[MD] Experience, essentialism, physicalism

[David M]

Matt

I think DQ is the potential in the situation of the pencil
poised and about to sdraw in the paper. The paper-pencil is
full of DQ, i.e. the potential to produce any picture or shape.
DQ is imminent (sic)not yet arrived or just gone, i.e leaving
some picure or other (SQ) on the paper and hence negating
all the other pictures not drawn. DQ is inexplicable because
there is always some new picture to be drawn and no knowing
what picture may be drawn next. SQ emerges from an infinite
sea of potential through which we voyage, and which we just
pass by and experience as dis-emerging too, and can only ever
ackowledge as SQ if they are patterns that are common or repeating,
all else is unique and singular, such is life, you never do the same
thing twice, the next drink of coffee carries some SQ but also DQ,
some pattern aspects (repeat qualities), some uniqueness aspects/qualities.
Kinda shows how important re-cognition is when is comes to making any
sense of existence.

DM



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Matt Kundert" <pirsigaffliction at hotmail.com>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Saturday, April 08, 2006 5:12 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] Experience, essentialism, physicalism


> DMB,
>
> DMB said:
> "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.
>
> Matt:
> Right, that's what ineffable has meant in the philosophical tradition. 
> I've
> talked about this before with you.  What I can't figure out is how you
> _know_ that "it" is unknowable?  Simply throwing up your hands and 
> declaring
> something unknowable is clearly a case of violating Peirce's "never block
> the road of inquiry," baptizing a problem instead of dealing with it, so
> there has to be a reason for doing so.  The only two basic responses I can
> think of are Plato's and Kant's ways.
>
> Plato's way was to say that we just _know_ it, through non-rational means 
> of
> (re)discovering the Form of the Sun.  (If I remember correctly, this fits 
> in
> with your desire to reappropriate Plato for the mystics.)  It's basically
> like a punch in the face.  You can't deny it.  But neither can you
> rationally explain why it happened.  If you could, it wouldn't be
> non-rational anymore.  The trouble is, until you've been punched in the
> face, you have no reason to think being punched or ineffability is an
> occurence.
>
> Kant's way was to say that we could rationally outline the area around the
> ineffable, thereby saying we could rationally explain ineffability.  The
> trouble here, I think, is that a) transcendental argumentation can be 
> shown
> to fail and b) I don't think Kant and Plato's ways can be used together. 
> I
> think it's roughly the difference between picturing DQ as the paper and 
> the
> circle drawn on the paper static (Pirsig's image) and picturing DQ to be
> what is inside the circle and static surrounding it (which would be 
> Pirsig's
> critique of, ironically in this case, Plato for ecapsulating Quality).
>
> So, Plato's angle has to be the better avenue, but I don't think we should
> use ineffability to describe it.  Subscribing to the eternally ineffable
> makes one a dogmatist.  Because if I ask, "Well, _what_ is ineffable?", 
> one
> either has to describe the unknowable in terms of the knowable (thus
> refuting oneself) or simply reassert that "it" is unknowable, and so can't
> be described--thus making one a dogmatist (and blocking the road of
> inquiry).  Now, the funny thing that I see is that Pirsig isn't being a
> dogmatist.  But if he insists on holding that DQ is ineffable, what he is
> doing with DQ is encircling it in the manner of Kant (and the Plato he
> attacks in ZMM).  We all give descriptions of DQ, but they must encircle 
> it
> if they don't get at it (because its ineffable).
>
> I think the way out of it is to drop ineffability in favor of
> not-yet-knowable, as you said I was saying.  This plays well for the idea
> that static patterns keep growing, taking up more and more ground as DQ 
> adds
> more and more to them, making advances and such, through history.  The
> circle keeps getting bigger and bigger on the page (and the page always 
> gets
> bigger, too).  This way we don't get caught in such dead ends as
> ineffability and instead describe us as being able to know more and more
> because of DQ.
>
> (This is obviously all of a piece with my describing knowledge and knowing
> as internal to static patterns.  These are just more reasons for my doing
> so.)
>
> Matt
>
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