[MD] Static latching & faith

[Ant McWatt]

Scott, SA,

SA observed April 22nd:

“There seems to be on the one hand Ant talking and on the other hand Scott 
talking and two paradigms are talking as a crosswind where something behind 
the assumptions of both are being missed by the other.  Not to say one is 
wrong or right, at this moment, it just seems that Scott and Ant are 
bringing up something that are somehow in the same dialogue, and at the same 
time in a different dialogue.”

SA, I would certainly agree with that.  Possibly it’s because I stick fairly 
closely to clarifying Pirsig’s work (which is partly derived from Northrop’s 
philosophy) while Scott puts more emphasis on introducing other writers 
(such as Magliola or Owen Barfield) who he argues are an improvement on 
Pirsig; certainly in some fundamental respects.  Both projects have their 
merits but I wouldn’t read Scott’s posts if you are simply looking for 
clarifying what Pirsig is saying.  Scott’s posts are more useful for looking 
at alternatives and related references (especially regarding mysticism).

Anyway, here are some answers to Scott’s last post:

Ant quoted Northrop:

>“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?

No.  Space and time (and space-time) are concepts by postulation.

>Granted it is generalized, it is still a supposition (that is, there is no
>empirical evidence that "there is" such a continuum).

Without such a continuum (what Heidegger terms “Sein” which is often 
translated as “Being”) there’d be no place for the differentiations such as 
“the white and the noise”.

An analogy is a blank TV screen.  I think what Northrop is trying to point 
out is that the “blank screen” is the same for everyone.  However, the 
colours, images and sounds (e.g. differentiations) that appear on each 
person’s “screen” (when it is “switched on” is different and what each 
person takes to value from these “differentiations” varies depending on 
their cultural background and personal history.

However, no “TV screen” means no “TV programs”!

This latter point is reflected by Heidegger who advanced the argument that 
Plato (and subsequent Western philosophers until Nietzsche) were in error 
when separating Sein from Seiendes.  According to Northrop (“The Meeting of 
East & West”, 1946, p.450), this is a critical separation because it is with 
Plato that the undifferentiated aesthetic continuum (given the Platonic term 
‘the indeterminate dyad’) was first deemed to be untrustworthy and, 
therefore, secondary to the static Forms:

“Thereby, the aesthetic and emotional factors in man’s nature, and in the 
nature of things, were designated as mere appearances and trivial; and the 
emotional and aesthetic foods which the nature of man needs for its 
sustenance were deprecated and ignored.  The Greek and medieval Roman 
Catholic cultures had somewhat the same effect, when following Democritus 
and Plato they branded the sense world as giving spurious knowledge, and 
when following Plato and Aristotle they identified the undifferentiated 
aesthetic continuum… with the principle of evil: restricting trustworthy 
knowledge and the idea of the good and the divine to the unseen theoretic 
component.  This had the effect also of making the cultures of East and West 
incompatible.”

>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.

No it can’t.  A “subject” is a concept by postulation (i.e. purely 
theoretical) and is logically derived at a later point in Northrop’s 
conceptual “train of thought”.

The same goes for “mental objects” which again are concepts by postulation.

Moreover, I’m not too sure of the wisdom of re-introducing SOM terminology 
(such as “subjects” and objects”) either, in keeping this issue unambiguous 
and clear.

>There is no empirical evidence to suggest that [the undifferentiated 
>aesthetic
>continuum] exists outside of a human being.

I’d say that you have things logically backwards here.  The “aesthetic 
continuum” is the empirical starting point from which the notion of self, 
other human beings and creatures and “the world” (to use the SOM 
philosopher’s weird term for the universe) are derived from.

>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.

Again, you’re introducing concepts by postulation (such as an “intentional 
subject”, “human” and “consciousness”) which are _never_ immediately 
apprehended while Northrop is actually discussing concepts by intuition 
(such as “colors and sounds and odors, pains and pleasures”) which are.

“The [aesthetic] qualities given empirically are different for different 
persons. Thus the belief in a common public world is not given empirically.  
Consequently, if the hardboiled empiricist believes that difference of 
opinions is the curse of speculative philosophers and that objectivity and 
public agreement are the hallmark of genuine scientific knowledge, then he 
belongs with the speculative philosophers, not with the objective 
scientists, since his empiricism does not give objectivity. In short, as 
Albert Einstein and most other expert scientists who have examined with care 
the methodological foundations of scientific knowledge clearly recognize, 
the belief in an
objective public world with scientific objects in it the same for all 
observers, is a theoretically inferred, not a purely empirically given 
knowledge. It is, in other words, the type of knowledge to which the 
supposedly hard-boiled fellow who would restrict himself to nothing but pure 
facts, is not entitled.”  (Northrop, “Logic of the Sciences & Humanities”, 
1947, p.42-43)

>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?

So what?  I’ll tell you: the theory that “more photons are processed by the 
fovea than in the rest of the retina” is a concept by postulation.  Though 
it might be a high quality scientific explanation, it still comes logically 
after the concepts by intuition (via hypothesis and theoretical inference) 
in Northrop’s conceptual scheme of things.

>But of course more germane is the question: just because I have a
>concept by intuition, doesn't make it empirical (or true).

On the contrary, Scott.  Concepts by intuition are the only things which are 
purely empirical and we know to be true (irrespective of whether we are 
dreaming of the colours and sound that correlate, for instance, to Ham’s 
cardinal bird on a tree branch or seeing them “for real”).

“All that the senses convey are colors and sounds and odors, pains and 
pleasures. These are not external material objects.  They are ineffable, 
aesthetic qualities, the kind of thing which the impressionistic artist 
rather than the physicist gives one. Thus again we come to the same 
conclusion. Pure fact is a continuum of ineffable
aesthetic qualities, not an external material object.”

“Consequently, if one prefers to be thoroughly hard-boiled with respect to 
one's beliefs, rejecting all inference and theory as belonging to 
soft-minded speculative philosophers sitting in arm chairs, and if one forth 
with proposes to restrict oneself to facts only, then it is not with the 
belief in external material objects or the other persons of common sense, or 
with the electrons, protons, electromagnetic waves and other unobservable 
scientific objects of the physicist that one can have anything to do. For 
all these common-sense and scientific objects are theoretically inferred 
objects; they are not purely empirically given, immediately apprehended 
facts. Instead, it is to impressionistic art with nothing but its sense 
impressions that one must restrict oneself.”  (Northrop, “Logic of the 
Sciences & Humanities”, 1947, p.41)

>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

As far as concepts by intuition go, you’re quite correct here because “the 
old mechanistic Newtonian worldview” is a concept by postulation.  “The old 
mechanistic Newtonian worldview” is still useful for most macroscopic uses 
(such as going to the moon and back) and as its mathematical formulas are 
far simpler to use than Einstein’s it’s often the better model to use.

>(one gets around the quantum physics oddness by assuming that all
>that is relevant to human mentality kicks in at the macroscopic level).

“Human mentality” is one of the few things that quantum physics should 
definitely be applied to because the “old mechanistic Newtonian worldview” 
_is_ deterministic and re-introduces all the old SOM problems concerning 
free-will and determinism!

BTW, I think quantum physics is only “odd” for SOM ingrained people.  What 
is actually “odd” is the clinging to old “metaphysical maps” when the 
physics shows that they are now out-of-date (at least, in certain contexts, 
usually the very small or the very large).

>Now there are arguments (I've advanced some) for rejecting [the Newtonian] 
> >worldview, but those arguments by themselves do not imply that "there is" 
>an
>undifferentiated continuum beyond the human subject

As noted above, the usefulness (or otherwise) of the “Newtonian worldview” 
is largely irrelevant to a discussion concerning concepts by intuition (such 
as the aesthetic continuum and the differentiations that can be abstracted 
from it).

>-- much less that it deserves the characterization "aesthetic".

Well, where else do you think the aesthetic resides?

As Northrop notes above it is the ineffable, aesthetic properties such as 
colours which is the concern of the impressionistic artist rather than the 
physicist.   A similar point is also made by Pirsig in his 1995 SODV paper:

“This aesthetic nature of the Conceptually Unknown is a point of connection 
between the sciences and the arts. What relates science to the arts is that 
science explores the Conceptually Unknown in order to develop a theory that 
will cover measurable patterns emerging from the unknown. The arts explore 
the Conceptually Unknown in other ways to create patterns such as music, 
literature, painting, that reveal the Dynamic Quality that produced them. 
This description, I think, is the rational connection between science and 
the arts.”

Possibly, the following account of a sunset by Northrop might finally 
clarify this:

“What the astronomer sees as pure fact is the beauty of the sunset.  This is 
an aesthetic continuum ablaze with ineffable, indescribable colors of subtle 
shades, differentiated by a two dimensional circular yellow patch of color. 
This differentiated continuum alone is the immediately apprehended fact.”  
[and is the concern of the fine artist]

[On the other hand] “the scientific object, the star called the sun, which 
is a three dimensional spherical mass composed of molecules with a mean free 
path between them defining an exceedingly high interior temperature, is a 
theoretically inferred object [i.e. a concept by postulation].  In short, 
the astronomer's sun is not an empirically immediate pure fact, but a highly 
complicated theoretical inference from pure fact.  Furthermore, the 
existence of this astronomical ball of matter is - only indirectly verified, 
through its deductive consequences checked against immediately inspected 
data such as those in the beauty of the sunset; the existence of the 
scientific object which is the sun is not directly observed as pure fact.”  
(Northrop, “Logic of the Sciences & Humanities”, 1947, p.43)

Finally, I think it should be noted that there isn’t an exact correlation 
with Northrop’s concepts by intuition & postulation with Pirsig’s 
static-Dynamic model.  For instance, Northrop forgets to emphasise that the 
senses themselves (unlike “sense impressions”) are concepts by postulation 
because the existence of the senses themselves, strictly speaking, are 
‘derived from the study of anatomy and [are] not primary in the actual 
empirical process’.  (Pirsig 2004e, “A Critical Analysis of the MOQ” by 
Anthony McWatt, p.72-73) i.e. the theory that our senses generate our 
experience is a high quality idea that had to be thought of, at some point, 
in human history.

And, of course, there are other differences between the two systems which 
I’ll leave for another time.  With that, I think I’ll join SA at that creek 
of his (with all its shimmering aesthetic differentiations)!

Best wishes,

Anthony.


      Quietly I stand in a creek, fishing, hoping for
that single trout that I may focus upon as I reel the
line in.  Trout hooked!  All sounds and colors
disappear.  Just that trout and the pull, the swim
this way and that way.
      The sound of the creek returns, but surely this
sound never left.  The colors of spring - white,
green, brown, dashes of yellow surely they where
always here.  I take the trout into my hand and look
around.  I experience a universe... aaaaah that trout,
to eat not just a fish, but life itself!

(SA to Scott, April 22nd 2006)

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