Hi dmb,
Steve said to dmb: My understanding of you position is that there is always a discrepancy between primary reality and concepts (this much is granted...) and that that discrepancy constitutes an important philosophical problem to be solved (this part is under dispute). You are insisting that Matt and I fail to make enough of the discrepancy between concepts and reality to be getting DQ right. In contrast you feel that you have a proper understanding of Pirsig's concept of DQ which helps you constantly keep that discrepancy in mind and in doing so are able to get in touch with DQ in ways that Matt and I can't. > dmb says: > Huh? The discrepancy between concepts and reality IS the distinction between > static quality and Dynamic Quality. Understanding DQ and understanding that > discrepancy is practically the same thing. Steve: I understanding that. What I am saying is that that discrepancy is not a problem to be solved. We don't need to overcome the distinction between sq and DQ. We need to be able to USE that distinction to improve our concepts rather than to "get in touch with reality." dmb says: > Like I already said, "You're interpreting the MOQ's first and most basic > distinction as if it were a version of the appearance-reality distinction and > then rejecting it for being a form of Platonism". Steve: No, I don't interpret it that way. I am saying that there is something wrong with YOUR interpretation of sq/DQ as the problem of "being out of touch with reality." It sounds like Platonism. I am very much hoping that Pirsig does not mean what you think he means. (If he does, then I see a problem there as well, but whether he does is a separate question. I meant to raise it in the "taking off the glasses thread" which I think is the best example of Pirsig stating agreement with the position that some people are in touch with reality and others not.) But as I said before, the Platonism question is different from the question of whether Matt and I are missing something important in our philosophies if we don't think of reality as something we can be out of touch with. I keep asking you, and you keep neglecting to answer, if experience is reality, how can we possibly be out of touch with reality? You have provided several quotes where Pirsig seem to agree with you that we CAN be out of touch with reality, but that is not an answer to how that notion could make any sense. I am asking for you to explain to me how it could be possible to be out of touch with reality if experience=reality. If we ourselves are static patterns left in the wake of DQ (the leading edge of experience), then we (as collections of static patterns) begin where DQ ends and could then not possibly be any more intimate with DQ than we always already are. Nothing we can ever think or do could make us more or less in touch with it. As Big Self, we ARE it. As small self, we are a static manifestation of it. There is nothing left to fill this picture with a "something else" that could ever separate us from it. dmb says: Pirsig says our modes of rationality tend to prevent us from seeing quality. It's the problem of squareness and attitudes of objectivity and value-free science. If you ask, "how can the problem be that we aren't in proper relation to it?", then you are saying that Pirsig's work is aimed at solving a fake problem. Steve: If that is indeed what his work is aimed at (and that is debatable), then, yes, it is aimed at a fake problem. How can the problem be "not seeing Quality" when EVERYTHING is Quality? Just what is it do you think we are seeing if not Quality? What could this something else be that we are seeing that is not included in the set "everything"? Best, Steve 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
