Bo, Sat, 28 Feb 2009 08:51:26 you posted:
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 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 "preintellectual". 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. DS says: You cannot possibly know how helpful it is to have you all clear these things up for me, nor can you imagine how grateful I am that you take the time to help a newbie get up to speed. Bo, I want to clear up the use of "feelings" instead of "sensations". Those words do not mean exactly the same thing for me. Sensations are externally driven whereas feelings can be internally or externally driven. IMO we can perceive, as per Descartes, both ourselves and the rest of the world. That doesn't mean that I'm committed to a S/OM. Yeah, intellectual with intelligence I get it, thanks. OK the real discussion between us starts with emotions. ZAMM IMO is almost nothing other than an attempt to understand emotions intellectually. Pirsig is the normal? hyper-rational dweeb who can't feel, focus on, acknowledge his own emotions. In ZAMM he sets out on a trip to understand what all the fuss is about. He talks about the musicians who tell him to just shut-up and dig it. They think that emotions cannot be described logically, rationally; I think they can and that they are biological "feelings" rather than "sensations". IMO emotions define the relationship between, not S and O, but us as objects and the other objects in the rest of reality. Or others including other animals and the rest of their realities. -david swift Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
