[MD] Static latching & faith

[Scott Roberts]

Ant,

Ant said:
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

Scott:
Isn't this the old Newton-Leibniz argument over the reality of space? 
Granted it is generalized, it is still a supposition (that is, there is no 
empirical evidence that "there is" such a continuum).

Northrop continued:
(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)

Scott:
It seems to me that (a) can be replaced by the word 'subject' in its 
intentional sense (not in its Cartesian sense) -- that which is aware of all 
objects, including mental objects. There is no empirical evidence to suggest 
that it exists outside of a human being.

Ant said:
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."

Scott:
That doesn't imply falsehood. The immediately apprehended may just have a 
slightly "larger" background that we aren't focused on while we are focused 
on the smaller. If one wants to identify an all-encompassing background, one 
can do that with oneself as intentional subject, which, again, we can't 
assume exists beyond that of human consciousness.

Northrop continued:
"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)

Scott:
More photons are processed by the fovea than in the rest of the retina. So 
what? But of course more germane is the question: just because I have a 
concept by intuition, doesn't make it empirical (or true).

Ant said:
I hope that is of _some_ help!

Scott:
I see nothing but a spinning of arguments to convince oneself that something 
that one is already convinced of can have the word 'empirical' attached to 
it. I see nothing here that rules out the old mechanistic Newtonian 
worldview (one gets around the quantum physics oddness by assuming that all 
that is relevant to human mentality kicks in at the macroscopic level). Now 
there are arguments (I've advanced some) for rejecting that worldview, but 
those arguments by themselves do not imply that "there is" an 
undifferentiated continuum beyond the human subject -- much less that it 
deserves the characterization "aesthetic".

- Scott