[MD] Static latching & faith

[Scott Roberts]

Ant,

Scott answered [DMB] April 22nd:
I am not failing to see that. Where have I said they are not empirical? The
question at hand is whether the metaphysical system called the MOQ is "pure
empiricism".

Ant McWatt comments:

Just a quick observation, I thought _the_ question of Scott's (from April
20th) was actually:

"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 can't all reality 'in itself' be divided (pluralism),
and so why isn't DQ-as-undivided-aesthetic-continuum being taken on faith
(or at least as a non-empirical assumption)? - Scott"

===============================

Ant continues:

As I mentioned at the time "undivided continuum" is not a phrase used by
Northrop, Pirsig or myself (i.e. it's partly a strawman as no-one is saying
that the aesthetic continuum is "undivided") so the central issue that I've
been addressing recently with Scott is that Northrop's "undifferentiated
aesthetic continuum" (which can be abstracted from the "aesthetic continuum"
in the same way that other particular elements such as colours, sounds etc
are) isn't just a non-empirical assumption because it's also directly
observed.

Scott:
Since I corrected myself in the next and all succeeding posts, I thought it 
was obvious that when I said "undivided" I meant to be saying 
"undifferentiated". Frankly, I don't see much of a difference between the 
two terms, but if there is one, let me know.

Northrop
"Most of the directly experienced field [of the aesthetic continuum] 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:
There is a big difference between "vague" and "undifferentiated" (and 
"indefinite" in this context I assume just means vague). That which is vague 
is so just because one isn't focused on it. Focus on it and it becomes less 
vague. So the above reasoning doesn't show that an undifferentiated 
continuum is apprehended.

Ant continued:
Even Daniel Dennett ("Consciousness Explained", 1991, pp.53-55) confirms
Northrop's and William James' observation, at least as far as the visual
field is concerned:

"The visual field seems to naïve reflection to be uniformly detailed and
focused from the center out to the boundaries, but a simple experiment
[moving a playing card from the center to the boundary of the visual field]
shows that this is not so."

Scott:
Again, this just indicates that some things are experienced in more detail 
than others. How one gets from that to postulation of an undifferentiated 
aesthetic continuum I don't get. If, that is, one excludes mystical 
revelation.

- Scott