[MD] Experience, essentialism, physicalism

[david buchanan]

Matt, Ant and y'all:

Matt said to Ant:
...However, DMB continued by saying, "The deductions and descriptions have 
to be static, of course, but these distinctions do not create or produce 
that experience."  I'm not sure exactly how to read that caveat.  It sounds 
like we have a determinate experience and the distinctions we make to help 
us deal with experience are getting better and better because they are 
getting closer and closer to the experience that produced them.     I know 
neither of you wants to say that, because that _would_ be flirting with the 
Myth of the Given,...   Static is something we toy with on pragmatic 
grounds, but Dynamic is something that punches you in the face (which is the 
caveat)--much like "the Given."

dmb says:
As I understand it, DQ is approximately the opposite of "the Given". The 
latter would be something like a pre-existing ontological structure or an 
objective physical reality while the former is described as "an 
undifferentiated aesthetic continuum". And it seems unlikely that the idea 
is to get "closer and closer" to an experience that is described as 
"immediate" and "direct". As I understand it, the attack on the myth of the 
given is an attack on the representational paradigm (SOM) and does not apply 
to the MOQ. I've made this same basic point lots of times; you're treating 
DQ as if it could be equated with "the given" or some other concept that has 
very little, if anything, to do with DQ.

Matt continued:
...The "deductions", "concepts of postulation", "intellectual static 
patterns" (three ways of saying the same thing) are produced by the 
"experience", "concepts of intuition", "Dynamic Quality" (which are also 
three ways of saying the same thing).  That means that the distinction 
between Dynamic Quality and static patterns is produced by Dynamic Quality.  
This all makes perfect sense given Pirsig's writings, but that also means 
that we are given the distinction by DQ punching us in the face--just like 
"the Given".

dmb says:
DQ punches us in the face? What do you mean? In any case, I think Dynamic 
Quality is known in experience. Talking about Dynamic Quality is also known 
in experience. (DQ is not a name for any or all experience and so is not 
exactly equivalent.) Even though the intellectual distinctions between these 
two categories of experience can only be expressed in language, the DQ 
experience itself is said to be prior to or outside of all such 
distinctions. It is an "undifferentiated" experience. As I understand it, 
yes, all static patterns are produced by DQ, including this distinction. The 
whole static world is left in its wake, but this is an historical process 
and should not be confused with the experience of the subjective self or 
otherwise understand it in SOM terms.

Matt said to Ant:
...The way I see it, mystery and ineffability are just things we haven't 
figured out yet.  There will
always be more, as no paradigm for thought can be closed (as Ian said).  
Every better paradigm we come up with, that shuts down more mystery and effs 
more things, will simply produce new mystery, new questions to be answered.  
I think that's what it means to reject "closed Platonic metaphysics" for 
"open pragmatic metaphysics".  But saying that there will always be mystery 
doesn't seem to me to give us a reason to worship it or praise it.  It's 
something to stare in wide-eyed wonder about, and in that sense I agree with 
Aristotle, but I don't know how we move from there to full on worship.

dmb says:
I don't know about worshipping anything, but I would once again like to 
suggest that you have the wrong idea about DQ. "Mystery and ineffability are 
just things we haven't figured out yet"? I think that's wrong. Ineffible 
doesn't mean undiscovered or not-yet-known. It means that its intellectually 
unknowable, beyond verbal definitions but it is something we can and do know 
through non-rational means. In this case, the "mystery" can never be solved. 
I mean, all these terms are basically refering to the non-linguistic nature 
of cetain kinds of experience. And its not just that tasting an apple can 
never be the same as hearing a description of the flavor, although that's 
true too, its that the "ineffiable" experience is sort of defined as 
undefinable. And why is it undefinable? Because we don't know enough about 
it yet? No. It because the nature of a pre-linguistic experience defies all 
description even if we know it very, very well. See?

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