Hello everyone On Mon, Nov 7, 2011 at 5:00 PM, Matt Kundert <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hey Dan, > > Dan said: > How does reality exist apart from experience? > > Matt said: > Same way that this is true: "The way I read it, since the MOQ states > reality begins with Dynamic Quality experience, it is the idea that > reality exists that comes before the existence of reality." > > You said that in the earlier part of your post to explain how "reality > existed before we personally did" within the frame of the MoQ. So if > one is moved to say a variation of the statement "well, Don, you > know reality does exist apart from our direct experience of it," the > explanation of this statement is not a metaphysical variant of SOM, > but rather that Don, for some reason, was suggesting that his dog's > food dish didn't exist when he wasn't in the room with it (and then > all the attendant worries about whether his dog was starving to > death).
Dan: Right... for Don to "know" the dog dish exists apart from his experience of it is a high quality idea. It allows Don to go about his day without worrying whether Fido is starving to death at home. So we seem to agree it is a high quality idea that reality exists apart from experience but it is only an idea. > > Dan said then: > How does Don know if his dog's food dish exists when he's apart > from experiencing it? > > Matt: > You asked a series of rhetorical questions, but I wanted to isolate > this one because, like your earlier use of "truth" in a way I called > Platonistic, this seems to me like a use of "know" that is > Cartesian--the only answer you will accept is "he doesn't." (Your > use of "empirical evidence" after this is similarly SOMistic.) This is > because you've accepted the Cartesian stance of the > first-person-subject _alone_ facing the object-world. When > Descartes doubted so hard that he considered seriously the idea that > every experience he has might be a dream, he was hoping for a > foundation to put the object-world back together again from only the > conceptual materials provided by a solitary first-person-subject > (which is why the problem of solipsism looms in post-Cartesian > epistemology). You, however, don't have this hope, and so use the > question to say that it's all imaginary and dreamlike. Dan: I think you may have read me wrong... my answer isn't "he doesn't know" so much as he only knows by forming intellectual patterns (ideas) which allow Don to function in a way that would otherwise be impossible. I'm using "Don" as an imaginary example that you introduced... I thought that was a given. If anything, I am opposing the Cartesian stance... again, I thought we had agreed that such a stance goes against the framework of the MOQ so I am a bit surprised that you would bring it up here. Matt: > Here is what > you went on to say > > Dan said: > It seems a bit like the zen koan that asks of a tree falls in the forest > with no one around does it make a sound? I think RMP answers that > along the lines of: what food dish? But what exactly does that mean? > > It seems to indicate that imaginary trees and dog dishes exist only in > the mind. We learn to assume the dog dish exists even when there > is no empirical evidence of its existence. In the same way we > assume there is a history to the world that existed before we > personally appeared and will continue to exist after we pass away > even though there is no way to empirically verify this notion. > > Whether or not Don's dog dish exists apart from the empirical > evidence of its existence is a question rooted in the conviction that > there is a real world out there. Take away that conviction and all that > is left is the imagination. > > Matt: > This runs exactly parallel to your use of truth in "no one history of > rocks is any more true than another," where it assumes that truth is > determined by its accuracy to a reality against which the histories > can be checked, _but_ rather than staging that Platonic project, you > only want to use it to say that that truth is unavailable, and so "no > one history of rocks is any more true than another." Dan: I am glad you see a consistency here. I believe that (sometimes) we tend to take one statement out of context but if we look at the larger more expanded picture the view becomes much more clear. If we take truth as a high quality intellectual pattern, then it is available to us. I thought we agreed on that in a previous post. But if we take truth as some "thing" existing independently of us, then I think we would be hard-pressed to find it. Matt: > You are here > saying that our knowledge of this "out there" reality is unavailable, > and so it is imaginary. Dan: I don't think that is exactly what I'm saying... I am saying we set up imaginary notions such as trees falling in the forest when no one is around and dog dishes existing independently from our experience of them and we believe these notions to be true. We assume the dog dish is there when we walk away and that a thief with a dog dish fetish didn't break into the house and steal it. We assume the tree made a noise when it fell because that's what trees do when they fall. The MOQ is empirical. It begins with experience. When I get up in the night to take an urgent leak and forget that I rearranged the bedroom furniture so that I stub on toe on the bureau that didn't used to be there that isn't imagination. That is empirical. I can verify it by the pain in my toe and the bruise there the next day. I think Ron touched on this in one of his posts... that if ideas come before matter, then matter is an idea. I never meant to infer that... if I did then it is my mistake. The same applies when you say I stated that our knowledge of "out there" is unavailable... that isn't what I meant to infer. I thought we were discussing Don's dog dish... that's what's imaginary... Matt: > But "imaginary," as in _all_ cases of the use > of the word, only makes sense by contrast to "real"--but what > "reality" does it contrast to? Dan: As I explained... imaginary wasn't intended to encompass all of reality... only the idea that there is a reality existing apart from the experience of it... it was meant to address the charge of idealistic solipsism that (as you said earlier) some critics of the MOQ have brought to bear against it. Matt: > The worst case scenario is the > Cartesian sense of "reality," but we were supposed to be rejecting > that S/O contrast by accepting the MoQ, so that sense should be > unavailable to you. Dan: I don't think we need to reject the subject/object contrast by accepting the MOQ. We just need to remember subjects and objects are convenient shorthand for patterns of value. >Matt: > You might say "our direct experiences of rocks are real, so > rocks-apart-from-us achieve their imaginary status in contrast to > that." But what, I might ask mirroring your question, does that > exactly mean? Dan: I would say a direct experience of a rock is empirical. If I trip over a rock I might stumble and fall down. I might say, huh... I didn't see that rock there. If I imagine a rock in my path, can I trip over the idea of a rock? I'm saying the same applies to Don's dog dish... it is imaginary. Can an imaginary dog dish exist or not? I think it can in our imagination. But can Don's imaginary dog find the imaginary dish before it starves to death? Matt: > Is their no check on our imagining of what the world > is like apart from our direct experience of it? Dan: I'm unsure how there could be, other than the idea of the world we build up. We expect things like dog dishes to still exist even when we're not there to empirically verify their existence. Without that expectation... without the high quality idea that the world exists independently from us even when we're not around... we wouldn't be able to function normally. >Matt: > Say Don's in the living room fretting about his dog not getting enough > food because he isn't hovering around the food dish in the kitchen. > Without that direct experience of the food dish, Don worries the dish > won't be there for Fido. Don's buddy Chris gets tired of the moaning > over Fido's fate and goes into the kitchen. Chris then yells out from > the kitchen, "Fido's dish is still here!" Should Don be less fretful? > Why? He, after all, is _not_ directly experiencing the food dish: Chris > is. Don is only directly experiencing the noise coming out of the > kitchen that comes in the form of a sentence expressing information. Dan: And what if Chris yells out: no worries, Don. The dog dish is floating about the room and Fido has grown wings and is fluttering around it happily. There are any number of scenarios when it comes to imaginary dog food dishes... which is why Robert Pirsig (could have) said: what dish? That answer to the hypothetical question is meant to empirically ground reality in experience. But you seem to be turning the answer around and saying that the answer grounds reality in imagination. >Matt: > If we use the sense of "know" you are using, Dan, then Don will still > be in the same position, fretting over Fido's survival because he is > not directly experiencing the food dish. However, wouldn't we want > to say that his imaginary sense of the existence of Fido's food dish is > _enhanced_ in some way by his direct experience of Chris's words? > > I think we do. This enhancement can be articulated in many different > ways at this point, but to deny an effect on what you called the > imagination in this context is to deny common sense assumptions. > And for what use? (I'll get back to that in a moment.) Dan: Well, yes... that's basically what I'm saying too. Our sense of reality is enhanced by the agreement of others. These common sense assumptions are high quality ideas that allow us to survive and thrive. >Matt: > I think the best way to stage the enhancement is to first deny that the > primary context of "to know" is the solitary first-person-subject. I > think that is the Cartesian context. To suggest "knowing" something > is to be in an _inter_personal context, to be in a web of other > people's imaginings, if you will. This allows the following response to > your penultimate statement: "Whether or not Don's dog dish exists > apart from the empirical evidence > of its existence is a question rooted > in the conviction that there is a > real world out there." 1) "Empirical > evidence" should be construed interpersonally, so that nobody would > suggest that a dog dish does exist apart from the empirical evidence > of its existence, though of course some evidence is indirect reporting > from other first-person-subjects. 2) The "conviction" is one found in > every community that has dealt with dog dishes in other rooms. This > conviction is _not_, though, the Cartesian sense of a "real world out > there." Dan: If I understand what you're saying correctly, I agree and I think it fits into the framework of the MOQ in a proper sense. Replacing the notion of a reality where a subject exists independently from the objects that the subject experiences with the notion of a reality composed of values enhances and expands our point of view. Intellectual and social patterns are just as "real" as biological and inorganic patterns, but they are real in a different way. In a reality built upon a subject/object contrast objects are considered more real than a subjective first-person point of view. The truth of an object resides within that object for all to see. But I think we all know that simply isn't the case... if it were we would all like the same things and dislike the same things. > > Dan said: > "Normal" people have learned to assume with conviction that they > did feed Fido, that they did turn off the tea kettle, that they did lock > the door, and they go on their way without a second thought. These > people are the hardest to convince that a concrete reality doesn't > exist apart from the experience of it. Of course it does. What they > fail to discern is that the reality that exists is imaginary. > > Matt: > What I'm wondering is why it matters so much that everyone think > that "a concrete reality doesn't exist apart from the experience of it." Dan: It doesn't matter. I was merely pointing out why we have learned to agree that reality exists apart from the experience of it. Matt: > Why is it so important to not fail in discerning that "the reality that > exists is imaginary"? One way of thinking about the importance set > up by your train of thought is that people who don't understand that > reality is imaginary won't second-guess themselves--they won't > _reflect_, they will pass on Socratic self-examination and live as > Achillean "men of action." But did Socrates think that reality was > imaginary in the sense that you do above? I think only in an > attenuated sense, and I'm not sure why one needs complicated > metaphysical views (or paradoxical ones) to be able to get oneself > to pause once in a while and reflect, "_Did_ I turn off the kettle?" Dan: I tend to agree. But then one might also ask: why does a person need to climb a mountain? why is a person compelled to spend years writing a philosophical novel they expect few people to read? why don't we all just go to work everyday, come home and drink a six-pack while we sit in front of the television, go to bed (and maybe have sex with the mister or the missus) and get up the next day to do it all over again? 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
