[MD] Static latching & faith

[Scott Roberts]

Ant, 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).

Scott:
I agree about my posts. But in this thread I am merely questioning the 
"empirical" claim of the MOQ, so my bringing up alternative views is, as I 
said to SA, mostly playing Devil's Advocate.

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?

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

Scott:
That is what Leibniz accused Newton of -- taking concepts of postulation, 
namely the abstractions space and time -- as real entities. My question is 
whether or not Northrop hasn't already posited an abstraction, namely 
"continuum" in his discussion. It seems to me that he has.

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

Ant said:
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".

Scott:
Here you (and Heidegger) are rejecting Hume, no? Well, so do I, but aren't 
you doing so by hypothesis, not through anything empirical?

Ant said:
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.

Scott:
He can point that out, but is it true? Or rather, how, empirically, can one 
demonstrate its truth? Why can't there just be the colors, images, etc. 
without a screen? Or why can't the screen be a useful fiction that each 
person says they have, as a useful bit of a language game.

Ant said:
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."

Scott:
This is bad philosophology. Few paid any attention to Democritus, and no 
Catholic philosopher would consider the sense world as evil (God made it, so 
it couldn't be evil). In any case, Shankara of the East was just as 
emphatic, if not more, on seeking wisdom in the permanent, non-sensible, as 
Plato was.

>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.

Ant said:
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".

Scott:
How can one conceptually postulate that which has no form? By intentional 
subject I mean that which is aware of all objects, including the 
objectivized self. It is a pity that Pirsig did not distinguish between the 
intentional subject and the Cartesian subject. Only the latter is capable of 
being conceptualized. The former bears a strong resemblance to DQ.

Ant said:
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.

Scott:
But the point is that the MOQ only deals with the Cartesian subject/object 
terminology, but not the intentional subject. To assume that the latter is a 
concept of postulation is to assume the whole Northrop viewpoint. In other 
words, it is all metaphysical, not empirical. Who can say that the sense of 
(intentional) "me" in opposition to the sense of "otherness" is conceptually 
postulated, rather than the basis from which all conceptual postulation 
starts?

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

Ant said:
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.

Scott:
It is logically backward if one *assumes* that there is some aesthetic 
continuum which serves as the empirical starting point, and if one *assumes* 
that the "self" is just a derived notion. What if one doesn't so assume?

>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.

Ant said:
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.

Scott:
Here I am confused. If I apprehend a color, then why isn't that a 
differentiated apprehension? Colors are different *so that* they can be 
apprehended as such.

Northrop:
"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)

Scott:
Pirsig says there is a sense of value. One can also say there is a sense of 
objective reality (that the immediately apprehended is also immediately 
apprehended as "not me"). Why should one count as 'empirical' but the other 
not?

>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?

Ant said:
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.

Scott:
By this I wonder where one's sense of anything (e.g, shaped colors) isn't a 
concept of postulation -- as James said, why it isn't all a blooming, 
buzzing confusion.

>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:
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").

Scott:
I have no experience of an undifferentiated continuum. Northrop tells me I 
have, so to realize that I have I must rely on a concept of postulation, no? 
Why, then, is it considered empirical? And to apply 'true' to a sense 
perception is, I think, misleading. 'Truth', I think, is a property of 
propositions.

Northrop:
"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."

Scott:
Again, I would reserve the word 'fact' to a proposition, but nevermind. And 
again, since I am aware of a lot of different colors, shapes, etc., isn't 
calling this a continuum a concept of postulation, like Newton said of space 
and time?

"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)

Scott:
So how does Northrop's characterization differ from anyone else's? It looks 
to me like just another example of speculation. If one truly wanted to 
restrict oneself to the empirical, as he seems to consider it, then one 
could not say anything about anything. As soon as one does, one has ceased 
to be empirical. But this leads just to pure skepticism. Instead, as I see 
it, one can organize the given according to one set of assumptions, or 
according to another (e.g., those of SOM or of MOQ, those of a physicist or 
those of an aestheticist). That choice, however, is not empirical.

>Scott said:
>
>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

Ant said:
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.

Scott:
Why isn't any worldview a concept by postulation?

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

Ant said:
"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).

Scott:
I agree, but not through empirical considerations. As I explained to DMB on 
this subject, there is no empirical reason to reject a deterministic 
interpretation of quantum reality. The Newtonian spacetime assumptions no 
longer work, but non-local determinism is still an option -- Shroedinger's 
equation is deterministic, after all.

Scott said>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

Ant said:
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).

Scott:
There are differentiations in the sensed -- different colors, different 
shapes -- before any abstraction, or they wouldn't be sensed, no? And the 
phrase "aesthetic continuum" sure looks to me like a concept by 
postulation -- or at least just as much as the intentional subject --  
frankly, I can't see any difference between them.

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

Ant said:
Well, where else do you think the aesthetic resides?

Scott:
As far as I can tell *empirically* it might reside in the impressionist 
painter, or in the biological SQ of the infant.

Ant said:
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."

Scott:
Sure looks like a presupposition to place the "aesthetic nature" in the 
Conceptually Unknown, and not in the observer. Again, I am not saying that 
Pirsig is wrong in saying this, just that what he is saying has no more of 
an empirical basis than any opposing view.

- Scott