Ham wrote on Dec, 28:
Marsha and All --
> Maybe this is wanting to be enveloped in the whole
> without regard to the individual jigsaw pieces.
What a marvelous statement, Marsha! It captures the DQ of Pirsig's
philosophy as well as the cosmology of Essentialism in one simple sentence.
Indeed, all experience is the "envelopment" of individualized awareness in
the value of the Whole. When we intellectualize this value we perceive it as
SO reality--as the self participating in a world of objects and events.
But when we sense it directly, stripped of its objectivized constructs, we
become absorbed in its essence and lose our sense of self-estrangement.
This is why music and art has the power to "move" us; not because it's an
intellectual phenomenon, but because we can surrender our selves (and our
intellect) to it. In moments of rapture, we literally identify with the
undifferentiated value-sensibility (Pirsig's "pre-intellectual experience")
which is our primary Essence. We are then no longer just an observer
"outside the loop" of reality, we are "at one" with it. Of course such
experiences are finite in time, yet even that limitation does not intrude on
our value realization. I submit that only human beings have the capacity to
appreciate esthetic value in this way, to bring it into consciousness as a
creative abstraction and enjoy it sensually rather than as just another
object of our experience.
All this talk about "mind" attaching to "intellect" at various levels to
produce SOM is a circular analysis with no way out. Life as a human being
is an experiential manifestation of Essence, a coming together of
sensibility with its estranged undivided source. The "Quality experience"
is one where individual sensibility is enveloped in the Oneness from which
all difference is perceived, without regard to time, space, and otherness.
Man is a valuistic creature. As I see it, the purest form of human
sensibility is the appreciation of music and the arts. As artists, you,
Platt, and some others here will understand this concept; unfortunately for
others, the essence of reality will always lie in numerical probability,
intellectual patterns, or objective matter.
Sensibility: Refined awareness and appreciation in matters of feeling.
Ham: Yours is quite an interesting Post; it opens a number of pathways worth
pursuing, like your description of the "Quality experience", or of "the
moments of rapture" and of the question of "self-estrangement". I hope to
comment on them some other time but first I'd like to start with your sentence:
" As I see it, the purest form of human sensibility is the appreciation of
music and the arts"
I was pleasantly surprised by your bringing forth the matter of
appreciation into this exchange of views. I was thinking of making the leap
from Music Experience to Music Appreciation in future Posts; quite a leap
actually, and I am glad you took it first. The thing is, I've been having a
sustained romance with Appreciation for the last couple of years; rather an
elusive mistress, if I may say so. When we are not asked to define the term, we
know what it means: at any rate it has meaning for us. But somehow it seems
extremely difficult to arrive to a mutually accepted meaning, even in a
restricted group. I am hopping that the MOQ could help in this respect.
You seem to value Appreciation highly since you think it is "the purest
form of human sensibility". Would you be so kind to elaborate further on that?
I am very much interested.
Your proposition is about appreciation of music and the arts; would you
extend it to say that 'aesthetic appreciation is the purest form of human
sensibility'? That way you'd bring in other things that we aesthetically
appreciate. These 'other things' being all the ones that may provoke the set of
experiences that we usually express by some such phrase as How beautiful!
and not by How true!or How good! Or How useful! (see Carrit "An
Introduction to Aesthetics").
Of the many senses of the term 'sensibility' there is one that seems to
fit snugly in the context of your views, i.e., "refined awareness in matters of
feeling". Would you go along with it? I guess the 'refined' is introduced to
distinguish sensibility from sentimentalism, a trait much frowned upon in
Aesthetics.
And another question: Since we were talking of Music Experience
You don't
say that "experience of music and the arts is the purest form of sensibility"
ergo, you assume that music appreciation entails far more than music
experience. What, in your opinion, conforms this 'far more'?
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