Marsha --
Using Quality/Value/Experience interchangeably,
experience is experience sans knowability, divisibility
and definition. Quality(experience) is quality(experience).
What is so troubling? I am not denying experience,
but all the analogues used to define, divide and know it.
I would guess that a new word or concept comes from
science, the media, the comics and the artists. In general
I would think that a new word or a new concept comes
from a conceptual playfulness. I am not denying
phenomena external to mind, just that it is not the same as the analogues
we habitually use to reflect it, analogues
like 'sensation'. ...
I notice that you use the first person to identify the self that says "I
would guess" and "I would think", but experience and concepts are left
without a subject. Does this mean you believe experience and concepts exist
independently of your awareness? The problem I have with your analysis is
that it lacks a locus of awareness, namely, the sensible 'I' or "self" that
apprehends.
Perhaps it's the terminology that has me confused. For me, a "sensation" is
what I feel directly, without interpretation, such as pain, joy, the touch
of silk, the sight of color, the smell of brewing coffee, or the sense of
fear. In other words, it's my "psycho-physical state" of sensibility at any
given time.
An "experience" is something that happens to me in my relation with the
external world -- climbing a hill, meeting a friend, reading a book,
watching a storm, etc. Experiences are always "structured" in that they
infer specific objects or phenomena to which my attention is drawn.
A "concept" is an idea or conclusion, usually derived from experience, that
I have intellectualized as a theory or principle. I may seek confirmation
from others to "validate" or support my conclusion, but the concept
originates with me and is proprietary to my conscious awareness in the same
way that sensations and experiences are proprietary to me. Do you disagree
with this epistemology?
There are no objects out there, but a continuous flow of experiences,
Quality. There is no duplication, or repeat of experience except through
spovs. I might want
to say that Quality is undefinable, unknowable, indivisible,
and 'sensation' is a concept used to describe it by
chopping it into something isolated, or separate. ...
See how Krimel turned 'sensation' into a biochemical and
All 'we' have are analogues, of all variety depending on
explanatory need, but the analogues are not the
experience.
What exactly is troubling you?
What, then, ARE the experiences? Whose experience is it if not yours?
That is what troubles me about your worldview. It has no subjective
foundation. I can't comprehend a sensation, an experience, a thought or
concept, or an assessment of Quality without a cognizant subject to
apprehend it. Even if the apprehensive self is only a "static point of
view", that view must be realized by a sensible agent -- that is, you or
somebody else.
Now, I know you have bought into Pirsig's thesis that there are no subjects
or objects. But, surely, you don't deny your own self as the perceiver of
your world. Or DO you? If so, I'm even more curious to learn how you
justify that denial.
Thanks, Marsha
Essentially yours,
Ham
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