Greetings,
It might be worth considering the Buddhist doctrine of the two truths.
Night
At 02:51 AM 2/28/2009, you wrote:
Hello All Davids (Swift & Buchanan)
26 Feb.
You said to DMB::
> Pirsig says that Whitehead was talking about DQ, Whitehead only says
> that he doesn't have words to describe his experience. Others (Hobbes,
> Hume, Locke and Kant) have had non or pre-verbal experiences and they
> didn't describe them as DQ. It feels like Pirsig's experience may have
> been cut to fit his MoQ.
I admire your will to explore our exploration of Pirsig's ideas and
you don't get much help from DMB who starts from a position that
presupposes a thorough knowledge of the basics .
Pirsig refers to various thinkers who had - like himself - had
insights of an unknown something ahead of our sense of being a
subjects in a world of objects. Pirsig crown witness is William
James, but you are right neither Whitehead, James nor any other
describe the pre-everything something as DQ, so Pirsig cuts and
pastes to fit the Quality Idea.
And this is so because Pirsig absolutely first "discovery" was the
"quality" concept that couldn't be assimilated, after that came the
insight that Quality was the pre-everything. ZAMM tells how P. -
after having pestered everyone with quality - was asked by his
teacher colleagues if quality was objective or subjective. Then
followed the "dilemma" where he examined the two alternatives .
And after finding out that quality was neither objective nor
subjective he performed the in-out turning of everything, namely
that the S/O pair wasn't reality's ground, but a fall-out from Quality
that now made was the said ground and he then started to ponder
how a Metaphysics of Quality would "look" like,
DS says (after DMB has talked about the Hot Stove example):
> He may not know what gets him off the stove but I suggest it's the
> feeling of pain. Science has names for all the receptors in the skin
> and has traced a nerve path from pain receptor to muscles that doesn't
> go by way of the brain.
The said example is a variant of the pre-intellectual one in ZAMM
but Pirsig was so obsessed by the Quality=Reality issue that he
entered it in LILA and here it confuses considerably because
MOQ's static range had been enlarged to four levels. It's just as
you say David: what gets any living organism off an uncomfortable
spot is the BIOLOGICAL perception of Quality. You are also
correct about what's called the autonomous nerve system.
DS says: (after DMB has given another speech)
> I hear you but I'm not necessarily buying. The way I see it there are
> two language levels: the feeling level of direct experience (Pirsig
> calls DQ) and the words as symbols for feelings that verbalizers use
> when reflecting on past experience (SQ). The feeling level used by
> animals and pre or non verbal humans (read babies and primitives) is
> preverbal but not necessarily preintellectual. We have no way of
> knowing and it would be arrogant to suggest that nonverbal people are
> also bereft of intellect.
IMO there is no language level. There is the said biological level
(what you call "feeling" and I call "sensation") This level spans an
enormous field from bactria to the mammal organism. Sense
organs may not be present yet all organisms sense what's good
and bad for them.(ref. the "amoeba" passage in ZAMM page).
Now, enter the social level where I think emotion is the expression.
This is a human level and IMO language was present from the the
start, it was the biological "stepping stone" to the 3rd. level, but
even if language is present it was merely as a communication
pattern and very much "pre.intellectual". I mean Stone Age people
did not regard words as symbols reflecting anything, this latter is
the 4th.level looking down on the 3rd.
I think you confuse the intellectual level with intelligence. A usual
pit-fall.
> dmb: In this sense, DQ is nothingness but not in the sense that
> reality is entirely absent. Instead, it is experience as directly
> known, prior to the divisions and distinctions imposed by our
> definitions and conceptualizations. Pure experience is
> undifferentiated, undivided experience while words and ideas chop
> reality into the ten thousand things, the static reality of culture,
> language and world view.
Phew! DMB represents the view that the pre-everything's unity is
destroyed by our "definitions and conceptualizations. It's unity was
first broken by the spawning of the inorganic universe, then - on
top of that - the biological universe ...etc. With the social level
language entered, but - as said - mankind from that age did not
regard language as "concepts different from the real world" this
was intellect's S/O business.
DS
> DS: While I agree that "words and ideas chop ." it does not
> necessarily follow that pure experience is undifferentiated. I
> experience non verbal sights and sounds and can still tell the
> difference between them.>
Right, as an organism you perceive biological quality by SENSING,
as a social being you perceive EMOTIONS and as an intellectual
being you perceive REASON
And that's as much as I manage.
Bo
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