Bo and David Swift --
Bo, I offer this as a follow-up to my last post of 2/17.
I've not had the pleasure of talking with David Swift, whose too few
messages seem to have slipped through the cracks in my efforts to limit the
posts in my mailbox to under 1000. But his comments on "mental vs.
physical" phenomena (quoted by you and Marsha) are so apropos to our recent
discussion that they bear repeating.
David said:
I'm not sure I'm right but it seems that [RMP] believes in
some kind of alternate mental universe that exists in parallel
with our universe. ...
This is my feeling also, and I suspect that it's the basis for your
unconventional definition of Intellect.
I think he believes in a mental universe because at the bottom
of page 151 he says:
"Certainly the novel cannot exist in the computer without a
parallel pattern of voltages to support it. But that does not
mean that the novel is an expression or property of those
voltages. It doesn't have to exist in any electronic circuits at all.
It can also reside in magnetic domains on a disk of a drum or
a tape, but again it is not composed of magnetic domains nor
is it possessed by them. It can reside in a notebook but it is
not composed of or possessed by the ink and paper. It can
reside in the brain of a programmer, but even here it is neither
composed of this brain nor possessed by it."
The root of the fallacy is his failure to realize that the novel
only exists physically in the brains of the writer and readers.
The pattern of voltages, magnetic domains and ink and paper
representations of the novel are only symbols and have no
meaning until a living brain decodes them. It may seem a
small point and is certainly open to question and argument
but I believe getting this right has implications for the MoQ.
Not only does David's point have "implications for the MoQ", it is the
crucial point missing in Pirsig's epistemology. The point could have been
made better had David omitted the phrase "exists physically in the brains".
The novel exists in our MINDS (cognitive memory) which correlates to brain
activity but is "physical" only in the same sense that magnetic and printed
representations are physical.
Bo, on 2/16 you questioned David's argument that "perceptions are feelings",
hence biological in nature.
[Bo to David]:
Feelings (can we use "emotion"?) Why biological? and why
symbols? I once made a list of "expressions" (I called) that
correspond to each the Quality levels
Interaction - Sensation - Emotion - Reason
(inorganic) (biology) (social) (intellect)
that places emotion=social, but I have noticed that so many want
emotions to be biological and wonder why? It's just obvious that
animals don't "emote", it's just us who extrapolate our experience
on to the animal world.
That is an attempt to "objectify" the psycho-emotional faculty of
intellection. Feeling, knowing, sentience, awareness, apprehension,
understanding -- call it what you will -- is NOT an OBJECT. Neither is it
any combination of the (objective) levels you have charted. Intellect is
SUBJECTIVE, which means that it exists only as Sensibility, which is the
essential nature of individuated being-aware.
Although Pirsig is credited for overcoming subject/object duality, he has
done so at the expense of positing everything in existence as objective. I
submit to you (and David) that the critical fallacy of Pirsig's thesis is
his objectification of "subjective mentality".
I can only hope that, with David's help, I have made this point clear.
Thank you both for the opportunity.
Best regards,
Ham
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