[MD] Static latching & faith

[david buchanan]

Scott and all MOQers:

Scott said:
I am asking about Northrop's claim of an "undifferentiated aesthetic 
continuum", and about Pirsig's claim that there is value in the inorganic. 
We are in agreement that physics-type justification does not apply. So what 
does?  ...So they are just assumptions, given that they are not a matter of 
direct awareness, at least for a non-mystic. Right?

dmb says:
Oh boy. Here you are asking about radical empiricism, epistemological 
empiricism, the MOQ's preference model in subatomic physics, and mysticsim. 
That's fine. I think all these elements are inter-related and that it 
important to see how they all work together in a coherent way, but you seem 
to be mixing them up together. And I'm still not so sure you got my point 
about the broader meaning of empiricism

For starters, there is a difference between saying experience comes first 
and the direct awareness that mystics report. Northrop's claim does not 
depend on the reports of mystics. Radical empiricism does not depend on the 
reports of mystics. They are both consistent with those reports as part of a 
larger picture and both fit coherently within the MOQ, but radical 
empiricism itself is basically a rejection of the assumptions of SOM. It 
does not replace subjects and objects with a different assumption about 
experience, it just starts with experience. That experience is given a name 
to distinguish it from SOM's sensory experience. Direct experience is one of 
those names and primary empirical reality is another. As Ant tells it, we 
have to make some qualifications on this very score to make Northrop's 
claims fit exactly, but basically his categories of experience are getting 
at the same thing. See, its not "just an assumption". Its not an assumption 
at all. It is the rejection of assumptions. It is the rejection of the 
assumptions contained in the narrow meaning of empiricism.

I refered to the hot stove example last time, in fact, to avoid the 
confusion between the claims of radical empiricism and the claims of 
philosophical mysticism. Pirsig humorously points out that mystics would 
jump off the stove faster than the positivists who think of the experience 
in terms of pre-existing stoves and pre-existing sitters, but there is 
nothing particularly assumptive, theoretical or mystical about burning your 
ass. The hot stove example simply points out that you "know" its bad even 
before you have a chance to think about the cause of that badness or 
otherwise explain it. You "know" the low value of the situation before you 
have any "idea" about what's happening. That kind of direct awareness is 
different from a mystical realization. Its something like the difference 
between an infant and an old sage. The infant is not yet differentiated the 
world while the old sage has gone through that process and then learned to 
see through it, so to speak. In some sense, they both have "direct 
awareness", but from opposite ends. The dead and the unborn are both not 
alive, but that doesn't mean they are the same thing.

Whew! And that's just a brief attempt to untangle radical empiricism from 
one of these confusions. I haven't even touched on the preference model of 
epistemological pluralism. See, one of the reasons I complain about these 
constant confusions is that its such a chore to untangle them...

dmb said to Scott:
Who said (radical empiricism) was "just as straightforward" (as sensory 
empiricism)? Isn't my repeated point just the opposite? If the broader 
meaning were "just as straightforward" then in what sense would it be 
broader? Again, you claim that you understand this distinction, but here you 
demonstate that you are confused about the difference.

Scott replied:
No, I think this is the first time in this thread that you have made the 
point that some kinds of direct awareness are esoteric, available *as* 
direct awareness only to very few, that they lack straightforward 
justifications. So with these two claims (the undifferentiated aesthetic 
continuum, and that there is value in the inorganic) is there any 
justification other than "mystics say so"?

dmb says:
As I was saying, you've mixed up a few different things in these kinds of 
questions and each one of them would be "justified" in different ways. The 
preference model (value in the inorganic) does not depend on the reports of 
mystics just as radical empiricism does not rely on the reports of mystics. 
Again, this elements supports each other and are consistant with each other 
within the larger framework of the MOQ and that's a good thing. But its 
probably better to concentrate on one element at a time, which is what I was 
trying to do. I was focused on the difference between radical empiricism and 
regular empiricism, but your questions about justificaton don't make much 
sense insofar as they introduce elements I was not speaking to. And they are 
introduced as if I were. Oh God, its a mess in so many ways. This time I'm 
sort of just trying to explain a little bit about why radical empiricism is 
not the same thing as mysticism or the preference model and such. In that 
sense I'm still focused on the MOQ's radical empiricism, even if I'm just 
saying what it is NOT.

Scott said:
Now you also said a while back that their justification comes from assuming 
them and working out, based on assuming them, an adequate and coherent 
metaphysics. True, that is a kind of justification. The problem is that one 
can work out equally adequate and coherent metaphysics by assuming something 
else, perhaps a different sort of mystical revelation.

dmb replies:
Hmmm. The only thing I want to say here is, yes, of course one can work out 
other, equally adequate and coherent metaphysical systems. Why in the world 
would you see this as a problem? Isn't one of the aims of the MOQ to allow 
more than one construction of things? Isn't the whole post-modern period all 
about the rejection of a single, exclusive truth? The fact that more than 
one good theory can be used to explain the very same set of experiences is 
to be celebrated and enjoyed, no? That's why scientists and philosophers 
need to be artists and all that.

Scott said:
My metaphysics in particular is somewhat different from the MOQ in that it 
is based on slightly different mystically based writing (that of 
Merrell-Wolff and of Plotinus) than the sort of mysticism that Pirsig seems 
to be familiar with. Since the difference is slight, there is a good deal of 
overlap, but there are differences.

dmb says:
Of course there are some differences between Pirsig and other thinkers, but 
I think you have repeatedly exaggerated and distorted those difference. I've 
tried to show you this several times in the past and we already have enough 
to deal with, but I just have to say that you really could and should be 
using these thinkers to elaborate and explain the MOQ. I think this is 
pretty much demanded by the content of their writings and the natural 
affinity they have with the MOQ. See, I don't think they are different on 
anything of importance. It just that they offer detail that Pirsig couldn't 
afford to cover within the scope of his project. I think philosopical 
mysticism is supposed to be broad enough to accomodate a wide variety of 
more specific forms. This is perfectly consistent with the way Pirsig 
identifies DQ with religious mysticism, but supports no particular sect or 
version, East or West, ancient or modern.

Scott continued:
...The point is that the choice of metaphysics thus rests on faith -- in one 
sort of revelation or another -- followed by reasoning using that revelation 
as a basis. I see nothing wrong with this, in fact, I think that is the only 
way one can do metaphysics, but of course you can't possibly accept it 
because Pirsig claims that his so-called empiricism is to be distinguished 
from faith, while as I see it, by broadening the definition of 'empirical' 
to include direct awareness of any sort, including mystical
experience, means that the line between the empirical and the faith-based is 
obscured.

dmb replies:
Metaphysics rests on revelation and faith? Its "the only way one can do 
metaphysics"?! Wow. I definately have some problems with that assertion and 
it confirms my hunches about your whole approach. I think if you understood 
radical empiricims properly you would see that it does not rest on faith. 
Again, the broadening of the definition of empiricism is a rejection of 
sense experience as the starting point of all real knowledge, a rejection of 
the narrow definition. It does not rely on "revelations" or the reports of 
mystics. The negative experience that prompts one to jump off a hot stove 
does not rest on faith or any kind of assumption. But I'm actually glad to 
see this admission about faith and revelation as the basis of your 
metaphysics. Ha. I knew it. You're a clothset theist just as i suspected.

Scott said he is:
...someone who has no direct awareness of an undifferentiated aesthetic 
continuum, and wants to know what Northrop is talking about when he says 
"undifferentiated aesthetic continuum", and wants to know why the concept 
should be taken seriously. Care to answer?

dmb says:
I've been answering. You just don't like the answer, won't accept the 
answer, don't understand the answer or whatever. And you keep finding new 
ways to avoid engaging with my answers too. Here, for example, you complain 
that you have "no direct awareness of an undifferentiated continuum" and so 
you don't know what Northrop is talking about. This is exactly what I'm 
referring to when I say there are no justifications for this claim. I don't 
mean that you've stumped me with the question. I mean that there is no 
answer because there is no question. The question is bogus. It makes no 
sense. All I can do is try to show you why it makes no sense. How many frogs 
are in the oven if you're rolling down a hill and your wheels fall off? 
Would you feel stumped by the inability to answer such nonsense? Your 
question isn't that silly, but you see my point. Anyway, you don't need to 
have a mystical experience to understand what radical empiricism is, you 
only need to understand empiricism. And I don't know how "seriously" you 
should take it. If your aim is to understand radical empiricism and/or the 
MOQ, then its helpful to look at Northrop's categories of experience as well 
as James and positivism and such.

This is another one of those spots where you've confused mysticism with 
radical empiricism. Again, the mystic might be the first one off that stove, 
but anyone of any persusion will get off. No matter what your assumptions 
are, no matter what faith you hold, you know its bad and that's the first 
thing you know ahead of everything else. This is the claim of radical 
empiricism. This primary experience has various labels like "direct 
awareness" and "the undifferentiated aesthetic continuum" but they all refer 
to that first thing we know, that initial sense of value. But its not just 
that you're confusing the infant with the sage and the beginning with the 
end. Another reason it makes no sense to complain about never having any 
"direct awareness of an undifferentiated continuum" is that both words refer 
to the same experience. So here you are complaining that you've never 
experienced experience. Its like saying driving can't be taken seriously as 
a real activity because you've never driven driving. Again, its not really 
that silly, but you see my point. This is what I was referring to when I 
accused you of treating this primary empirical reality as some of thing or 
entity or realm that we experience. But the label does not refer to some 
thing we become aware of. We don't have direct awareness OF a continuum. The 
continuum IS that direct awareness. You don't have experience OF experience. 
You just have experience.

Scott said:
But the point is that one can have epistemological pluralism and one can 
start with experience, rather than pre-supposing subjects and objects, 
without changing the meaning of 'empiricism'. Just say: "in addition to 
sense-based experience there is rational and transcendental experience" and 
say "we will not presuppose that experience comes only in subject/object 
form". Now by broadening the meaning of 'empirical', all that has been 
accomplished is to *lessen the value of the word*. In the narrower meaning, 
if someone says such-and-such is empirical, then one has a good idea of how 
to justify it (with the eye of the flesh). With the broadened meaning one 
has no idea how to justify it, or if it can be justified at all -- in 
particular, one doesn't know if it is just being assumed or not.

dmb says:
You think it makes sense to reject pre-existing subjects and objects in 
favor of starting with experience and still retain the narrow meaning of 
empiricism? I don't. You think the value of the narrow meaning is lessened 
by the broader meaning? I don't. I think both of those assertions are just 
more evidence of your confusion. You keep insisting that we limit ourselves 
to the narrow meaning despite my repeated attempts to explain that radical 
empiricism MEANS rejecting those very limits. Rejecting those pre-existing 
subjects and objects IS a rejection of that narrow meaning. Its all part of 
the same set of assumptions, the assumptions that tell us that subjects 
experience the objective world through their senses. SOM and sensory 
empiricism are such that it makes no sense to reject subjects and objects 
whle retaining sesory empiricism, the narrow definition. If you take 
epistiemological pluralism on board and thereby add mental and 
transcendental to sensory experience, then its not logically possible to 
retain the narrow definition of empiricism. If you add you have broadened. 
Yes, sensory empiricism is clear and simple. So what? The problem with that 
kind of empiricism is that it is TOO SIMPLE. It says the only real things 
are things that can be known through the senses. Its says physical reality 
is the only real reality. All of postmodernism is opposed to this narrow 
meaning. This narrow meaning is what gives us amoral scientific objectivity 
and the whole representational paradigm. I think you do not understand why 
its important to get out of that narrow SOM box. I think you insistance on 
the narrow meaning is just evidence of that you don't get that.

Scott:
Why should adding a sense have anything to do with SOM assumptions? Surely 
we can talk about vision, hearing, etc., without assuming SOM. Why not a 
sense of value? (And remember, that's Pirsig's term).

dmb replies:
We can talk about vision and hearing without assuming a subject who sees and 
hears things? How? How do you talk about sense experience without those 
assumptions? Seriously. I really wanna know what you mean because that seems 
like a logical impossibility.

Scott said:
I never implied that the undifferentiated continuum -- or anything else 
--was the CAUSE of experience (strawman, anyone?). I was only asking why 
Northrop postulates the term. All of my direct awareness is differentiated.

dmb replies:
You keep making these kind of denials, but you've utterly failed to engage 
my explainations as to where I find you implications. Maybe you didn't 
INTEND to imply that the continuum was the CAUSE of experiece, but as I 
tried to explain in the case of your complaints about never having a direct 
experience OF the continuum, the implication is there anyway. In that case, 
your complaints suggest that the continuum is a pre-existing reality that 
causes our experience OF it the way red things are assumed to cause us to 
experience red. In almost every case, I quote you and then explain where I'm 
seeing your implications and assumptions. I'm constatly pointing to these 
implicatons repeating the specific comments that led me to that conclusion. 
If you want me to take these denials seriously you're really going to have 
to engage with that rather than just pretend I'm setting up straw men. This 
generous treatment should actually make it pretty easy for you to make any 
correction, clarifications and denials. As to the last sentence, I don't 
know what that's supposed to mean. As I understand it, direct awareness and 
undifferentiated awareness are two names for the same experience so that 
your last comment basically says, "All my undifferentiatied experience is 
differentiatied".  It makes about as much sense as saying all my wet 
experiences are dry.

dmb had said:
See, Pirsig's radical empiricism doesn't make any claims about experience so 
much as attack the metaphysical assumptions of those who do. Unlike the 
positivists and other SOMers, the MOQ asserts no assumptions about what is 
required for experience to occur. It just begins with experience and any 
causal explanations come later, as in the hot stove example, which is 
another way to explain this same idea. But then, if memory serves, you 
hacked that one up badly too.

Scott replied:
I never said he did assert any assumption about what is required for 
experience to occur. What I have been asking for is the justification for 
talking about an undifferentiated aesthetic continuum, or for saying that 
there is value in the inorganic. You have now answered this: there is none, 
so I assume he assumes these two claims because mystics say so. So it sure 
looks to me like the MOQ is based on faith in mystics.

dmb says:
I could spend pages and pages on each sentence in this paragraph, each of 
which is more confused than the next. But what really kills me is that the 
whole thing is absurd. Supposedly you are responding to my explanation as to 
what radical empiricism does and does not claim, but your response is 
completely irrelevant to anything I said. And somehow, my explanations about 
why your non-sensical questions have no answer have been construed to mean 
that the MOQ rests on faith and the word of mystics. And I did not say that 
the Northrop's ideas about the categories of experience cant't be justified. 
I only said that you can't observe them with the senses, that the continuum 
can't be justified in terms of narrow sesnory empiricism.

Scott, I've tried very hard to be polite and patient during this 
conversation. I've tried to put my feelings aside and focus on the substance 
of the isssues. I realize that its no fun to be repeatedly described as 
"confused", but you gotta understand that this is the nicest word I could 
think of. That's about as polite as I can be without being totally 
inaccurate or dishonest about my perceptions. So instead of giving in to my 
first impulse, which is to scream insulting things about the quality of your 
mind, I've tried to provide detailed explanations about where I see errors 
and to provide detailed explanations about the correct way to understand 
Prsig's empiricism. I've tried to show you exactly what I'm criticizing and 
what I'm offering as an alternative, but none of this seems to have any 
effect at all. Its like talking to a wall - or a Republican.

Despite my efforts there seems to be no glimmer of comprehension and I 
really don't know where to go from here. Its like you don't really want to 
understand, like you're playing some kind of game. Maybe you're completely 
sincere and totally honest about the whole thing, but I don't want to 
believe that. If your apparent inability to grasp radical empiricism is 
sincere the implications are even worse. That's where the insulting remarks 
about your intelligence would come into it. Sorry, but that's how I feel. So 
what's the deal, dude? Are you playing a game where the object is to be as 
obtuse as possible or are you just a very bad philosopher? Right now, it 
looks like its both.

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