Hi Dan
Thanks for your comments. Please see my clarifications, comments,
questions below...
Interesting. So for you memories are not a form of experience?
Dan: Well, I thought we were discussing the MOQ, here. Right?
DM: Yes, and I am asking how you understand the status of memories
in the MOQ in terms of SQ and DQ. I have been assuming that for the MOQ
everything
is a form of experience and all expereince can be divided into SQ or DQ. now
you seem to bring up ideas and memories to explain what SQ is, I am
suggesting that we experience both SQ and DQ aspects to any given
experience, such as experiencing a banana. You seem to be saying we only
experience DQ, all SQ is only something built out of DQ after the event,
using ideas and memories. I am suggesting that we experience a level
of SQ prelinguistically, yes there is obviously a post-linguistic level
of SQ involving words, ideas, memories and concepts. But do we
not construct post-linguistic forms of SQ and construct names like
banana out of pre-linguistic SQ elements, elements such as repeating
patterns of smell, taste, sight, etc. You could object that such comparisons
involve a time delay and memory and therefore imply the use of ideas and
analogies to construct a pattern and the relevant SQ. But then this seems
to make ideas and memories more fundamental to the MOQ than SQ.
But is the MOQ not meant to see DQ and SQ as the originating qualities,
does Pirsig really see ideas and memories as underlying SQ, thereby making
SQ non-fundamental to his metaphysics?
Alternatively, what about looking at two items, one in each hand, you have
them present to you at the same time, is not the fact of their similarity
experienced by you prior to putting a label on it and calling them both
out as bananas. I'd also that you can experience not only the similarity
between these two items, but their difference. Now the similarities
is all about SQ, but we always experience more than any patterns,
similarity, SQ. We also experience difference, and if this difference
is not patterned, what do we call it? I suggest all difference is part
of what we mean by DQ. This is something like what Heidegger
means when he says if we look at all the being (SQ) we complete
fail to notice the Being (DQ) of experience. Same with scientism,
it has all the best theories (SQ) to explain the world but these are
never complete and a surplus or remainder as Zizek says remains.
I appreciate that you and others are trying to explain SQ and DQ
in terms of what Pirsig has said but what I am trying to do is test
the MOQ against a wider context of ideas and thinkers to see
how it contrasts with or fits in with these other ways of thinking
about experience-reality.
DM said:
Is experience only something that you can have about what is
present in the now? This looks like a version of presentism and various
philosophers have seen this as part of standard empiricism and
I am surprised to find that you think it is part of the MOQ
but is that your position?
Dan:
I have no idea what you are talking about. The MOQ subscribes to pure
empiricism.
DM: I have always seen the MOQ as a form of radical empiricism so that it
considers not only the perceptual realm as a key aspect of experience but
anything we can experience as vital to the full plurality of our
experiences,
so we also experience feelings, values, ideas, images, memories, numbers,
fantasies, etc, whatever we experience is real and part of experience and
is either made up of statric/repeating qualities or dynamic ones. Seems to
me
you are thinking ideas and memories are some sort of add ons to experience
that are allowing us to make SQ out of DQ. Is that really what Pirsig is
suggesting?
DMB has given some quotes that do seem to suggest this. But giving this sort
of
status to ideas and memories make them sound like they are subjective, does
this
not trap us back in SOM? Does such an approach not threaten the MOQ with
falling back into SOM? Do you see why I fear this may be a dangerous way to
construct out understanding of SQ? What is your defence of this view and
how does it avoid this potential problem, have I correctly described the MOQ
interpretation you are trying to explain?
DM said:
I can see that it is possible to cut the MOQ this
way, so for you SQ is only something that can be established
in thinking after the event of dynamic experience, all experience
is dynamic for you, only in thinking and memory is SQ able to become
something we are aware of for you?
Dan said:
You seem to be under the (mistaken) impression that I am making this
up. I am not. A little reading will verify what I say. Rather than
asking a lot of questions that don't much make sense, perhaps you
might avail yourself to some of Robert Pirsig's writings, both his
books as well as his subsequent work with Anthony McWatt and me.
Until you catch up, I see little hope of continuing this discussion.
DM: No I know you are probably more acquainted with Pirsig than me
but I have more than a good knowledge of these, I am simply questioning
whether your interpretation is the best approach or not, it might be, but
I am not yet convinced but I wish to discuss this with you to test the case
and see if it is possible to make interpretative improvements or not. I
believe
my interpretation is different, it is based less on an exhaustive study of
Pirsig, but rather on comparing my good knowledge of Pirsig to a set of
other thinkers who I think have also written wisely against the limits and
problems of SOM and explored alternatives. For me Pirsig is an important
thinker in this wider context and I'd like to see Pirsig more recognised as
a
key thinker in a wider general movement against SOM and scientism.
I have raised Pirsig's works with a number of UK academics and thinkers,
many of whom have usually read ZAMM but not Lila and I have encouraged
them to do so. My view is that given the right interpretation there is great
hope for Pirsig to be even more appreciated and used by many such thinkers
and their
students. I would hope everyone on this list would appreciate this and what
I am able to do in this respect, I won't name drop, but I have done quite
well
with my contacts promoting Pirsig in the last few years since I was last a
contributor
here. I also appreciate the work, others who contribute here, have done to
promote the appreciation of Pirsig's books. What a shame that so many little
groups like this end up fighting amongst themselves when they are all meant
to
be interested in the same ends. There are obviously going to be differences
of
opinion and interpretation, and whilst it is worth debating these in the
context
of what Pirsig and others have written and what other thinkers have also
said
about SOM, many long before Pirsig, we should surely be more tolerant of
such difference, and if you can't understand someone else's views or
comments,
further questions are surely the best way forward, good enough for Socrates!
Sorry if you have been round some of these areas before but I have been off
list
for a few years, so with a little patience and good will we should be able
to
make some progress and perhaps tease out the strengths and perhaps
weaknesses
of what you and others see as the best available understanding of the MOQ,
or whether my own understanding is flawed or better than what is current
orthodoxy on this list.
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