Hi Dave (Arlo Ron et.al.)
I'm not sure where we are disagreeing here - or even if we are disagreeing!
When I'm talking about illusions what I'm referring to is the process of
building up a picture of the world based on the information available to
me - this process is based on adapting incomplete knowledge to the point
where what I believe is sufficient for me to be able to accept that what
I experience is as real as it's possible to be.
What I'm saying about illusions is that they serve a pragmatic need in
the task of making sense of the world.
Static patterns of value represent what we know about the world and
given that a huge amount of information is lacking we build that
representation on what we have.
As far as I'm aware, I'm agreeing with Pirsig by saying that static
patterns are illusory and that the empirical reality of the world is
other than static patterns. We form a coherent picture of reality by way
of static patterns of value - but that picture is not reality itself.
Merely our representation of it.
What I'm getting at is that the idea of static patterns in an
intellectual construction based on what information we possess - and the
content of those patterns is subject to change. Confusing the picture of
reality with reality itself is a mistake as is confusing illusion with
delusion. Illusions are what we work with all the time - we don't have
anything else.
Dave:
They see the dominance of the intellect as a distortion and they both
say concepts are always secondary and subservient.
Horse:
Have I said anything different. To assume that the intellectual
constructs that we use (illusions) are anything other than secondary and
subservient is a mistake.
The process of what you term the abstracting function is the process of
creating illusion - nothing more or less. The abstractions that we
create certainly don't want to be thrown away - without them we're
screwed! But we need to remember that they are abstractions or illusions.
Dave:
Intellectualism becomes vicious, he said, when concepts are reified,
deified and the empirical reality from which they were abstracted in the
first place is denigrated as less than real.
Horse:
Our illusions about the world have no bearing on the underlying reality
(i.e. they don't affect it) - the problem is that getting at the
underlying reality is an extremely difficult process because the main
way we have of interacting with the world is through our senses (which
distort and filter biologically and inorganically) and our thoughts
(similarly distorted and filtered by social conditioning and education).
Can you tell me what is the exact nature of the world?
Dave:
[The] Static patterns of the menu are only an "illusion" if you're
confusing them with the food.
Horse:
Illusions/abstractions are only problematic if you assume that the world
and the illusions are the same thing. Illusions work well enough to
allow us to function within the world - but they are not the world. They
are merely the way that we make sense of the world.
Illusions (SQ) and Reality (DQ) - not versus as you say.
Keeping in mind that illusions are not delusions or hallucination but a
good tool to work with is important.
Horse
On 30/04/2011 17:11, david buchanan wrote:
Horse said:
The way I see it is that the only thing that's real is Quality - and Pirsig/MoQ
splits this into Static Quality and Dynamic Quality.
Arlo replied:
Right, "Quality is the primary empirical reality of the world" (LILA). But then you seem to go on and say that only DQ is "reality", and SQ is "illusion". I
think this is a mistake, and I think it's because it continues to use the "real" in some existential sense rather than an empirical one. ...its apparent we define
"illusion" differently. To me being "not entirely correct" does not make something an "illusion". What is an illusion is the consideration of subjects and
objects as primary existants. Failing to see Quality, failing to see that "reality" is empirical and not existential, this is the illusion. ...When Pirsig talks about
"gooning out" when he meets Redford, he says, "It was no subjective illusion. It's a very real primary reality, an empirical perception." (LILA) Our empirical
perceptions, they are what is real, they define what is "real" as precisely a experiential phenomenon and not as an existential one.
dmb says:
I think that's a very clear and neat way to put it, Arlo. We could think about
this in terms of the basic set up. As Pirsig is just about to launch into the
MOQ proper, he addresses the concerns of the two main opponents of metaphysics;
the positivists and the mystics. They oppose metaphysics for two completely
different reasons. The positivists, operating with materialist assumptions, say
that metaphysics is meaningless. They'll be extremely skeptical, if not
completely dismissive, of any statement that can't be verified through direct
observation. For them, physical reality is what's real and true statements are
the ones that correspond to it. The mystics, on the other hand, reject
metaphysics because they're operating on the view that reality is outside of
language and beyond all concepts. Ideas don't bring you closer to reality, they
say, it has to be known directly, through non-conceptual experience.
Rather than simply take sides with one or the other, Pirsig sort of splits the
difference here and proceeds with his metaphysics despite their objections. He
agrees with the positivist's empiricism but says that positivism was rejecting
metaphysics for metaphysical reasons and he says these empiricists aren't
empirical enough. He agrees with the mystic's assertion that metaphysics is
just a menu and ought not be confused with the actual food. But he also says
that forming a coherent picture of reality is just part of life. The only one
who doesn't pollute the mystical reality with conceptual understandings hasn't
been born yet, he says. And to make a long story short, the MOQ splits the
difference in such a way that we get pragmatism and mysticism at the same time.
The MOQ is both. And experience is central to both.
So the MOQ says that experience is what's real. The primary empirical reality (DQ) is the
food and the menu (sq) is valuable and helpful to the extent that it helps you get the
food. In other words, the point and purpose of static quality is to successfully guide
the ongoing course of experience, to serve life. The intellect isn't rejected so much as
it is demoted, stripped of it's pretensions to eternal truth and absolute certainty. This
was James's purpose too. Like Pirsig, he traces the problem all the way back to Plato and
the ancients. James calls it "vicious abstractionism". Intellectualism becomes
vicious, he said, when concepts are reified, deified and the empirical reality from which
they were abstracted in the first place is denigrated as less than real. And so James and
Pirsig push back against this. They see the dominance of the intellect as a distortion
and they both say concepts are always secondary and subservient. There is a point and
purpose to this abstracti
ng function. It's definitely not something we want to throw away or dismiss as an
illusion. Static patterns of the menu are only an "illusion" if you're
confusing them with the food.
It's concepts AND reality, you know? Not concepts vs reality.
In what sense were those 1945 bombs not real? Shall we just shrug it off because all that
death and destruction was ultimate and eternal? Because it only ruined
"conventional" realities or contingent beings? No that is exactly the problem
with vicious abstractionism. It doesn't explain human suffering so much as it explains it
AWAY. Betterness or meliorism is at the heart of the move against this kind of nihilistic
otherworldliness.
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