Hello everyone From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 20:47:18 -0500 Subject: Re: [MD] What is metaphysics to you?
> Hey SA, > > Now it looks like it's my turn to apologize for touching a nerve. > > SA said: > Matt, I'm not one to add "that's just my opinion", but I can see why somebody > would. For somebody adds a suggestion, and you say, "of course these are our > opinions", and yes they are, but a degree of tolerance can be also valued in > the IMO or IMHO approach, which denotes democracy and the value of > individuals living together, disagreeing, but picking fruit at the fruit > stand together without fighting. Nobody saying your fighting, but your > defining of IMO didn't cover this point. > > Matt: > Yeah, you're right. But I wasn't attempting to "define" "IMO". I was, in the > essay from which you pulled the extraction (one that sets up the context at > some length before that particular paragraph), collaging some of my > impressions of life in the MD with Pirsig's philosophy, because something > interesting popped out when I had been thinking along those lines. I was > commenting on a pattern I've seen that, on the one hand looks on the surface > like the common softening, rhetorical move that we all make (it's not as if I > stridently assert everything and have never used the phrase), but on the > other hand might seem to maybe have, in my opinion, a possible root in > something other than softening. Dan: I remember reading Matt's numerous essays and even adding numerous annotations to them (never shared) and I understand what he's getting at here even though I don't necessarily agree he is right. I cannot speak for others but it seems to me that any words tend to stain the purity (so to speak) of the discussion and so can be twisted into something not at all intended; so often times it's better not to say anything at all. I guess that's why my draft folder is full of unsent messages that will (probably) never be read, and my document folder is full of unpublished essays languishing in the graveyard of dreams. Still, Matt does have a point worth noting. This "softening" can also be used as a tool by the reader to lessen the value of a statement by opening the writer up to the possibility of being wrong. If not used though, statements lacking such an admission have a pompous and arrogant feel to them that I find distasteful. So I find it useful to remind myself that it is just my opinion and nothing more even though it's possible that different connotations could be assigned to such an admission. I take my chances, in other words. > > Matt said: > My confession is that one of my pet peeves are, what I see as, blithe > suggestions that my life is missing something. It's not suggestions: its the > ones that invoke "my life"--as if I had a huge hole in my life that I didn't > even know about. While that could always be true of anyone, and I don't mind > suggestions at all, I just react to that particular way of formulating the > suggestion. > > SA said: > Well, maybe your not "missing something", and say so, and then move on, > correct? Why the "pet peeve"? It was a suggestion, and you know yourself > better than others, so, don't accept the opinion and move on. You don't like > suggestions, correct? Then how else do people talk to you without you > suggesting your own opinion of what they suggested - your "pet peeve" seems > circular. > > Matt: > I think you missed what I was talking about. I _like_ suggestions, as I said > explicitly three times to help people understand my meaning. My "pet peeve" > is a certain way of formulating suggestions. Hasn't a person ever rubbed you > the wrong way, despite the fact that they're otherwise nice, friendly, etc.? > Well, I also happen to think there's a philosophical point lying underneath > this particular pet peeve. I tried elaborating on it. If you didn't like it, > why didn't _you_ just ignore it? Dan: Most times that's exactly what I do... "ignore it." It didn't used to be that way. At one point I contributed 30+ posts a month to moq.org. After a time though, I came to see the futility of swaying others from their respective opinions. The arguments all seemed circular, arising over and over again with many of the same contributors and the very same topics. The discussion seemed to devolve into the day to day banter that I find irritatingly mundane, so it became impossible to participate in any meaningful manner. But then I am pulled back again as if I am addicted to the (intellectual) drug that this discussion really is (to me and I suspect others as well). But back to Matt's point... I think we all have our "pet peeves" and of course we get along better with some people than others, for a variety of reasons not the least of which is philosophical in its underpinnings. There are cultures within cultures... differing degrees of education contributes mightly as RMP postulates in ZMM with his discussion of the Church of Reason and in LILA by contrasting Lila with the Captain. I see it here on moq.org too. But there's more going on that just academics vs the 'regular' people syndrome. When I read Matt's posts, I often have to spend a good deal of time deciphering what he's saying. I wouldn't bother myself if it didn't somehow seem important as I do not particularly relish taxing my brain thusly; I do not bother myself with other contributors who exhibit a similar style of discourse and I am not altogether sure why that is. I guess I just enjoy reading Matt's writings. Then again there are contributors who do not tax my brain and yet are equally enjoyable to read; plus there are those posts which fail to tax my brain and yet I find them infuriatingly simplicitic and idiotic though of course I never say so, which is one advantage to rarely contributing to the discussion. I don't like to hurt people's feelings. I would rather absorb the hurt myself without passing it along, which is why (without naming names) I (have and will continue to) ignore many posts responding to my writings. I don't know exactly what to make of all this though I suspect it revolves around what RMP calls "Plains-spoken" in LILA. Even though Matt's wrtings tend to exhibit a quality of academics that I personally find distasteful his writings also contain a germ of Plains-speak. It's just that a person has to know where to look. At the same time, SA's writings are much more in the vein of Plains-speak than Matt's and yet -- and I am not finding fault here, SA -- SA's writings are almost too simplistic and regular guy-ish to be taken seriously even though they are (often times) most enjoyable to read. 'Cheese' (as DMB once called it) seems as a good moniker as any to hang on his words. Plains-speak comes from the heart and it shows. When contributors try too hard to impress others it shows too. Matt says he's trying but somehow it comes across to me as if he is merely reflecting the knowledge he has been endowed with and so (maybe), ultimately, it comes across as heartfelt. And that I find hard to ignore. So it has come to be you're reading this post rather than not. >Matt: > Because the MD is about conversation, just as I tried continuing the > conversation with Marsha by talking about my pet peeve. Dan: I think the MD is about conversation, yes. But I also think there are probably ten times the number of lurkers at any one time as there are active contributors too. I enjoy reading the posts every morning. It has become as much a ritual as reading the morning papers. Yet I rarely find words that seem worth adding to the tulmult. So the conversation I have with you all is on the main a silent one albeit a very intellectually stimulating one. And I don't even have to try! > > SA said: > As you would properly notice yourself, don't lose out on definitions. A > secondhand experience of a sitting-down-closed-eye meditation would be > reading a book about this kind of meditation. Sure it is a firsthand > experience, and sure it is a direct experience, but one through a book. > > Matt: > Yeah. I'm afraid I'm missing your point, at least in relation to mine (which > itself wasn't elaborated very much here). My point was another of my attacks > on the direct/indirect experience distinction in philosophical discourse. > While having a very good, important, perspicuous meaning in common sense, the > distinction is hard to restore, in my opinion, in philosophy without > resurrecting Kant's version of Platonism, which is what Northrop wanted, > which is someone that Pirsig took seriously. (For various attempts at more > extended explanation, one could take their pick from my review of a paper of > Anthony > McWatt's--http://www.moq.org/forum/Kundert/Reviews/mcwatt/mcwattreview.html--or > my post "Against > Northrop"--http://pirsigaffliction.blogspot.com/2006/05/against-northrop.html--"Language, > Distance, and the Pathos of > Distance"--http//pirsigaffliction.blogspot.com/2006/04/language-som-and-pathos-of-distance.html--or > "DQ as Pre-Intellectual Experience"--http://pirsigaffliction.bl > ogspot.com/2006/04/dynamic-quality-as-pre-intellectual.html) Dan: The scope of your philosophical writings is very impressive (in my opinion). Thank you for sharing. >Matt: > But to recapitulate my pet peeve which links to the philosophical > direct/indirect distinction: > > If someone suggests that I should meditate because it's good to see reality > directly and it's something that can really only be understood by doing it, > then they are: > > 1) using the philosophical direct/indirect distinction to lend credence to > why I should try it out. After all, according to their view, indirect > experience is second-rate. > > 2) using the common sense direct/indirect distinction to suggest that reading > about meditating doesn't quite give one a good idea about whether or not > meditating is a good activity. > > I have no problem with people using the latter to give weight to their > suggestion. That makes sense. But the former doesn't scan because I have > philosophical problems with it. Marsha wasn't, I don't think, deploying the > distinction self-consciously. But, whereas one can always construe a person > non-philosophically, in a philosophical discussion group I often trend to the > latter construal pattern. Dan: I don't care if others meditate or not. As far as I can see there is no purpose behind the practice. I wouldn't reccomend it to anyone. I do, however, meditate (though it would be more proper as a rule to say I sit in zazen but I am not going to get into arguing that distinction at this time). It has become more habit than anything at this point in my life. I have attended Vipassana sessions in the past and though I enjoyed the solitude and lack of distraction the retreats afforded I also found it most difficult to reclaim everyday life when the retreats ended. Be that as it may, I do understand how someone pushing meditation on another could be construed as a type of manipulation and so generate a certain animosity. I sense that undertone in your post, Matt, though you seem to be intellectually rationalizing your distaste into a type of philosophical position (that I do not altogether agree with) and in doing so end up utilizing the very academic tactics that Mr Pirsig upbraids in his work. I myself tend to rationalize this display of 'academicitis' as a symptom of the disease anyone who has gone through higher education is afficted with for which you yourself are not to be held responsible any more than if you had a cold or the flu. We are dealing with social patterns of value now though and not biological but I do believe we can safely say there are similarities. You're a product of the system, just as we all are. Thanks for reading, Dan _________________________________________________________________ Get in touch in an instant. 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