At 06:05 PM 1/19/2009, you wrote:
Krimel said:
[Things-in-themselves] are TiTs because whatever existence they have is
independent of the perceiver.
dmb says:
Right. And that's the problem with them. Things in themselves are objective.
They exist regardless of our perception of them.
[Krimel]
Ok. But I would say: TiTs exist regardless of our perception of them. TiTs
are objective to the extent that independent observers can agree about them.
[dmb]
All the subject can know is their effect on our sense, on our subjective
experience of them. This is a form of subject-object metaphysics AND the
implication is that there will always be an epistemic gap between appearance
and reality.
[Krimel]
I think the epistemic gap is there regardless of your metaphysics. You don't
avoid it by pretending its not there. Heidegger seems to do this. You say
Pirsig does as well. At least if you see a gap you can strive for some
balance.
[dmb]
Kant's picture says that all we can ever know is the phenomenal appearance
but never the actual, pre-existing reality which causes this appearance. In
this view we are forever one step removed from reality, we can never know
reality.
[Krimel]
We temporally removed from any possibility of direct experience of a TiT. It
is not just a philosophical issue. If you accept for just a second a strict
materialist view you will see that the process of sensation alone creates a
time differential. What we sensed is no longer the same by the time we sense
it. Perception, that is integrating or deriving meaning from sense data
create even more time lag.
Greetings Krimel,
In this statement there seems to be a strong sense of independent
self along with the TiT. Do you not see this or is this independent
self also something that you think inherently exists?
Marsha
Which is why, as you say:
[dmb]
The line between what is and what we perceive can never be crossed. Pirsig,
by contrast, says experience is reality and there is no such gap.
[Krimel]
See above. I'm not altogether sure Pirsig just claims there is no gap. I
certainly don't think Lao Tsu says this. I think Lao Tsu says there is an
unbridgeable gap in our understanding. Our knowledge is always incomplete.
The best we can do is seek for it in light and shadow. I think Pirsig says
we can see it in the dynamic flow of experience.
I think my chief problem with your take on this is that it seems to imply
that because we can't know everything, we can't know anything. Or because
the Tao resists precise definition no definition is possible. Like Cypher,
you want to stay in the matrix and accept it for what it appears to be.
I just have a short comment on something you said in a different post:
[dmb]
Pirsig says that you can go through that book replacing the term "Tao" with
the term "Quality" and it works every time.
[Krimel]
I think the opposite is true. The MoQ makes much more sense if you can go
through Lila replacing the term "Quality" with the term "Tao" and it works
every time. And when it doesn't the problem is not with the Tao.
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The Universe is uncaused, like a net of jewels in which each is a
reflection of all the others in a fantastic, interrelated harmony without end.
.
.
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