[MD] Static latching & faith

[Scott Roberts]

DMB,

I quoted two paragraphs from Wilber, of which you repeated only the first. 
It is the second that shows the difference between Pirsig and Wilber. Here's 
the full quote:

"Let me repeat that one of the reasons that ambiguity can and does occur is 
that "experience" can be used in the broad sense ("direct awareness"), but 
then also given a common and much narrower meaning: *sensory* perceptions. 
By consciously or unconciously juxtaposing  those meanings, the modern-day 
empiricist can ridicule the idea of knowledge outside experience (so far, so 
good), but then *limit* experience to the sensory-empiric modes 
(reductionistic fallacy, category error, etc.). And so to completely 
confound matters, many of the new humanistic and transpersonal 
psychologists, working mostly with intelligibilia and transcendentalia, and 
correctly realizing that their data is indeed experiential (in the broad 
sense), and wishing equal recognition as "real sciences", simply *call* 
their endeavors and their data "empirical", only to find that strict 
empirical scientists simply reject their results, sometimes with undisguised 
mocking."

"To avoid these ambiguities, I will restrict the term "empirical" to its 
original meaning: knowledge grounded in sensory experience (sensibilia). I 
suggest humanistic and transpersonal psychologists do the same. Classical 
empiricism was an attempt to reduce all higher knowledge and experience to 
sensory knowledge and experience. The emphasis on direct experience (in the 
broad sense) was the great and enduring contribution of the empiricists; the 
reduction of experience to sensory experience was their great and enduring 
crime."

The key sentence is "To avoid these ambiguities, I [Wilber] will restrict 
the term "empirical" to its original meaning: knowledge grounded in sensory 
experience (sensibilia)."

dmb says (after quoting the first paragraph but LEAVING OUT the 
all-important second paragraph):
Yikes. First of all, you're using Wilber to attack Pirsig but Pirsig makes
the same distinction. This is a classic move of yours, by the way. You like
to use quotes from various thinkers to attack the MOQ, but it almost always
turns out to SUPPORT and explain the MOQ.

Scott:
You are ignoring that I AGREED with Wilber AND with Pirsig that it is a 
'crime' (Wilber's word) to restrict knowledge to that which is gained from 
sensory experience. On THAT distinction we're all in agreement. Rather, as 
Wilber says, there is sensory experience, there is rational experience, and 
there is transcendental (mystical) experience. However, what Wilber is ALSO 
saying, is that it is useful to restrict the word 'empirical' to knowledge 
gained from sensory experience "to avoid these ambiguities". That is what 
Wilber says, and that is what I say, and in this we differ from Pirsig. It's 
that simple.

- Scott


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "david buchanan" <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Friday, April 28, 2006 3:58 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] Static latching & faith


Scott, Ant, Ham and all MOQers:

Firstly, I gotta say how much I've enjoyed Ant's posts on this topic. Makes
me proud to be president of the fan club.

Secondly, he's a brief recap of where I left things last weekend...

dmb asked Scott:
What do you think Pirsig is claiming by say saying that the MOQ is "pure
empiricism"? And aren't you confusing that with the idea that radical
empiricism is based on "pure experience" as its explained at the end of
chapter 29?

Scott said:
I took the phrase "pure empiricism" from a (Pirsig) quote that Ant provided:
"I think it is extremely important to emphasize that the MOQ is pure
empiricism. There is nothing supernatural in it."  I take this to mean that
the MOQ does not include any non-empirical assumptions, that is assumptions
which make no empirical predictions. ..."So in the MOQ experience comes
first, everything else comes later. This is pure empiricism, as opposed to
scientific empiricism, which, with its pre-existing subjects and objects, is
not really so pure." Well, I suppose one can take this to mean that I can
assume anything I please as long as I do so "later". But obviously, that is
not what Pirsig meant. Hence, I assume what he means by "pure empiricism" is
that all assumptions are based on experience, or can be tested byexperience.
And that, as I have argued, is not the case with the MOQ. It is not enough
to be consistent with the empirical data. Claiming that God exists is
consistent with the empirical data (the empirical data does not contradict
it). But such a claim is not based on empirical data (assuming no mystical
"presence of God" experience), nor is it empirically testable. The same goes
for the postulation of an "undifferentiated aesthetic continuum" and the
claim that Quality applies in the inorganic.

dmb replied:
Man, you never fail to miss the point. ...you really need to look at the
difference between the dictionary's scientific empiricism and the MOQ's
radical empiricism. Otherwise, this whole issue will remain hopelessly
confused.

Scott responded:
Here's what you gave as the definition of radical empiricism: (LILA, end of
chapter 29:) "The second of James' two main systems of philosophy, which he
said was independent of pragmatism, was his RADICAL EMPIRICISM. By this he
meant that subjects and objects are not the starting points of experience."
Nowhere in this post of mine did I say anything that assumes subjects and
objects are the starting point of experience. The dictionary definitions do
not refer to S/O experience, they just refer to experience. So what point am
I missing?

dmb now says:
Well, the dictionary doesn't explicitly mention pre-existing subjects and
objects and you didn't explicitily mention them either, but I think its
pretty clear that they are assumed in both cases. I'm saying that the
dictionary is SOM and you're using that definition to try to understand the
MOQ's claims. But actually the MOQ's radical empiricism is an attack on that
definition. It is an attack on sensory experience as its understood by
positivistic science and common sense. Radical empiricism does NOT "mean
that the MOQ does not include any non-empirical assumptions". I think you're
trying to understand Pirsig claims in terms of what he is attacking and as a
result you're getting the idea that "radical empiricism" is like some kind
of "perfect positivisim". I see these SOMic assumptions buried in just about
everything you've said on this topic, but this one is my favorite...

Scott said to Ham:
...Here's the point I am trying to make: in the modern age (since the 17th
century) the word 'empirical' has been used to distinguish information
gathered from the senses from information produced through reason alone (for
example, mathematics), and from information with no apparent source at all
(e.g., superstition). Now Pirsig is making a rhetorical move in saying that
the MOQ is empirical. Here's what Ken Wilber had to say about this
rhetorical move: [Eye to Eye, p. 43] "Let me repeat that one of the reasons
that ambiguity can and does occur is that "experience" can be used in the
broad sense ("direct awareness"), but then also given a common and much
narrower meaning: *sensory* perceptions. By consciously or unconciously
juxtaposing those meanings, the modern-day empiricist can ridicule the idea
of knowledge outside experience (so far, so good), but then *limit*
experience to the sensory-empiric modes (reductionistic fallacy, category
error, etc.). And so to completely confound matters, many of the new
humanistic and transpersonal psychologists, working mostly with
intelligibilia and transcendentalia, and correctly realizing that their data
is indeed experiential (in the broad sense), and wishing equal recognition
as "real sciences", simply *call* their endeavors and their data
"empirical", only to find that strict empirical scientists simply reject
their results, sometimes with undisguised mocking." ...I agree with Wilber
that it is useful to keep to the traditional meaning of empirical to avoid
confusion. As he says, and I agree, this does not make the MOQ wrong. Just
that it is a mistake to label it empirical.

dmb says:
Yikes. First of all, you're using Wilber to attack Pirsig but Pirsig makes
the same distinction. This is a classic move of yours, by the way. You like
to use quotes from various thinkers to attack the MOQ, but it almost always
turns out to SUPPORT and explain the MOQ.

Lila's Child page 548
"I think the trouble is with the word, "experience." It is...commonly used
as a subject-object relationship. This relationship is usually considered
the basis of philosophic empiricism and experimental
scientific knowledge. In a subject-object metaphysics, this experience is
between a pre-existing object and subject, but in the MOQ, there is no
pre-existing subject or object....So in the MOQ experience comes first,
everything else comes later. This is pure empiricism, as opposed to
scientific
empiricism, which, with its pre-existing subjects and objects, is not really
so pure."

dmb resumes:
You see, both Pirsig and Wilber are making a distinction between traditional
empiricism, the narrow sensory data based kind we find in dictionaries and
in common sense and then there is a broader sense of the term which refers
to "direct awareness". See, by insisting that we have to use the traditonal
definition, you're insisting that we understand Pirsig's claims in terms of
the very thing his claims are rejecting. By insisting on the narrow sense of
the word "experience", you are insisting on using the SOM assumptions. I
believer this is the source of your confusion. I believe this is why you're
missing the point. See, "pure empiricism" is not perfectly executed
scientific empiricism, it is a criticism of scientific empiricism and a
rejection of its metaphysical assumptions. The MOQ begins with experience,
but not with sensory experience, not with sense data. It begins with "direct
awareness" instead of sensory experience because sensory experience depends
on a pre-existing subject with sense organs. As such, scientific empiricism
begins with a theoretically inferred subject, which in turn has the
experience, through the senses, of a pre-existing object or objects. See,
radical empiricism is refered to as pure because experience comes first.
There are no pre-existing subjects or objects which are said to give rise to
experience or to be the cause of experience. The MOQ's claim to purity in
this sense is not a claim about perfection or about the total absence of
theory. The MOQ's empiricism is "pure" in the sense that it does not assert
some kind of CAUSE behind experience. It does not assert an unseen
theoretical reality behind experience. It asserts no Platonic forms, no
Aristotelean Prime Mover, no Kantian things-in-themselves, and no
pre-existing subjects and objects. Instead, it begins with experience.

It even seems that you want to see some kind of physics experiments in which
the existence of a undifferentiated reality is proven through sensory
observation. But this would simply be one more unseen theoretical cause
behing experience. That's not what the MOQ claims at all. The "primary
empirical reality" is not a person, place or thing. Its not a realm or
entity that we know through observation. Rather it is "direct awareness"
itself. See, the MOQ's empirical purity refers to the idea that it all
begins with experience rather than with subjects (what you call the
Cartesian self) that have experience and/or the things which are
experienced. The MOQ says that subjects and objects are theories. They are
normally just assumed rather than explicitly asserted. We imagine that all
experience entails physical organisms with nervous systems complex enough to
include the sense organs so that the West's scientific, philosophical and
common sense notions about experience depends on that assumption. The usual
meaning of the word "empirical" rests on that same assumption and so that's
why it is so confusing to read Pirsig's empirical claims without first
rejecting that assumption.

As Pirsig puts it, RADICAL EMPIRICISM means "that subjects and objects are
not the starting points of experience. Subjects and objects are secondary.
They are concepts derived from something more fundamental which he described
as the immediate flux of life which furnishes the material to our later
reflection. In this basic flux of experience the distinctions of reflective
thought, consciousness and content, subject and object, mind and matter have
not yet emerged in the forms which we make them. Pure experience cannot be
called either physical or psychical. It
logically precedes this distinction." Ho hum. I've tried to make it
impossible to miss the point, but if the future is anything like the past,
you'll find a way.

Thanks.
dmb

P.S. Here's a question for you Scott; How far away from an object does a
person have to be in order for that object to appear as its actual size? In
other words, at what distance from the eye does a yard stick actually look
like its exactly a yard long? Under what circumstances does objective
reality appear to the subject as it actually is? (Assuming you are exactly
six feet tall and weigh 175 pounds and making your observations in a vacuum,
but in normal earth gravity.) If you can crack this riddle, you will surely
get the point.

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