[MD] confused

[Ham Priday]

Hi Platt --



> I don't see the difference between experience and sensibility.
> I experience pain, red and other aspects of myself all the time
> as objects of my subjective "I." The fact that I know that I
> experience or sense things both internally and externally
> doesn't seem to me to be definitive of the difference between
> the words experience and sense.

In common usage they are almost interchangeable, and I won't quarrel with
Pirsig's usage in the MoQ (although he should have defined the terms in the
context in which they appear).  However, because my epistemology relates to
a subject/object existence, I need to make a distinction between the
subjective "property" or faculty of sensation and the objective reality that
is experienced.  Hence, for me sensibility is the sense of value that is
primary and unstructured by the intellect.  I used the examples pain,
pleasure, seeing red, and being aware of ourselves.  These are
proprioceptive (bodily) sensations; but I could add the sense of freedom,
beauty, affection, goodness, peace, harmony and justice which relate to the
"external world" without requiring specific referents.  Once we start
applying things and events to sensibility, it becomes not just our values
but our experience -- of others, cats, trees, symbols, images, concepts,
etc.  That is the intellect (objectivization) coming into play.  Consider
experience the "bridge" between pure awareness and its objectified contents.

> Doesn't my cat UTOE also "intellectualize" sensory data
> into specific objects in time and space relative to himself?
> I think so. So I find the word "intellectualize" a bit off base
> because I don't think of animals, even those with brain stems,
> as "intellectualizing." My knowledge of biology is weak, but
> don't germs (who I believe are without brain stems) also react
> to objects relative to themselves? They certainly raise hell
> with my white corpuscles sometimes.

Let's not confuse reaction, which is "behavior", with sensibility or
awareness.  Single cell organisms, microbes, even sponges exhibit responsive
behavior to certain stimuli.  Frankly, I don't know to what extent UTOE
"intellectualizes".  I would expect that felines and other mammals have the
ability to integrate sense data into conscious images, whether or not they
are capable of identifying themselves as the subject of what they
experience.

> Seems to me "intellectualizing" fits more with consciousness
> and mind than experience. But, this merely illustrates the problem
> of definition. I would be more than willing to accept Merriam
> Webster's Collegiate Dictionary as the "authority" regarding
> definitions except I don't have a copy. I use Random House
> Unabridged, Random House Webster's, and the on line Merriam-
> Webster -- mostly the latter. I believe you have referred from
> time to time to a philosophy dictionary. Would be helpful I think
> to have an "official" dictionary and an "official" encyclopedia
> for this site, one that is preferably accessible on the Internet
> without a fee.

Great idea.  Have you suggested it to Horse?  I just happen to have the
Webster's Collegiate that my son used in school.  The Dictionary of
Philosophy (really a compact encyclopedia of the subject) was compiled by an
editorial staff under Dagobert Runes, a prominent philosophical researcher,
and published by Littlefield, Adams & Co. in their New Students Outline
(softback) Series.  You might want to check with a PhD like Ant or DMB as to
the suitability of the Runes book for MoQ use as compared, say, to
Wikipedia.  (I'd prefer to recuse myself from such discussion for obvious
reasons.)

Essentially yours,
Ham