Hi DMB
Thanks for the clarifications, please see further comments/questions below:
DM said:
...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)? 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 on the other?
dmb said:
I believe that I had already answered that in the next paragraph when I
said, "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, and to
define the salient aspects of experience." That's what the concept "banana"
is "tying together", as you put it - the experiences are similar enough that
we can employ a generalization to refer to these salient features of
experience. That's what it means to say the concept is derived from
experience. This is the BASIC SUBDIVISION, the first cut, the first
distinction and involves two terms, so yes, I guess it would be fair to call
it a dualism. But the MOQ is also a monism and
static quality is further divided into four. And again, the distinguish
concepts and reality is not to say to deny the existence of concepts but
rather a matter of asserting a priority of experience over concepts. It's a
way of asking us NOT to confuse our IDEAS about reality with reality itself.
This is the same section of Lila where he explains James's radical
empiricism, saying...
"...subjects and objects are not the starting points of experience. Subjects
and objects are secondary. They are concepts derived from something more
fundamental which he described as 'the immediate flux of life which
furnishes the material to our later reflection with its conceptual
categories'. In this basic flux of experience, the distinctions of
reflective thought, such as those between consciousness and content, subject
and object, mind and matter, have not yet emerged in the forms which we make
them. Pure experience cannot be called either physical or psychical: it
logically precedes this distinction." See, so in subject-object metaphysics
it is assumed that the banana in itself is the object which causes us to
have a preception and then a concept of banana. Pirsig and James are
rejecting that idea. There are no bananas in themselves. See, what a lot of
people do is convert the MOQ back into a metaphysics of substance wherein
static patterns are taken as objects. Not in the MOQ, where even "objects"
and "things" are never reality itself but secondary concepts that emerge
only after we sort experience into conceptual categories. In this way, the
MOQ is one giant anti-reification program. (Reification is an error wherein
abstractions are mistaken for concrete realities, wherein concepts are
mistakenly believed to be primary independent beings.
DM adds: OK thanks for that. In so far as we are talking about what comes
post-conceptually I agree entirely. When we understand regularities,
similarities and patters using idea, memories, concepts we are developing
forms/SQ of understanding to make sense of experience. But as I said before
what are we tying together, are we not tying together similarities/patterns
that we have experience already. Are we not dividing experience into
qualities that are dynamic and qualities that are static/repeating/similar
before we label and form ideas/concepts about them? Picking out the
'salient' aspects
of experience as you call it above. The most salient aspects of experience,
In assume the MOQ to be saying, is whether we are experiencing something
dynamic of static. I takes it that we find ourselves experiencing something
static, something resonating as a similarity prior to tying them together
conceptually and naming these experiences as, for example, being a banana in
each hand. I am seeing the whole conceptual construction of experienced SQ
(in MOQ terms) or objects perceived by subjects (in SOM terms) as made
possible by the SQ aspect of experience, i.e., that there are patterns found
in our experience and prior to any conceptual levels of SQ or SOM notions of
objects or matter. Sure MOQ starts with the pre-conceptual experienced
phenomena, but does the the MOQ recognsie that we discover static and
dynamic qualities prior to any use of ideas or memories or concepts. Are you
saying no,there is only DQ prior to the use of memories and concepts and
ideas to put together the idea of SQ? If so does this not undermine the
fundmental nature of DQ and SQ in the MOQ, and makes ideas and memories
more fundamental than SQ? ideas and memories sound like SOM subjectivity to
me, is this not letting SOM into the MOQ by side door between DQ and SQ? If
not can you please explain how you can defend the fundamental position of SQ
given your suggested interpretation of the MOQ. I prefer to see SQ as
equally fundamental to DQ, so that the MOQ can explain both the dynamic
aspects of reality and the regular and patterned aspects, improving on SOM
where SOM is too materialistic and lawbound as if reality was all SQ and
there was no DQ.
dmb said:
No, I don't agree and this disagreement is quite central. This is THE point
I want to make. Even inorganic static quality is an idea. "Rock" is an idea.
"Atom" is an idea. To see these things as substantial realities is to reify
those concepts. That's the mistake that continues to plague MOST of the
people in this forum. Static patterns are just analogies, the whole world of
definable things is just one great big pile of analogies, not reality
itself. DQ is the source and substance of everything, of all those
analogies, of every concept and every entry in the encyclopedia, of every
word in the dictionary.
DM: Non that's fine, I entirely agree, the levels are an intellectual
construct, experience is prior to this in the same way as experience is
prior to any constructions about subject and objects in SOM. My point is
about a pure experienced sense of SQ/pattern/similarity. Only through the
pure unnamed pre-conceptual static quality of experience do we recognise
that there is more to experience-reality than pure dynamic flux, it is this
intuitive experience of SQ that enables us via experience to construct our
understanding of experience as both DQ and SQ, and the varieties and levels
of SQ, as fully conceived and names, categorised and organised.
DM continued:
... 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. How would you put it?
dmb says:
There is no such thing as a preconceptual banana.
DM: Sure, I agree, nothing named, given as a concept of idea, but I am
suggesting that we experience patterns prior to this as SQ, as
static-patterned qualities. Through these experienced
qualities emerges the need and usefulness of putting together ideas and
names items. Otherwise is it not all flux, how do we move from flux to
understanding without the intermediaries of experienced static qualities,
that thought the emergence of SQ within the wider ocean of experiences DQ
was the very basis of the MOQ.
dmb says:
No, there is no such thing as a pre-linguistic or pre-conceptual pattern.
DM adds: Then how do we ever move beyond experiencing a flux? I always
thought the MOQ is suggesting we experience patterns prior to placing ideas
and concepts over the top of these experiences to understand them
conceptually. If we start talking about ideas and memories being used to
construct all the SQ as Dan seems to be doing too, how is this any different
from SOM, is MOQ merely DQ+SOM, where SQ is just another way of
understanding the form of things, and where SOM like just as good a way of
conceptually understanding the same set of forms? Seeing the DQ/SQ this way
DMB seems less radical to me, and less of a challenge to SOM. It looks to me
like you are defending MOQ against SOM by conceding the radical division of
experience into SQ and DQ and allowing SQ to be treated like just another
version of idealism (a form of SOM according to its great critics like
Heidegger) and you all this version of MOQ does is tag DQ on to the front of
SOM and then try to replace SOM with MQ. This, in my view, is a less radical
interpretation of the MOQ, easier to defend against SOM perhaps but only
because it is less distinct and closer to SOM. Maybe that is a good move and
better than nothing but I find it less radical and disappointing. But if you
think otherwise that is fine, it is perfectly consistent and logical, a
matter of where you are making the cut, but seems less radical to me. But
feel free ton try and convince me otherwise. If Pirsig himself has not
questioned this orthodoxy I can only assume this is what he meant all along,
but it is not as interesting as what I thought he wanted to propose, to my
mind.
DM said:
... Maybe better to talk of 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 inorganic 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?
dmb says:
Nobody is saying that concepts are outside of experience or that they are
not part of experience. Like you say, that's what we're experiencing right
now. The idea here is simply to distinguish PURE experience from the
concepts that follow from it. Pure experience is pre-conceptual but, of
course, concepts are not pre-conceptual. Anyone can see the contradiction in
a phrase like "pre-conceptual concepts" right? Just as with the word
"reality", Pirsig is NOT saying that concepts are unreal or non-existent.
That would be a very absurd claim because you absolutely need words and
concepts to make any claim including that one.
Yes, experience is dynamic only before it is conceptual, at which point it
becomes static. That's WHY we can NOT define DQ; definitions are conceptual
and DQ is pre-conceptual. It is prior to any and all definitions. That's
what "primary" means, the first and most basic reality, the experiential
reality from which all static patterns are derived. The whole world, every
last bit of it. Yes, it sounds like madness but that's what Pirsig is
saying. And it seems that Marsha (and others) is doing everything she can to
make sure that people do not get this, to make sure everybody else continues
to be as confused and wrong as she is. Don't listen to that nonsense. It's
drivel. It's poison. It's wrong.
DM adds: Sure, that's fine, I agree entirely about the status of conceptual
SQ, but if all SQ is conceptual you may as well call yourself a Hegelian,
and all Pirsig is doing is to claim that under all the Hegelian ideas there
is an underlying DQ. That's fine, it's a pretty good philosophy, but I
always thought there then MOQ divided the pre-conceptual pure experience
into dynamic and static=patterned qualities, that there were fundamental,
and prior to ideas, if you put ideas between DQ and SQ you pretty much a
Hegelian idealist as you seem to confess in a latter email. Well I love a
good Hegelian, but Hegel and even Heidegger have trouble fitting their views
with modern science and the underlying regularities of the cosmos, I always
thought Pirsig did well to place DQ and SQ right at the first cut prior to
ideas or subjects or objects, but you seem to be telling me he has placed
ideas between DQ and SQ, well looks like idealism with a DQ tag on to me.
Nothing wrong with that, but you get all the problems of idealism waiting
trip you up I worry, and Heideggerians and post-modernists will dismiss it
as another version of SOM I suspect, but I wish you well, as I said it is
not a bad philosophy, better than positivism or materialism.
dmb says:
Don't take my frustration too personally, David. Like I said, I've been
trying to make this point for years now (literally) and so you're sort of
walking into the middle of a very old argument and you just happened to take
up the position of my enemies, just happen to be making the same basic
mistake that I've tried to correct a thousand times (literally). As I see
it, this problem should have been taken care of a long. long time ago and it
should have taken about five minutes. Sadly, it's more like ten years
without zero progress. Like I said, mostly I blame Marsha. And Bo. If I said
out loud what I really thought of her, it would make Satan blush.
DM: No problem, you have explained the position well, I get it, just not
sure I like to see SQ relegated in this way, it is a perfectly consistent
and logical view, it may even agree with what Pirsig thinks, but I think it
is a less radical approach, I will read ZAMM and Lila again to see how it
holds up with Pirsig but I am sure you have done your homework already, It
may be that my view does not work for some reason but the objections you
have suggested to me are either off target or inconclusive. I think there is
another way, and it may or may not be consistent with Pirsig's intentions (I
will give that further consideration and have an open mind on that). I think
my alternative works better with other related thinkers such as Terrence W
Deacon in his Incomplete Nature or Hilary Lawson in his Closure (and
Openness), or Iain Macgilchrist in his the Master and his Emissary. This
wider context concerns me more than Pirsig's original or current intentions,
although if I can develop my views as a consistent alternative
interpretation to your own (or Pirsig's or Dan;s or anyone's) I will do so.
There are always a range of possible alternative interpretations of any
work, such is the nature of DQ I might add, it would be helpful if that was
more readily accepted by everyone here, although that is not to say that any
view should not be tested against the apparent intentions and known writings
of the original author, to whom we are all very grateful. It is always good
to quote the original texts and get down to interpreting them and clearly
some there is a distinction between interpretation and saying something new
or in disagreement. But whilst I accept that I may wish to make the cut
between DQ and SQ differently from Mr Pirsig, and that if necessary I am
happy to do so, I am not yet 100% certain either way that I am or am not
doing so. I hope I have made it clear the cut I am favouring, and I will
check the texts for support or disagreement with Pirsig, and I can see the
evidence you have presented for the cut vis a vis experienced-reality that
you support, and I accept that this indicates that Pirsig does in these
quotes lean this way. But I am holding off on accepting this as the final
word on this for now without some rereading, but you may be right.If you
want to offer any further evidence on this I would be most interested, I can
certainly see that your understanding and expression of these have evolved
since we last spoke. I have enjoyed this chat and it has helped clarify my
own position. In return I would ask you to keep in my my suggested cut, if
your proposal does not hold up or comes apart it might be worth considering.
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
