dmb replies:
Descartes' famous saying (I think therefore I am) is the classic case of
solipsism. It comes from his famous Meditations, where he concludes that his
own existence is the only thing he could know for sure and God is the only
thing that rescues him from this solipsism. His "cogito" would be just one
half of mind/matter dualism. Pirsig corrects that famous saying, pointing
out that it would be more correct to say, "French language exists, therefore
I think, therefore I am". That's just one passage where we find the
assertion that ideas are culturally derived but that one goes right to the
point.
[Krimel]
Wow, thanks for the history lesson. Do you really think I don't know this?
What I think is, that you miss the point entirely. Descartes' cogito is his
attempt to find a statement that skeptics could not refute. I would insist
emphatically that his cogito meets that test. Where he goes from there is an
entirely different story. He asserts the existence of God. He talks about
mind and body as different substances but neither of these is dependent on
or reflects back on the initial statement. Pirsig's statement also miss the
point. While Descartes is indeed a product of French culture his statement
is not dependant on French culture and provides a toehold on certainty
regardless of culture.
Ron:
"I think therefore I am" in proper context, I believe introduces the abstract
concept of self. Cultural derrivation being a given in this matter. Descartes
as Aristotle, provides a "toe hold" as Krimel says, for certainty within
a context, a cultural one. Since most of us agree about absolute
universal truth especially both of you gentleman, I think the discussion
may evolve from there.
[dmb]
Radical Empiricism, by the way, is a direct attack on this dualism. As I've
said here many, many times you'll find Pirsig talking about this a quoting
James on exactly this point at the end of Lila's chapter 29. "Subjects and
objects are secondary. They are concepts derived from something more
fundamental which he described as 'the immediate flux of life which
furnishes the material to our later reflection with its conceptual
categories.'
[Krimel]
I honestly think you have not the slightest clue what I am talking about
most of the time. You ramble on about my failure to appreciate the
"problem". What you miss most of the time is that I am fully aware of the
problem but think your solutions to it are totally mistaken. In fact you
throw up this ruse as an excuse for even reading what I have said. SOM is
JUST a bumper sticker the way you use it. Nowhere in James will you find him
claiming that there is no external world. James is not an Idealist. Nor does
James claim that we can understand "experience" independent of the
physiology that produces it.
Ron:
I think what must be focused on and addressed is the nature of the concepts
we form with the term "external reality" quite certain in our human expereince
we expereince what we commonly know as external stimuli. Again Context is key
in this discussion.
[dmb]
In this basic flux of experience, the distinctions of reflective thought,
such as those between consciousness and content, subject and object, mind
and matter have not yet emerged in the forms which we make them. Pure
experience cannot be called either physical or psychical; it logically
precedes this distinction." Obviously, this involves far more than bumper
stickers.
[Krimel]
As I have said many times this is a big area of disagreement. You claim that
somehow experience is a unity. This is just patently false. The perception
of unity is the result of the synthesis of sensory stimulation. Thus far all
you have ever come up with to refute this is either just to ignore it or to
try to paper over it with bumper stickers.
Ron:
Dave is saying that there is a harmony, a running unity of pluralality,
the "I" in "I think therfore I am".
Conclusivly I agree with dave that solopsism does not enter the hunt
on Pirsigs propositions. Solopsism, I believe centers around the notion
that the subjectice, Parmenindian ,Platonic "soul" or self generates all
expereince. This is not so to Pirsigs MoQ.
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