Hi DMB
Many thanks for your views below. I am interested to see how
your thinking has evolved since we last discussed these things
some years ago. Please see my comments below.
DMB: It really is a bummer that the MOQ's central distinction is still so
widely misunderstood.
DM: I am sure you don't yet understand my views, so your disappointment is
premature,
I have yet to understand where your thinking is currently and hope I can get
to understand
your current interpretation of the MOQ through these discussions and see why
and where
it differs from mine.
DMB: There is Dynamic Quality and static quality, just two elements and one
distinction. That's it. Keep those two elements straight and you're off to a
good start. Confuse, conflate or swap those elements and you've got trouble.
DM: This distinction is key, I have my own views as to where and how it
should be made, I'd like to say how I make the cut and why, I'd like to
understand how and why you make the cut where you do, once the differences
in our interpretations are clear we can both decide which
interpretation has more value, and perhaps why and where we have different
values motivating our interpretations and the cuts we
are making. This may or may not accord better with what is supported by
Pirsig's writings. I accept that I may or may not be
interpreting the MOQ as the author intended, nothing wrong with that, if
there is clear evidence to show that I am or am not.
Currently I think my views fit with those of Pirsig just fine, but of you
can show me otherwise I am happy to accept that
I am not, and am happy to have my own views and reasons for doing this, but
that's yet to be demonstrated to me, but
I have no problem with such disagreement. How about you DMB? I feel that you
present your views as a follower of Pirsig
and would not be very happy if your interpretation could be shown to be
unsupported by or in conflict with that of Pirsig,
is that a fair comment? That is not a criticism but I just wanted to make it
clear that I am happy to give my interpretation
of the MOQ as my own, and if it cannot be shown to accord with Pirsig's view
of the MOQ then I am happy to offer it
as my own version that is either a better or worse view of reality that the
Pirsig MOQ (which DMB may be correctly
interpreting and explaining) as each person can decide for themselves. Or
course it is also possible that the MOQ
can be interpreted in several different ways that can accord with what
Pirsig has said because either Pirsig's
writings or reality itself cannot presently arbitrate the difference, much
as is the case with current quantum theory
and the various interpretations. I don't think I can be clearer or fairer or
more sophisticated in my response to
your comments in this email.
DMB: One of my favorite quotes on this distinction comes from the end of
chapter 29 in Lila, where Pirsig quotes William James. I think this is the
key to understanding the distinction between DQ and sq, or at least it's a
very neat and simple way to get a handle on these two central elements of
the MOQ.
"There must always be a discrepancy between concepts [static quality] and
reality [Dynamic Quality], because the former are static and discontinuous
while the latter is dynamic and flowing.' Here James had chosen exactly the
same words Phaedrus had used for the basic subdivision of the Metaphysics of
Quality."
DM: Is the use of SQ and DQ in square brackets above done by you or Pirsig?
If Pirsig are you asserting that for Pirsig SQ is always based in concepts
rather than in reality?
Does this mean that in reality there is no similarity between two different
bananas that we can experience as similar? Is the similarity based only in
our concepts of them?
What is it then that the concepts are tying together when we conceive the
bananas as similar? Does similarity/pattern not exist in experienced reality
only in concepts?
Are concepts not part of reality in your interpretation of the MOQ (and as
per Pirsig in the above quote)?
DMB: That's it, just two elements: concepts and reality.
DM: Are you saying SQ=concepts and DQ=reality, implying that SQ is not part
of reality? Is this not a dualism of concepts on the one hand and reality
ion the other?
DMB: By reality, as we can see from the paragraphs leading up to this quote,
Pirsig and James simply mean experience, specifically pure experience,
pre-conceptual experience, the immediate flux of life. This is not to say
that concepts are non-existent but to say the concepts are not to be
confused with that primary experiential reality. Concepts are secondary
additions which we add to experience, use to guide experience, to define the
salient aspects of experience.
DM: I guess that is fairly clear. Sure all concepts are SQ I agree. But is
all SQ conceptual? Are not the levels below the intellectual not forms of
non conceptual SQ? I would have thought that is what Pirsig is saying? DO
you agree? If so then an organic pattern in two separate bananas could be
experienced, especially if you are looking at two bananas and seeing they
are the same, pre-conceptually, pre-linguistically I assume that is
possible. Howe would you put it?
DMB: By saying that a banana is a "pattern we can experience" you've undone
the distinction.
DM: I am not sure I have, please expand.
DMB: Banana is a word, a concept, a static pattern DERIVED from experience.
DM: Obviously I know that already, but we develop the word and concept to
recognise a pattern that we are experiencing pre-linguistically
are we not?
DMB: That's why we can right say, "I ate a banana" to describe a thousand
different experiences. The experience is dynamic but the static pattern
"banana" is not, obviously. Unless you have trouble
spelling or something, "banana" remains to be "banana" no matter how many
different experiences it refers to and no matter how many different people
use the word to define their experience. That's how words and concepts have
to be or we wouldn't be able to communicate or think or reason.
DM: Pretty close to what I am saying, every experience is dynamic, but some
experiences have a static/patterned element that we create new intellectual
levels of
SQ for so that we can describe, recognise and discuss them. Agree or
disagree with that?
Reality is dynamic and is directly known.
DM:Yes
It is experience before you can put it into words or concepts.
DM:Yes
Bananas are not undefinable.
DM: You've just used a word, surely it suggests a definition, something that
can be defined, something common to a range of bananas?
Everybody knows what you mean as soon as you say "banana".
DM: I am sure I agree with that.
We not it's not an "apple" or a "truck" or anything else. It is
discontinuous with all the other words and concepts that it is not. That's
how words and concepts work. We put a fence around it, so to speak, to
separate it from all the other concepts. That's the definition of
definition, if you will. "Fin" means end or limit, right? De FIN itely!
DM: Hard not to be on the same page as the completely obvious.
Experience and concepts.
DM: Not so fast. Maybe better to talk or pre-conceptual and post-conceptual
experience, but it is all experience. What is the point of seeing concepts
( a form of SQ obviously)
as not part of experience, I mean are you experiencing this wordy conceptual
conversation? Sure there is the primary pre-conceptual level of experience,
but is it only dynamic
before it is concpetual? Is not the pre-conceptual also static and SQ
patterned at times? Otherwise how were there any patterns that formed the
inorganic and the iorganic
before human beings came along to conceive the MOQ? Was not the reality of
SQ and DQ forming the cosmos before human beings came along?
That's it. One is not the other. Period. They have a relationship but there
will always be that discrepancy between experience is dynamic and concepts
are not dynamic.
DM: Yes concepts are not dynamic (well except maybe you should say their
emergence is dynamic). But what about experience? I think experience is both
dynamic and static, such are its qualities, do you disagree?
Concepts are static and experience is not static.
DM: I'd say experience is a vast dynamic sea with emerging and dis-emerging
islands of static, which accord the MOQ better with quantum theory I would
suggest.
DM: C'mon, you guys. You can get this, right? It's not that hard. -see I can
be funny too! But if you disagree fine, but let's try to see clearly why and
where
this disagreement is. Or we can do jokes and insults which is fun too.
All the best
David M
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