Krimel said: Thanks for the reference, Marsha. It offers wonderful illustrations of both problems with Pirsig and problems interpreting Pirsig.
dmb says:Yea, thanks Marsha. Unlike Krimel, I think Pirsig's comments are only helpful. I think the interpretation problems here are yours, Krimel. Krimel continued:The main problem here is in Pirsig's understanding of experience. Since he claims that "experience" is the "main thing", "the real deal" this is unfortunate. Below he claims that experience can have three different meanings. The first he says is between objects but the example he gives is seriously flawed: "It can be used as a relationship between an object and another object (as in Los Angeles experiencing earthquakes.)" This is a glaring example of personification. It is a logical fallacy and not at all what is meant by 'experience.' Los Angeles has never had an experience of any kind. The people of Los Angeles "experience" earthquakes. ...Objects do not have experiences. dmb says:Your objection to this particular use of the term is laughable. Pirsig is not claiming that the city of Los Angeles recognizes the fact that it is shaking. It's just one of the ways people use the word, as in "the earth periodically experiences ice ages" or "the city experienced a period of growth". What's fallacious is taking this as a claim about the consciousness awareness of a planet or a city. Your silly correction, that only the people of L.A. experience the earthquake, only shows that you are insisting on one narrow conception of the idea, one which fits SOM, which is "experience" in Pirsig's second definition. Since you always insist on that definition and that is the definition the MOQ's seeks to alter, you have trouble interpreting what's being said. Objects don't have experiences, you say, only subjects do. But this is just a re-assertion of SOM. You're merely presenting the very problem that Pirsig is trying to get rid of. You're rejecting the antidote in favor of the poison. "It is more commonly used as a subject-object relationship. This relationship is usually considered the basis of philosophic empiricism and experimental scientific knowledge. In a subject-object metaphysics, this experience is between a preexisting object and subject, but in the MOQ, there is no pre-existing subject or object. Experience and Dynamic Quality become synonymous. ...Subjects and objects are intellectual terms referring to matter and nonmatter. So in the MOQ experience comes first, everything else comes later. This is pure empiricism, as opposed to scientific empiricism, which, with its pre-existing subjects and objects, is not really so pure." As you should be able to see here, Pirsig is well aware of the definition of "experience" that you're insisting upon but he's also contrasting that meaning with a larger one. The difference between pure empiricism and scientific empiricism is exactly what I've been hammer on for so many moons, except I tend to use "radical empiricism" with it's "pure experience" and oppose it to "sensory empiricism". Quite a lot hinges upon understanding the difference between these two, but you just won't hear it from me or Pirsig or James. Once you get it, you'll see that it's not magical. This is a natural mysticism that limits its claims to what can be known in experience. Experience in this case, is NOT defined as it is within SOM or sensory empiricism. On top of rejecting the metaphysical assumption they entail, in this broader definition of experience other modes of consciousness are not automatically dismissed, excluded or bracketed out. (because they're JUST subjective)The traditional meaning of "experience" in modern philosophy and science is so narrow that any claims that don't square with it are considered to be nothing more than flakey supernaturalism. Imagine that. Muggles. They're a bunch of square muggles, I tell ya. _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail® has a new way to see what's up with your friends. http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/WhatsNew?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_WhatsNew1_052009 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/
