Hey Dan, Dan said: Yes I see what you mean... although I took a form of "backtrack" from your previous post which I mistakenly attributed to Steve.
Matt: Me? That doesn't sound like one of my words that I use when reading Pirsig. Hm. Matt said: My intervention tried to bring out how I think you dissolved a problem only by glossing away some of Pirsig's conceptual positioning. Dan said: I would be interested in knowing how you came to that conclusion. It was my hope and intention not to dissolve the problem by glossing away any of RMP's conceptual positioning but rather expanding on them. Matt: No, I understand. My reasoning was in that Oct. 2 post I was talking about. In particular the paragraph that begins "Dan seems to object to this formulation," where I try and enter you into the somewhat gerrymandered conversation over a common object of inquiry between you, Ron, and Steve. I'm not so sure, now, that this was a good idea (because of this next bit). Dan said: The point I was attempting to make is that we don't always intellectually know what's better. Matt: That makes much more sense as an articulation of Pirsig, and--as I understand it--is not at all at issue between Ron and Steve, nor for our understanding of Pirsig. Whatever "betterness" is a problem in the DQ formulation is not a static-intellectual-betterness. (And I'm not terribly sure that's what Pirsig was talking about in the LC passage at issue either.) At least, I still can't quite see how you've illuminated a mistake Steve, Ron, or myself was making with the approach and salve you wanted to apply. Pirsig in Lila: Any person of any philosophic persuasion who sits on a hot stove will verify without any intellectual argument whatsoever that he is in an undeniably low-quality situation: that the _value_ of his predicament is negative. Dan said: But note the term "intellectual argument." The difficulty (as I see it) resides in pointing to that which comes before intellectual argument and evaluation. I agree that the experience of sitting upon a hot stove is a negative experience. As far as I can see, and as you say, that is quite uncontroversial. But that negative experience isn't what gets the person off the hot stove. That comes later. Matt: There's that subtlety I remarked about again. I read Pirsig, and I see him saying that sitting on a hot stove is "an undeniably low-quality situation," and that this "value" is "negative." And since Pirsig collapses the reality/experience distinction, meaning everything is an experience, I naturally inferred that our connection to the negative situation was through experience, thus ipso facto, Pirsig was saying that sitting on the hot stove is a negative experience. You say, no. You say that "low-quality situation," the negative experience, comes after what actually gets us off the stove. I reiterate that this seems revisionary, for in Pirsig's implicit dichotomy in the sentence "intellectual argument" stands off against "is in an undeniably low-quality situation." It is because Pirsig says "without any intellectual argument" that I am to understand that this "undeniably low-quality situation" is what he otherwise calls a "direct experience," i.e. DQ. But you seem to be saying that's wrong. I don't see how you are saying this with Pirsigian tools. (And it certainly doesn't appear to be an accurate rendering of that moment in the text, though I haven't close read the passage fully at all.) And that's why I commend innovation on your part. Matt 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/md/archives.html
