[MD] Static latching & faith - part one

[Ant McWatt]

Scott, DMB, SA,

Ant McWatt quoted F.S.C. Northrop (the widely published Sterling Professor 
of philosophy & law at Yale University for over forty years) April 27th:

“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.”

“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 stated April 27th:

It is hardly a scientific theory to note that if I turn my head I stop
focusing on one thing and start focusing on another, that if I note
something vague in my peripheral vision I can turn my head to focus on it,
making it less vague.

Ant commented April 27th:

Agreed, the above is a hardly a scientific theory but _it is still a theory_
and therefore a concept by postulation.  Again, it is a concept by
postulation which would not have been thought of in the first place if the
indeterminate component of the aesthetic continuum hadn’t been observed in
the first place.  You keep missing this important logical point (Don’t worry
you’re in good company with most Western philosophers such as Dennett).

Scott asked April 28th:

I fail to see why the field isn’t also a concept by postulation.

Ant comments:

(Though not particularly relevant to the MOQ – if at all) I _think_ what 
Northrop means by “field” is the changeless _immediately apprehended_ 
opening (or continuum) where the changing “sense impressions” reside.  Maybe 
if this field was rectangular like a TV screen (rather than a largely vague 
oval with a determinate centre) it would be more obvious.  This ontological 
space (“Being”) allowing “sense impressions” (plus the subsequent static 
patterns) is discussed in more depth by Professor David E. Cooper “The 
Measure Of Things” (2002) and Heidegger.   Anyway, a concept by postulation 
is purely theoretical while a concept by intuition _partly_ depends on being 
immediately apprehended.  Northrop’s field is therefore classed as a concept 
by intuition.  A concept by intuition – such as the orange in a sunset - is 
partly theoretical because though verified by immediately apprehension, 
language is required to point it out to someone else.  (As Northrop notes, a 
pure fact – untainted by theory - is one you have to keep to yourself!)

Scott continued April 28th:

The difference between Northrop and Dennett is that Northrop says there is 
this
unobserved field in addition to the variety of aesthetic experiences, while
Dennett does not say there is such a field.

Ant commented April 27th:

Well, I wouldn’t listen much to Dennett in the context of immediate 
experience or mysticism.  He’ll just confuse you.  As I note above 
Northrop’s field is immediately apprehended and, in any case, Dennett does 
mention the field (at least, in its visual context) in chapter 3 of 
“Consciousness Explained”.

Scott continued April 28th:

How do we choose between these options? Not empirically, as far as I can 
see. Northrop says “Moreover, most of the directly experienced field is 
vague and indefinite.  Only at what William James termed its center is there 
specificity and definiteness.”  Fine, there are more and less vague 
aesthetic experiences.

Ant comments:

OK, looks like we’re finally getting some agreement regarding the existence 
of the indeterminate and aesthetic components of Northrop’s “indeterminate 
aesthetic continuum”.

Scott continued April 28th:

But [Northrop] then infers from this: “Thus it is evident that the 
indefinite,
indeterminate, aesthetic continuum is as immediately apprehended as are the
specific differentiations within it.” But this does not logically follow, no 
more
than the existence of the “best” follows from the existence of the better or
worse. Thus his claim is not empirical. There is no empirical means for
testing the difference between Northrop’s view and Dennett’s.

Ant comments:

Northrop is just noting that the vague “sense impressions” in immediate 
experience are just as noticeable as the determinate “sense impressions” in 
immediate experience. Again, Dennett confirms this observation in chapter 3, 
p.53-54, of “Consciousness Explained”.

“The visual field seems to naïve reflection [i.e. Scott’s initial position] 
to be uniformly detailed and focused from the center out to the boundaries, 
but a simple experiment [i.e. moving a playing card from the edge to the 
centre of the visual field] shows that this is not so.”

--------cut---------


Ant quoted Northrop:

“Concepts by intuition are especially and continuously important in the
traditional Orient. This happens because the Far Easterners have tended to
be pure empiricists restricting reality to the immediately apprehended.  In
fact, they identify the Divine with the timeless undifferentiated aesthetic
continuum.  Consequently, Far Eastern religion is a positivistic, empirical
and, hence, scientifically veridical religion.” (Northrop, “Logic of the
Sciences & Humanities”, 1947, p.100)

Scott said:

As I thought: the undifferentiated aesthetic continuum is Divine, which is
to say, it is not part of the experience of everyday, non-mystically
Awakened people.

Ant commented April 27th:

I think it would be better to say that _for Northrop_ the Divine is
associated with the undifferentiated component of the aesthetic continuum
(from a static everyday perspective) and _is_ a logical move made by him
because as the Divine is meant to be indeterminate, it can’t reside in the
determinate components of experience/the aesthetic continuum.

However, in correspondence, Pirsig has reservations about locating the
Divine (if equated with Dynamic Quality) with the indeterminate aesthetic
continuum.  If nothing else, I think this is because it starts sounding like
a definition for DQ.  I think Pirsig would relate the Dynamic more to the
aesthetic nature of the immediately apprehended.

“From an everyday world Dynamic Quality is like an undefined perfume which
attaches in different ways to the objects of the world.”  (Pirsig to McWatt,
December 1994)

Scott:

This raises two possibilities. One is that this undefined perfume is being
hypostasized, which is to say it is being postulated.  The other is that it 
is just a fact that we value the objects of the world. This second is also a 
postulation.  How, empirically, do we choose between them?

Ant comments:

Pirsig’s analogy of Dynamic Quality with an undefined perfume raises no such 
possibilities.  If anything, Pirsig is just noting that the aesthetic (from 
the MOQ’s static point of view) is a significant immediately apprehended 
factor.  The only concepts by postulation in the above context are the 
(logically subsequent) justifications of _why_ some things seem beautiful 
and some things seem ugly.

Ant continued April 27th:

Everyone can get “turned on” by the beauty of a sunset if they only become
mindful of their immediate surroundings (which is where the aesthetic
resides in both the determinate and indeterminate).

Scott:

One gets turned on by the beauty of a sunset. Full stop. What, where, how,
is this “resid[ing] in both the determinate and indeterminate”? Looks like
more postulating to me.

Ant comments:

I refer you to your comment of April 28th:  “Fine, there are more and less 
vague aesthetic experiences” which appears to contradict the above assertion 
about the determinate and indeterminate.

Ant quoted Pirsig:

“Some people know that they know it, and other people, particularly Freshman
rhetoric students, don’t know that they know it.  This is in accord with the 
Soto Zen Buddhist doctrine that everyone is enlightened.  What occurs at 
“enlightenment” is the falling away of the illusion that one is not 
enlightened.  But the enlightenment has been there all along.”  (Pirsig to 
McWatt, August 1997)

Scott:

For the non-mystic this is more postulating.

Scott to SA May 2nd 2006:

[Moreover] Pirsig showed that value is a common experience, so I have no 
argument with saying that our common experience is a differentiated 
aesthetic continuum. However, Pirsig’s concept of DQ is modelled [loosely] 
after Northrop’s *undifferentiated* aesthetic continuum, and I am saying 
that that is not a feature of common experience. It is a feature of mystical 
experience: what is called satori, moksha, etc. It happens rarely and only 
to a few. I see nothing in your post
that sounds anything remotely like an undifferentiated aesthetic continuum.

Ant comments:

I’m not sure I’d agree that “[satori] happens rarely and only to a few” 
because in a Zen monastery it is very common.  As Pirsig explained to me 
last Summer, a Zen Monastery is like a “production line” for inducing satori 
in young monks!  As I mentioned previously, I think you are making the 
mystic (as well as the indeterminate aesthetic continuum) too mysterious, 
too esoteric.  Some of the wisdom of ZMM and many Taoist and Buddhist texts 
is the emphasis that the Dynamic is not to be found on some mountain top 
with a cave dwelling hermit but in normal everyday life (what you could term 
the “Tao of screaming kids, walking the dog and the 9 to 5 job”).

“The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a 
digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top 
of a mountain or in the petals of a flower. To think otherwise is to demean 
the Buddha...which is to demean oneself.”   (ZMM, end of chapter 1)

Scott said:

So to base a philosophy on it is to base a philosophy on faith (faith that
the mystics who report such experience are reporting authentically),

Ant comments:

Just to nail down this nonsense about faith and the MOQ.  If Pirsig’s 
comments about “pure empiricism” and “faith” are looked at in context in the 
Copleston annotations, it is seen that the MOQ is _not_ derived via faith 
but derived by firstly noting what is observed by immediate apprehension and 
then constructing the remainder through logical inference and reasoning 
(such as the use of cosmological evolution to order the static patterns).  I 
think it’s far more positivistic and hard headed system than most 
philosophologists realise.  Moreover, just because a belief might be a 
concept by postulation (such as the belief in three-dimensional chairs and 
tables), it does not follow it is understood through faith.  If anything, 
concepts by postulation are usually verified by scientific hypothesis and 
experimentation.

Another point is that satori can be achieved by _anyone_ (in reasonable 
health) via meditation practices, vision quests and psychedelics.  You don’t 
need to take the word of anyone else to verify what such experiences reveal. 
  On the other hand, the problem with theistic religions is that you often 
have one or two individuals (such as prophets) who make certain assertions 
that can’t be observed by others nor verified through experiment.  And 
_this_ is where the issue of faith is introduced in the context of concepts 
by postulation.  For example, the Christian idea of God the Father.  
(Possibly such non-rational beliefs arose to fill in explanatory gaps in how 
the universe operates.  Either way, these gaps can now be explained 
rationally by scientific ideas such as the theory of evolution and the 
theory of relativity.)

Likewise, another May 2nd comment of Scott's to SA is misleading:

“Claiming something for which there is no common experience to back it up.
‘God exists’ is an unempirical claim. That doesn’t make it false, just not
empirical. ‘There is value in the inorganic (that is, in the absence of all
living creatures)’ is an unempirical claim.”

The difference is that the belief that God exists is based on faith (as 
confirmed in paragraph 153 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church) while 
the assumption that “there is value in the inorganic” is largely made by 
Pirsig for reasons of metaphysical coherence and consistency.  If you accept 
the SOM assumption that value ends at the social level, then you will find 
yourself with SOM’s free-will/determinism and fact/value problems (and, no 
doubt, at the mercy of Dennett, Chalmers & Co!).  In any case, _individual_ 
quantum “particles” don’t operate to traditional deterministic laws.  That’s 
a scientific fact not a supernatural belief and, moreover, the empirical 
observation that people do appear to have free-will also has implications 
for the behaviour of the quantum static patterns that compose the bodies of 
people.  In other words, the inorganic material (the “play-do of the Tao”) 
that came from the Big Bang had certain non-deterministic properties that 
allowed stars, biological patterns and then social and intellectual patterns 
to eventually develop.

“[The MOQ] says that even at the most fundamental level of the universe, 
static
patterns of value and moral judgment are identical.  The ‘Laws of Nature’ 
are moral laws.  Of course it sounds peculiar at first and awkward and 
unnecessary to say that hydrogen and oxygen form water because it is moral 
to do so.  But it is no less peculiar and awkward and unnecessary than to 
say chemistry professors smoke pipes and go to movies because irresistible 
cause-and-effect forces of the cosmos force them to do it.  In the past the 
[SOM] logic [of determinism] has been that if chemistry professors are 
composed exclusively of atoms and if atoms follow only the law of cause and 
effect, then chemistry professors must follow the laws of cause and effect 
too.  But this logic can be applied in a reverse direction.  We can just as 
easily deduce the morality of atoms from the observation that chemistry 
professors are, in general, moral.  If chemistry professors exercise choice, 
and chemistry professors are composed exclusively of atoms, then it follows 
that atoms must exercise choice too.”  (LILA, end of chapter 12)



Continued in “Static latching & faith – part two”./


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