Hi Dave,
I'm sorry, Dave. You're going to hate everything I say, it doesn't
move anything forward, and I don't have the time or energy to try
and think of how to do so, whether that's trying harder to figure out
what my block is in understanding the force of your arguments or
whatever the case is. But these are honest and sincere.
Dave said:
I'm asking you to address the similarities between the various names
and descriptions of DQ because substance of the dispute is about DQ.
Matt:
I guess I never understood that the focal point of our conversation
included comparing James, Dewey, etc., and Pirsig and investing
authority in how they apprehend Pirsig and Dynamic Quality better
than I do. I was concentrating on Pirsig.
DMB said:
As a respondent, you should be reading carefully enough to identify
the main ideas and terms anyway. I assume that you want to
respond to the main ideas and main points, rather than some
irrelevant tangent or an added joke. Obviously, the substantial
remarks should be duplicated in your response to them. Doing
anything less is to practice obfuscation, don't you think? I do.
Matt:
So, you are saying here that, since you've asserted a practice of
obfuscation on my part, that I'm not a careful reader and do not
discern main ideas well at all. Okay. I was serious and sincere in
my efforts to try to be that careful reader and responder, as I pretty
much always have, so if you've decided that I am not that person,
I'm not sure why you still talk to me.
Matt said:
I can't remember that well either where I was at those moments,
and what we were exactly talking about.
DMB said:
Exactly. It's difficult because your comments are aimed at material
that was deleted. That's why you shouldn't take it off the table
when you respond. What possible purpose could be served by this
disappearing act, except to obscure and hide things?
Matt:
Really? It's my fault to not being able to remember the particulars of
our bewildering conversation from two weeks ago? I take things "off
the table," as you say it, because I try and streamline the posts. Not
to try and obscure. But, again, you've decided the fate of my
reputation in your mind, so I'm not sure why you continue to talk to
me.
DMB said:
If your contention is that one cannot go around one's SQ glasses,
then your contention is that one cannot have access to DQ.
Matt:
I'm sorry, did you carefully read my redescription of our access to
Dynamic Quality in the terms of my version of the analogies?
Because it is simply false, according to my terms, that I've argued
self-consciously that "one cannot have access to DQ." Only if you've
refused my angle of description does it _appear_ that way, and
even then it is false to say it is _my_ contention: that's your
construal of my contention, and I don't think it is a very legitimate
way of arguing against it. Because what you haven't done is shown
what the problem is.
DMB said:
So you're saying there is a difference between DQ itself and the term
"DQ" and the Rorty slogan only refer to the term and not the
experience that the term refers to. The problem is that the TERMS
for DQ are static and intellectual. Since that's the case, Rorty's
slogan can only make sense when it's applied to static quality but
we're supposed to be talking about something that's always
described in CONTRAST to static quality. At best, your use of Rorty's
slogan is misleading and inappropriate. In the original, Rorty's
slogan is about "truth" and if we apply it to Pirsig's notion of truth it
is much less of a conceptual train wreck because in both cases we
are talking about static intellectual good. But as a rendering of DQ
itself or even the term "DQ", it just doesn't work.
Matt:
1) I'm not sure why you are trying to construe Rorty's slogan, as you
should be focused on Pirsig and my work
2) I don't understand what I did wrong. When I introduced the
difference between DQ itself and the term "DQ," I thought I was
repeating something you already agreed with. That "the TERMS for
DQ are static and intellectual," terms like "primary empirical reality,"
which have their existence as terms as a "static intellectual good."
The slogan isn't misleading at this point to say that it applies only to
one side of a distinction you seem to agree with. And I'm sure
you've specified anything more than that apparent mistake. There's
more to be said about this on my end, but I'm not sure what good it
will do unless you can agree that I'm just trying to begin from a
position that is uncontroversial.
DMB said:
The main idea here is that DQ is empirical reality itself, experience
itself, ....
You see how Rorty's slogan would fit here? A compliment we pay to
sentences would be a judgement about experience, a description of
experience, the oaths generated after the fact, the static patterns of
thought generated later.
Matt:
Yes, I think that is indeed the page I was working from, by clarifying
how the slogan is relative to the static patterns, and not the "itself."
Am I not understanding what you are saying here? It's possible that
I don't see the disastrous consequences that emanate as you see
them, but to see us as agreeing on this point what be the first place
to start in order to clarify what specific contradiction you see in my
own thought. Because if I agree with you here, that means there's
an evil element somewhere else, and that you don't think I can hold
both of them together. (I'm sorry about cutting off so much in the
ellipsis, but it is unclear to me what point I'm obscuring by doing so.
I don't take issue with any of it, after all. I'm just trying to shorten
an already obese exchange.)
Matt said:
My version of the train analogy was meant to articulate how chaos
fits together with Dynamic Quality. (I must also add here that your
assimilating "a crack in the glasses" to "jumping off the train" is a
reading mistake on your part, or an injudicious collapse of a
distinction I wanted to maintain. I'm unclear about whether that was
an honest mistake or intentional, but if it was intentional, I'm unclear
as to what legitimates the collapse.)
DMB said:
What distinction did you want to maintain? What does chaos have to
do with anything?
Matt:
Does Pirsig not make a distinction between DQ and chaos, and how
they can be confused? Here's what I said again. Should I say read
carefully, or is that rude?
-----
*An extrapoloation of the train analogy of ZMM might help to make
plausible my contention that one cannot go around one's SQ glasses.
If we think in those terms, the front edge of the train is DQ and
everything behind it--i.e., the train--is SQ. If we posit a person
moving about the train (don't worry about what this metaphysically
corresponds to), then the only way to get up to that leading edge is
by being right behind it, on the train. If one thinks to get around the
train to the front, the only way I can imagine doing so is to leap off
the train. But if this train is moving fast, as I imagine it is, that means
death. (If it doesn't mean certain death, it also means no front edge
of the train, as it sweeps past you: can you run as fast as a train?)
This analogy, then, explains the relationship between small self and
Big Self in a way that distinguishes a bad death of the small self from
a good death. Leaping from the train is leaping away from your
small self into the terra incognita of Big Self, but it is a pure and total
death, or movement into pure chaos. Enlightenment, however, keeps
your small self in its capacity to live and move in
society/static-patterns, though _solely_ (as I read it) as a vehicle to
pursue Big Self _at the front of the train_, not _off_ the train.
-----
DQ is "good death"; chaos is "bad death." Chaos is leaping off the
train, not DQ.
DMB said:
And did you not say "one cannot go around the glasses" and did you
not say that one will face death and chaos unless one stays on the
static train?
Matt:
You're mistaking how I articulated the analogy. Properly speaking,
you _are_ the train plus your connection to DQ. By positing the
person--which I warned not to try and figure out the metaphysical
corresponding element--I was hoping to suggest how chaos relates
to Pirsig's metaphysics of the self. Remember--in my analogies, both
of them, I've articulated a version of the DQ connection.
DMB said:
Are you NOT saying that static quality is all we really have?
Matt:
No. As I say in the analogy, "the only way to get up to that leading
edge is by being right behind it, on the train." Think of it as the little
person, balancing themselves precariously at the nose of the raging
train, sticking their face as far in front of it as possible. In fact, the
difficulty of the balancing act is a decent way of articulating the
difficulty of staying Enlightened, of attaining nirvana. (I'm reminded
here of Bergson's treatment of Duration in softening up our notion of
where "we" are in relation to the past, present, and future, though I
don't have anything precise to say about this thought.)
DMB said:
You've still given me no reason to think that this reading is a mistake.
Matt:
I assume that this will only remain the case if you do not allow me to
articulate DQ the way I want to in the analogy. What's absurd about
this objection is that you assume that I would hold to the analogy
without its ability to articulate DQ. But if you did convince me that the
analogy is inadequate, why wouldn't I reject the analogy as you do
since I assume, like you, that it's important to get the DQ connection
right?
Matt said:
I don't see what is "jarring" or "incongruous," as you say, between
the work Pirsig sees DQ as handling and my version of what that work
is. And you don't really offer an explanation of the incongruity, except
what I have to infer is the difference between what your impression
of the _magnitude_ of the "primary" in "primary reality" is and the
opposite impression of magnitude from my word "fragment" (when
describing the glasses analogy).* [The asterisk is the train analogy
already printed above.] However, I can't help but perceive that as a
superficial rhetorical difference in the words, and not the conceptual
position I was describing. After all, a "fragment" of molten lava
burns the shit out of you. A more congenial understanding of these
"fragments" would understand them to be quite powerful as they are.
This, then, dovetails with the train analogy: taking off the glasses
would blind your eyes (bad death/chaos), just as leaping from the
train would kill you.
DMB said:
Seriously??! As you see it, there is only a superficial rhetorical
difference between a "fragment" and an "endless landscape of
awareness"?
Matt:
You're still not reading the analogy congenially. DQ _is_ in my
glasses analogy the "endless landscape," which is what bursts
through the fissures in our static-patterns-glasses. The "endless
landscape" is also, you'll remember, the terra incognita in Pirsig's
train analogy. But it isn't, you'll recall, incognita on the tracks; the
endless landscape is what surrounds the train's small portion of it.
And our connection to it--on Pirsig's train analogy--is that small
spatial location called the front edge of the train. (I'm here simply
trying to draw a parallel between some of the magnitudes in Pirsig's
own analogy to the verbiage I used that you object to.)
DMB said:
As you see it, there is no jarring incongruity between blinding your
eyes and seeing freshly?
Matt:
That's your reading mistake again. "Blindness" is bad death/chaos;
"seeing freshly" is good death/DQ.
I've eliminated your line of thought about the difference between
"fragment" and "totality," and your revisioning of my lava analogy,
because it seems to me predicated on this mistake I'm trying to get
you to correct in your understanding of what I am saying (as
opposed to what I'm not saying, which is what you are articulating
as what I am saying). I hope that is reasonable.
DMB said:
That's one of the reasons I'm annoyed when you delete all the
various terms for DQ that I put on the table.
Matt:
Well, I think I _had_ articulated earlier in our conversation how
"freshly seeing" and "endless landscape" fit into my analogies. But I
can't remember, so I hope now you are less annoyed, as you should
be able to see how I account for them, these "various terms for DQ"
(or at least, the strategy I would take). This should allow you to
more precisely state what is wrong with the account.
DMB said:
Chaos? How is a discussion of chaos going to do anything other than
complicate the issue.
Matt:
Indeed, now you see: I'm trying to _advance_ our understanding of
how pieces of Pirsig's philosophy fit together. It's perfectly legitimate,
I think, to want to make sure that one gets the simple pieces right
first before adding complexity, as you have. But I hope you have a
better sense of how to isolate what you think I'm getting wrong,
because I haven't understood that yet.
DMB said:
I mean, isn't chaos what you get when you try to get by on DQ all by
itself without any static patterns?
Matt:
Uh...that's my "bad death," "leaping off the train," "blindness,"
"leaping into a volcano"....
So, yes Dave, take that understanding of chaos, and trail back to my
analogies and see what you make of them this time.
DMB said:
Isn't that an entirely different can of worms, one that would depend
on first having a firm grasp on the very distinction in dispute?
Matt:
Entirely different? Meh, but I hope I've shown the way to
understanding my analogies and what they were built to describe.
I've eliminated a lot of what you wrote after that, about James and
stuff, because it wasn't disagreeable and because I don't have a
sense of what you think I need to disagree with because of the
position I take. However, I should comment on the connection
between these two pieces--
DMB said:
DQ itself can't be defined and so it is something we can talk about
only indirectly. That why Pirsig and the other philosophers employ
metaphors, analogies, imagery and other forms of figurative speech
and that is why they use negative terms that describe what DQ is not.
...
The experience they're all talking about is pure or direct or
immediate or primary (list of synonyms) in the sense that it is as yet
unanalyzed, pre-intellectual, undifferentiated, undivided,
pre-conceputal or pre-verbal (another list of synonyms).
Matt:
I want to point out that the second sentence is an "is" predication of
"pure," etc. and not an "is not" negative term description. I say this
to point out that I accept that "DQ itself can't be defined," and that
one consequence of this, I think, is that we could be wrong about
our "is" predications. And by "we," I mean additionally James and
Pirsig: anyone. A word being a synonym does not mean we should
just willy-nilly use it without reflection in our philosophical
vocabularies. We want to be self-conscious about what we mean
and do not mean. (For example, avoiding the Myth of the Given,
which has in the modern tradition often accompanied the same
string of predications.)
I have two points to make regarding this: first, I'm not sure my
extrapolations of the analogies to include chaos violate Pirsig's ability
to use _all_ of those predications. As such, I'm not convinced that
my analogies aren't consistent with Pirsig's complete philosophical
vision, and thus could be described as correct extrapolations of
_his_ philosophy.
The second limited point I am here making is that every
interpreter-philosopher should reserve the right to reject some of the
predications, but not all, in order to clarify Pirsig's philosophical
vision. Nobody is perfect, and if one discovers an unharmonious
note, it's imperative for the acolyte to extirpate it.
What I have not done here is say what, if any, bad notes Pirsig
sounds. I have a history of saying those things, but I have not the
time nor energy to reconsider whether I still do. I can't be perfectly
sure. This isn't to be disingenuous, and I'm not trying to escape
from being held accountable for what I have said, but I want to be
clear about what I am and am not saying _right now_, and if
someone wishes to hold be accountable for something I've said in
the past, you'd have to dig it out and ask me if I still think it.
I am not, in other words, accusing Pirsig or anyone of being a
Platonist, SOMist, or user of the Myth of the Given. I am advancing
no criticism. The second point is merely methodological about the
role of the individualist-philosopher (i.e. "philosopher" in Pirsig's
sense) who also wishes to be an interpreter-scholar (i.e.
"philosophologist" in Pirsig's sense). It's the same thing Pirsig
does to James, when he says things along the lines of, "Well, what
James should've said...." Those aren't rejections of James, they
are clarifications of the central vision of James such that Pirsig can
count himself as a Jamesian.
DMB said:
You ought to take the hot stove analogy into account and you CAN
account for it but you don't like the example and you have not taken
into account so far. The result is the same regardless of whether you
can't or you won't account for it. Either way, you do not have exactly
what I accuse you of not having, which is a coherent understanding
of DQ.
Matt:
No, "having not" done something is not the same as being
conceptually unable, and I didn't say I _will not_, as in refuse, but
that I don't have time to. Being "unable" is something you haven't
shown me--you haven't shown me what the incoherence is. (As far
as I can tell, that you think you have is based on your inability to
read my posts coherently.)
For better or worse, I've dropped much of the post between the
penultimate thing I've quoted and this last thing. I'm not sure how
much time I can give you in meditating properly about Pirsig and my
philosophical position. This is more than I should already be doing.
I'll do what I can, but I'm not sure it will be adequate to your high
standards.
So, you can count me the runner, then I guess. I see how easy it is
to turn the tables on you, and for you to turn them on me, that
conversing with you just leaves me sour, as it obviously does for you.
I suppose I'm not as self-confident as you in the righteousness of my
position. But I do prefer always having a little of the fluidity of doubt,
even when I'm not sure of what or why.
Matt
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