Steve said to Matt:
... I'm trying to sort out epistemology (Pirsig's idealism where quality gives
rise to ideas which gives rise to matter) from ontology (radical empiricism,
reality = quality cut into dyamic/static) and cosmology (evolution of value
patterns) in the MOQ. Maybe you can help? DMB says that in the MOQ epistemology
IS ontology and that radical empiricism is epistemology, but I can't see how it
makes any sense to say so since epistemology and ontology are answers to
different questions.
dmb says:
I think you're trying to understand these issues from within SOM. I mean, the
distinction between what there is (ontology) and how we can know it
(epistemology) assumes a distinction between reality and experience that the
radical empiricist has rejected already.
"A casual reader may think James is careless in the way in which he shifts from
'experience' to 'reality' but this is NOT a sign of loose terminology or
confusion. It reflects James's doctrine of 'pure experience' where the
traditional distinctions between 'experience' and 'reality' are broken down."
(Burkhardt's emphasis, p. xxvi)
"The story of modern epistemology, which can be written in terms of a
refinement of questions concerning what is 'in' the mind and what is 'outside',
is the story of implausible answers to a poorly formulated query. The dichotomy
which is taken as so obvious between consciousness or mind and what is
'outside' of our minds is completely specious. There is only a continuous
reality or experience which we TAKE in different ways." (Burkhardt's emphasis,
xxvii)
As you might recall, James says that the first great pitfall from which radical
empiricism will save us is a fake idea of the relation between knower and
known. His doctrine of pure experience says knower and known, subject and
object, are secondary concepts derived from experience and not the ontological
ground of experience. This is the very same "copernican revolution" we see even
back in ZAMM, where Pirsig finally says that "the very existence of subject and
object themselves is deduced from the Quality event. The Quality event is the
cause of subjects and objects, which are then mistakenly presumed to be the
cause of Quality!" (ZAMM 239)
Steve said:
>From an epistemological perspective (knower/known) it is impossible to sort
>out the dynamic and static aspects of consciousness (the process of defining
>DQ). .., this issue calls to mind the highway full of nothing but "you don't
>know how to drive!" image I applied to accusations of SOM around here such as
>that DMB recently made on this point when I said that doing epistemology
>always involves supposing a distinction between a knower and what is known.
>"That's SOM!" I don't think so unless epsitemology is always SOM. I think is
>just a useful assumption sometimes and is what is always assumed in doing
>epistemology.
dmb says:
You do realize that the distinction between knower and known is just an
alternative set of terms with the same meaning. The knower is the subject and
the known is the object. Since these are the assumptions (or this is the
dualism) attacked by radical empiricism. Obviously, that means we have an
empiricism that does NOT assume that distinction in its formulations. Instead
of having a knower and a thing to be known, the central distinction is between
two kinds of knowing, between two kinds of experience, namely dynamic and
static. There is the stream of experience and then there are the conceptual
buckets we TAKE from it. Subject and objects are in the buckets. Conversation,
intersubjective agreement and all our vocabularies are in the buckets too. Even
the MOQ, as a system of ideas, can only be so many buckets from the stream.
"Now it comes! Because Quality is the GENERATOR of the mythos. That's it.
That's what he meant when he said, 'Quality is the continuing stimulus which
causes us to create the world in which we live. All of it. Every last bit of
it'. Religion isn't invented by man. Men are invented by religion. Men invent
RESPONSES to Quality, and among these are responses is an understanding of what
they themselves are."
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