[MD] Chance

[Platt Holden]

> [Platt]
> It means how do you know to ask a question.
> 
> [Arlo]
> I asked because whether life is better than death is something we can never
> "know". We can believe it. And it sucks when other people die, but whether or
> not they are better off or worse off (or just plain "off") is something we
> won't know til we have first hand experience of it. 

Seems you believe knowledge only comes from "first hand experience." But I 
dimly recall you arguing that we can know from inference. I would also 
argue we can know from authority (the moon is not made of green cheese) and 
by application of reason to our perceptions (if the river rises another 
foot the levy will be breached). 

> [Arlo]
> Language is the use of analogy to describe pre-intellectual experience.
 
> "If it had a nervous system it would act in a much more complex way to overcome
> the poor quality of the environment. It would seek analogues, that is, images
> and symbols from its previous experience, to define the unpleasant nature of
> its new environment and thus 'understand' it." (ZMM)
> 
> [Platt]
> "When A. N. Whitehead wrote that "mankind is driven forward by dim
> apprehensions of things too obscure for its existing language," he was writing
> about Dynamic Quality. Dynamic Quality is the pre-intellectual cutting edge of
> realty, the source of all things, completely simple and always new." (Lila, 9)
> 
> Pre-intellectual experience is too obscure for language, i.e., analogy.
> 
> [Arlo]
> But as soon as you say it, analogy. But I am not sure what your point is here,
> as the Pirsig quote you've provided supports the one I had offered. Are you
> using Pirsig to disprove Pirsig, or agreeing with me?

Using Pirsig's later work (Lila) to shed light on his previous work (ZMM).

[Arlo]
> If you think it disproves the former, please explain how.
 
By asserting that pre-intellectual experience is "too obscure" for 
language. Also "Quality is indivisible, undefinable and unknowable in the 
sense that there is a knower and a known, but a metaphysics can be none of 
these things" (Lila, 5) In other words, Quality (Pre-conceptual experience) 
can't be described.

So I don't think your statement that "Language is the use of analogy to 
describe pre-intellectual experience" is correct because pre-intellectual 
experience can't be "described" at all. It would be like trying to describe 
the smell of bacon or the sound of whipoorwill. 

Do you have another interpretation of the Lila quotes?