[MD] Static latching & faith

[Ant McWatt]

Ant said April 20th:

Pirsig argues that "pre-intellectual reality" should be regarded as
primarily an evaluative one because for human survival, ‘sense data’
requires constant evaluation; there being an overwhelming avalanche of
facts, sights and sounds that we are exposed to every second.  If all this
raw data wasn’t processed:

"Our consciousness would be so jammed with meaningless data we couldn’t
think or act.  So we pre-select on the basis of Quality, or, to put it
[another] way, the track of Quality pre-selects what data we’re going to be
conscious of, and it makes this selection in such a way as to best harmonize
what we are, with what we are becoming."  (Pirsig, ZMM, 1974, p.311)

In reference to a new-born baby’s experience, Pirsig (LILA, 1991, p.137)
argues that this data is then constructed into ‘subjects’ and ‘objects’ only
after more primitive notions such as ‘good’ & ‘bad’, warmth’ & ‘cold’,
‘before’ and ‘after’ are constructed...

Scott asked April 20th:

“Granted all this, what is the empirical basis for postulating DQ as an 
‘undivided continuum’?   All experience comes to us divided (e.g., into 
pleasurable and painful, red and black, etc.)   Why isn’t 
DQ-as-undivided-aesthetic-continuum being taken on faith (or at least as a 
non-empirical assumption)?”


Scott,

I haven’t seen the phrase “undivided continuum” in Northrop, Pirsig or my 
recent posts though presumably you are referring to Northrop’s phrase “the 
undifferentiated aesthetic continuum” which he explains in the following:

“The differentiated aesthetic continuum with all its aesthetic and emotive 
immediacy includes everything that is immediately apprehended, all other 
concepts by intuition derive from it by abstraction. By ‘abstraction’ we 
mean… the consideration of certain immediately apprehended factors apart 
from their immediately apprehended context…”

“The differentiated aesthetic continuum contains two abstractable factors. 
There is

(a) the field or continuum apart from the differentiations within it or the 
definite properties which characterize it, and there are

(b) the differentiations or definite properties apart from the continuum 
which runs through them and embraces them.

The former, (a), we shall call the indefinite or undifferentiated aesthetic 
continuum,
the latter, (b), since they are many in number, the differentiations.”

(Northrop, “Logic of the Sciences & Humanities”, 1947, p.96)

Northrop then provides an answer to your query for why “the undifferentiated 
aesthetic continuum” isn’t taken on faith (or at least as a non-empirical 
assumption):

“The Concept of the Indefinite or Undifferentiated Aesthetic Continuum [is 
the] most difficult of these… concepts for the Westerner to appreciate… 
because of the influence of Berkeley and Hume.  They insisted that all 
concepts are concepts by intuition but tended to regard the continuum as 
nothing but an aggregation of secondary and tertiary qualities. That this is 
false, an examination of what one immediately apprehends will indicate. We 
directly inspect not merely the white and the noise but also these in a 
field. The field is as immediately given as any specific quality, whether 
secondary or tertiary, within it."

"Moreover, most of the directly experienced field is vague and indefinite.  
Only at what William James termed its center is there specificity and 
definiteness. Thus it is evident that the indefinite, indeterminate, 
aesthetic continuum is as immediately apprehended as are the specific 
differentiations within it. Hence, the concept of the indefinite or 
undifferentiated continuum, gained by abstraction from the differentiated 
aesthetic continuum, is a concept by intuition, not a concept by postulation 
[or non-empirical assumption]. (Northrop, “Logic of the Sciences & 
Humanities”, 1947, p.97)

I hope that is of _some_ help!

Best wishes,

Anthony.


.

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