Hi dmb, I found the post I missed...
On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 3:52 PM, david buchanan <[email protected]> wrote: > > Steve said: > ... I have given my reasoning for why I think that notion is incompatible > with other aspects of Pirsig's philosophy. Again, I am asking for YOUR > reasoning or your understanding of Pirsig's reasoning for how it could be > possible to be out of touch with DQ. Here is my reasoning again in case you > want to engage with it: (1) DQ is primary experience, the leading edge of > experience (2) To say that I am not in touch with DQ then is to say that my > experience does not have a leading edge. (3) How can that be when I am a set > of static patterns left in the wake of that leading edge of experience? If I > begin where DQ ends, how can I be out of touch with it? > > > dmb says: > (1) The first premise seems fine but I don't see how it leads to the second > premise. > > (2) Since DQ is just another name for the leading of experience, to say one > is not in touch with DQ is to say one in not in touch with the leading edge > of experience. Your unstated premise seems to be that one can't be out of > touch with experience simply because it's experience. Why? How do you figure? > I don't see any reasoning at all, just a naked claim that defies the obvious. Steve: That's strange to me since while you see it as defying the obvious, I see it as transparently obvious. I think the issue may be that we are talking about two sorts of truths and two sorts of meanings for "in touch." As Marsha noted, Pirsig's philosophy refers to two different levels of understanding. From the dynamic perspective, it is impossible to be our of touch with DQ since DQ is the very ground of being. To not be in touch with it would be to cease to exist. We can't be _ontologically_ out of touch with DQ. But there is another way to talk about being "out of touch" as you get into here... dmb: I mean, haven't you ever heard about being comfortably numb or out of touch with your own feelings or being oblivious to clues or people who can't take a hint? People are blind, insensitive and oblivious in a million different ways. Haven't you ever heard about the tragedy of living in the past or living for some future goal, as opposed to being in the moment? How do you figure DQ has some built-in guarantee about it? Just like all these other common complaints, to say one is out of touch with DQ is to say we should be more sensitive and more responsive to experience as it's felt and lived through, as opposed to our thoughts about and interpretations of experience. Steve: Sure, but surely you don't mean that someone is _literally_ living in the past and therefore not in touch with the present. The person isn't not feeling her feelings but only giving them a bad interpretation. So this isn't an answer to a question about metaphysics (which is what I had thought we were talking about). It is an answer to a question about whether or not we have good concepts, and that question has nothing to do with our metaphysical relation to DQ which is what it is regardless of what we think about about it. This is a question about our relationship with "DQ" (the concept) rather than with DQ (reality). dmb: Where did you get the idea that you begin where DQ ends? Steve: Metaphysically, according to Pirsig you are a collection of static patterns left in the wake of DQ. That is all I mean in saying that you begin where DQ ends. dmb: DQ is your own primary experience, the immediate flux of your life, not some external or objective reality. Steve: This isn't quite right. DQ is primary experience as Pirsig defines it, but DQ can't be _your own_ primary experience since it precedes "you." You are a collection of static patterns left in it's wake. It is only after the fact that we infer that there was a "you" having an experience. This is Pirsig's Copernican shift. "You" can't be out of touch with DQ since it is constantly being created by it. 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
