Bo, Platt, All --
On Sept. 26 Platt had written:
Maybe the problem between we Pirsigians and you is in our
understanding of "experience." You say "experience is the
objective content of the conscious self" whereas Pirsig says
experience occurs "prior to intellectual abstractions."
In other words, take it one step before thoughts like
"conscious self" and "objective content." Even take it one
step before the thought, "experience." As Huang Po said,
"Start thinking about it and you miss it." Or as one of my
favorites, Kafka, wrote ...
[Bo comments]:
This was the initial ZAMM deliberations when subjects and objects
(also called "intellect") was the first and only static fall-out. Correct
enough, but in the final MOQ much "experience" precedes intellect
which BTW isn't abstractions, but the (value of the) concrete/abstract
distinction (another S/O). "Thinking" is merely language internalized
and language is from the social era and nothing is spoiled by it, rather
a splendid tool to express the subtlest experience .... IMO you know
[Ham replied, to Platt]:
It's true that my understanding of "experience" is awareness of
objective reality, whereas the Pirsigians include awareness of
Quality (Value) as "pre-intellectual.experience." There's a logical
reason for distinguishing sensibility from experience (objectification).
[Bo comments]:
"Awareness of objective reality" is SOM's monster-platypus.
Objective reality contained in the subjective mind! Are you
completely unaware of this paradox that has bothered Western
philosophy since SOM came to a head with Descartes, Berkeley
the first who cried "foul play" and Pirsig's MOQ the first and only
way out of SOM's blind alley..
Yes, the "sensibility"experience" distinction is logical and known
to all mankind (from the social level onwards) but what's not so
logical is appointing this distinction as fundamental - the SOM -
and hence the paradoxes.
As Bo has just stipulated:
Again Pirsig inadvertently confirms the SOL (intellect as the
S/O distinction). From inside intellect the fundamental split is
between a self and its world.
[Ham, previously]:
If intellect is what divides the self from "its world", then experience
of objective reality requires intellection.
Personally, I don't consider "awareness of objective reality" a "monster
platypus". I consider it an accurate definition of existence.
[Bo dissents]:
"Intellect" is no agent that divides, as I say above: the intellectual
level
IS the S/O distinction, what you hint to is intelligence - the ability to
guide "data" through logical gates - which origin is biological and have
been used by the levels in turn for their own purpose.
Bo, you constantly insist on 'levelizing' intellect, as if it were a
category of Nature like biology or physics, whereas it is actually a
functional process of the individual (brain). Mr. Pirsig at least talks
about "experience" which you seem to ignore, along with individual
awareness. Aside from an "intellectual pattern", how would you define
experience? Do you not see it as the (objective) content of awareness?
Even if you don't believe in a "subject" per se, certainly you must
acknowledge conscious awareness as fundamental to human beings. If not,
kindly explain in what category or level you place awareness.
[Bo]:
These deliberation makes me break a sweat: Consciousness, self,
awareness are all intellectual patterns, there's always an OBJECT for
(subjective) consciousness. As said you never find anything about the
"I" and/or consciousness in pre-intellect (level) texts. I know Ham
despises this argument, but it's highly relevant.
[Ham, previously]:
And defining the 'I' (ego?) of existence as "interactive patterns" is
your way of dismissing the subjective self. My self may not "exist"
as rocks and trees do, but it is my reality nonetheless. If I were to
dismiss it (as Descartes tried to do), I could not vouch for the
existence of anything.
[Bo]:
Descartes dismissing the self!? He affirmed the self in his famous
sentence.
Of course he did ...but he arrived at "I think, therefore I AM" only after
ruling out everything else that he doubts about, including himself. Using
the MoQ hierarchy as your bible, you come to the opposite conclusion:
"Everything I experience is a pattern, therefore I am a pattern too"! I
don't know how Platt feels about this, but Descartes makes more sense to me.
Incidentally, how can you regard Descartes as "pre-intellectual" in the
historic sense, since he clearly refers to the subject 'I' doing the
thinking?
Until you can acknowledge individual awareness as the subject and knower of
experience, you and I remain "intellectually split".
--Ham
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