Greetings Ham,
At 02:18 PM 1/26/2009, you wrote:
Ham said to Bo:
I find it curious that you (i.e., Pirsig) exhort "instability",
while the rest of mankind is desperately looking for a way to make
the world more stable -- scientifically, socially, economically,
internationally, militarily. Isn't this going against the central
premise that "the dynamic 'dislike' of biological stability" is
what inexorably moves the world to "betterness"? If so, how do you
market the philosophy of dynamic instability to a world torn by
instability? Should you even try?
Marsha comments:
The rest of the world? You do not know what the rest of the world
is desperate for. Those with power would like to scientifically,
economically, internationally, militarily stabilize events to
enhance their power. Most of the humans in the world would like
food to feed their families and a decent job or livelihood to
provide the means to do so.
Of course they do. But do you suppose an unstable world where
tribal warriors kill their neighbors in the name of Allah, atheists
ridicule believers in the name of science, and deficit spending is
encouraged for the "common good" helps feed starving people or makes
their lives more secure? Shouldn't the efforts of the intelligentsia
be directed toward stabilizing the world rather than preaching the
dominance of intellect over society in the name of "dynamic quality"?
Which intelligentsia are you suggesting have such power? Maybe
you're thinking of the Economists, they are calling themselves the
Intellectuals these days. And these days the Economists with real
power are a part of the Washington Celebrity crowd. Social through
and through. That's probably not right, but neither is your
paragraph. I should have just snipped it.
Equating 'dynamic' and 'instability' get you nothing but accused of
using linguistic tricks.
True, as you have just demonstrated, but such accusations also serve
to distract the accuser from having to deal with the point of my
argument. "Dynamic" signifies active, changing, variable, as opposed
to "static" which is a state of equilibrium characterized by the
absence of change or movement. Clearly thinking, experiencing, and
creating are dynamic activities, as is everything in the objective
world. Why is calling such processes static not a "linguistic
trick"? On the other hand, there is nothing about an uncreated,
independent and immutable source that suggests "dynamic", whether it
is "pure Quality" or absolute Essence.
I like the definition of static as 'showing or admitting of little or
no change', and not 'absence change or movement.' The patterns that
are overlaid onto experience are static. And DQ I think of as
Quality whose dynamics is spontaneous.
Please offer an example of a finite construct. Seems to me they
change, they at least have a coming and going. Show me this
uncreated, independent immutable Essence. Or does it only exist in
your mind? And you cannot use the authority of Philosophy to say
it is so, unless Philosophy is like Monopoly. And that's okay. Games are fun.
A thing-in-itself is a finite construct, as are all objects of
experience. Yes, they all "come and go" because they depend on our
conscious awareness for their being. And, as I said above,
experience and intellection are processes that occur over time. The
time dimension is built into experience; it's the way we perceive
things. That we regard it as an inherent principle of the physical
world is a consequence of our reflection (in time) which, like
experience itself, is a reductive process and subject to its limitations.
I can't "show you" Essence because it is not accessible to human
beings. No creature can "know" Essence because creatures are not
essential. All we can directly know (sense) is the Value of
Essence. Value is essential to our reality as beings-aware. As an
artist, you don't have to be told what value is because you sense it
daily. But you "know" it in terms of the constructs of your
experiential reality. Thus, the values you feel and talk about are
always relative to specific phenomena -- the beingness (things and
events) that you bring into the world through experience.
Example Ham, example. What exactly do you mean by
finite? Dependency and change makes an object other than a
thing-in-itself. The way we perceive things, as independent
entities, is mistaken. Our reflections of entities as independent is
also wrong. I do not regard time as an inherent principle of the
physical world. I regard time as a static-pattern-of-value overlaid
onto experience.
IF ESSENCE IS NOT ACCESSIBLE TO HUMAN BEINGS, HOW IS ESSENCE
ACCESSIBLE TO YOU AND YOUR THEORY???
Yes, I agree that the value experienced is relative. But no things,
only events, processes and static patterns of value.
Understanding that time is also a pattern, and change 'uncreated
source' to DQ and I think we're set to go.
I can accept "pattern" as your label for a phenomenon, provided you
understand that we derive the precept of time from the experience of
change and the sequence of events. And experience is a dynamic
phenomenon, not static.
I say tomato, you say tomato. And maybe we should slice it and toss
it into a salad.
[Ham, previously]:
What Kant (and the existentialists) failed to understand is that
there is no "in" or "out", and that what they called the
"world-in-itself" is actually the experiential world that each self actualizes.
[Marsha]:
Then Kant was not right. One from column A and two from column
B. Is that one of rules for playing Essence?
No, that's Marsha being persnickety.
I'm not a snob. Am I? Fool, yes. Snob, no. Am I a snob???
Best wishes for the new year,
Ham
And to you.
Marsha
.
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Look, there's no metaphysics on earth like chocolates.
(Fernando Pessoa)
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.
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