary,
> and has to be based on unity, otherwise you get into rather Kantian
problems
> about how knowledge could ever be possible, re-cognise has to imply the
're', i.e. the recogntion in
> subject-object relations is plausible if the movement is from the One to
the many to a new one. Brassier compares
> it to a moebius strip, the circle is cut, then twisted and then rejoined,
still joined but now a new kind of
> circle -with an added twist.
Exactly. Another metaphor for the difference-in-unity is the Necker cube
(two overlapping squares with the corresponding corners joined: one can see
it as a 3-dimensional cube in two ways, but never both at once.)
> I also think that the dynamic quality possessed by human beings or
> possessing human beings simply says that they have a future, having a
future
> implies indeterminacy and openness, and having a future implies being
> connected to many different possibilities, and being human means making
choices and this implies values
> and a frightening level of responsibility
> (that almost no one seems to realise)
Very important point. It is why I don't differentiate philosophy from
religion.
> and an awareness of many possible futures implies intelligence because
> intelligence must be chosing between futures, what else is it for? And not
> chosing, or repeating old patterns, implies being unaware and unconscious,
and perhaps the most sleepy things of all are
> material beings.
>
> Also if human beings are touched by dynamic quality what is our
relationship
> to all the static patterns that lie around us? Like frozen bits of choice,
like fossils, like bad
> habits we can't shake off. Perhaps, we are more responsible for what lies
around us than we usually think, perhaps this
> explains the anthropic principle problem.
Here is where I get (relative to current cultural norms) crackpotty. I
assume that intelligence creates universes, so it is no surprise that the
universe is (a) intelligible, and (b) defined just right for intelligence to
exist in it. Furthermore...
> Oh yes, language and intellect should not be treated as unreal, they are
> super real, they are the light which we use to illuminate the world, what
a world it is with language and intellect! The
> cosmos is surely an event as much as the microcosm of man is, the dynamic
choice implied in all thinking as per L of
> CI or the non-philosophy of Laruelle, has surely also occurred on the way
from big bang to all the
> complex differentiation of matter and life forms.
they are more than the light to illuminate the world, they are the light
that creates the world. Not my "little self" language and intellect, to be
sure, but in a "we are made in God's image" sense. (N.b., please don't read
theism into any of this).
> I agree that there is a good argument that MOQ, post-modernism, L of CI,
> non-philosophy, could be put together into a new metaphysics, a kind of
meta-physics that is beyond the
> wildest imagination of the pragmatists and what they mean by metaphysics.
We so need not to escape or avoid
> thinking but we also need to hang onto the oneness/unity of
quality/experience so that everything is constitutive
> of who we are rather than as standing up against us. There seems to be an
inevitable logic to pushing the SOM divide as far
> as you can take it so as to understand how the two poles are inseparable
and from the same source.
As I said to DMB, I distinguish carefully between the SOM divide and the S/O
divide. Otherwise, I agree. A while back I put forth the idea of an ironic
metaphysics, one where the only dogma allowed (read: assumptions) are ones
one cannot understand, i.e., the L of CI. I'm not sure how high it would
fly, though.
- Scott
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