Hello everyone On Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 5:43 PM, Matt Kundert <[email protected]> wrote: > > 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.
Dan: I'd have to go back and see exactly what point I was making to Steve and Ron. At the time it seemed pertinent that Dynamic Quality is better understood as not this, not that. Ron seemed to be making a point that Dynamic Quality is always Good while Steve countered with a quote from LC that it is unwise to state Dynamic Quality is always affirmative. I'm not sure either of them are mistaken, however. The point I was attempting to make has to do with RMP's statement that when we raise any static ideas about Dynamic Quality someone else can take those ideas and oppose them. That is why it is better not to say Dynamic Quality is always Good, always affirmative. > > 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. Dan: I don't think that is quite right... here's a few LILA quotes to perhaps show why: "When A. N. Whitehead wrote that "mankind is driven forward by dim apprehensions of things too obscure for its existing language," he was writing about Dynamic Quality. Dynamic Quality is the pre-intellectual cutting edge of reality, the source of all things, completely simple and always new." "It is an assumption that flies outrageously in the face of common experience. The low value that can be derived from sitting on a hot stove is obviously an experience even though it is not an object and even though it is not subjective. The low value comes first, then the subjective thoughts that include such things as stove and heat and pain come second. The value is the reality that brings the thoughts to mind." "The value is between the stove and the oaths. Between the subject and the object lies the value. This value is more immediate, more directly sensed than any "self" or any "object" to which it might be later assigned. It is more real than the stove. Whether the stove is the cause of the low quality or whether possibly something else is the cause is not yet absolutely certain. But that the quality is low is absolutely certain. It is the primary empirical reality from which such things as stoves and heat and oaths and self are later intellectually constructed." [LILA] Dan comments: And I agree there is a subtlety here easily overlooked... the negative value of realizing we're sitting on the hot stove comes later... we are not yet certain what is creating the negative value... we only know that we are indeed in a low quality situation. That much is empirically verifiable. The low quality value we experience sitting on a hot stove is more real than our sweet ass or the stove. It is that empirical reality out of which we intellectually construct the negative notion of sitting on a hot stove. What I sense Steve is doing (and you by backing him up) is assigning a negative value to that which gets us off the stove... Dynamic Quality. We are indeed in a low quality situation but the subjective thought of negative value (of pain) comes later. Pain as a negative value is subjective. But what gets us off the stove is between the stove and the subjective self, according to Robert Pirsig. Perhaps there is a confusion between low value and negative value which is being overlooked. >Matt: > 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. Dan: Of course no one will argue that sitting on a hot stove is not a low value situation. That is undeniable. But the negative value situation is intellectually constructed out of the empirical reality of direct experiences such as sitting on hot stoves... the low value resides between the stove and the self sitting upon it. That value is more immediate. What we call a negative value situation of pain comes after we jump off, muttering oaths, knowing (intellectually) that the reason our buns are burning is that we've sat on a hot stove. That is secondary though. >Matt: > 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. Dan: Well... thank you for that. But I don't see that I am being innovative at all. I see Robert Pirsig as the innovator here. I am only seeking a better, more expansive understanding of the MOQ. Thank you, Dan 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
