[MD] Let's Dance ?

[Ian Glendinning]

Marsha and all,
I posted that meeting of minds "dance" YouTube link to another
discussion group and got a vey long and interesting Lila /
Pirsig-related response, without any prompting.

>From Ted .... START

i am getting into 'Lila' (robert pirsig, author of zen and the art of
motorcycle maintenance), as a delayed response to your recommendation
some time ago, and in watching 'meeting of the minds', one can see the
different approaches to understanding that pirsig ably brings into a
connecting framework in his writings (e.g. by way of the trio of
mysticism, metaphysics and science).

what is not present, in galison's 'meeting of the minds' videoclip,
however, is a connecting framework of the type pirsig devlops based on
the notion of 'quality' which precedes subject and object and thus
goes beyond notions such as 'two-way-causation'.   this dissonant
quality is the primary experience, ... and descriptions or judgements
about it are derivative intellectual constructs, such as 'the stove we
are sitting on is the cause of it'.

the quality of space that induces horses to move closer together when
'it is cold' and farther apart when 'it is warm' is a basic experience
that precedes our intellectual descriptions and judgements which we
typically formulate in terms of 'what things do' (i.e. in terms of
notional local systems with notional locally originating behaviours).

'quality' or 'harmony' or 'resonance' (which induces wildgeese to fly
in formation) is a direct experience, and so is giambattista vico's
implied 'quality of space' that induces primitive man to seek shelter
in the turbulence of a thunderstorm.   the intellectual description
and judgement comes afterwards, it is not the experience.  in his
terms, i believe it was that ''expression' precedes (individual-)
experience' which would imply that expression is 'pure experience' or
'quality' that lies between 'subject' and 'object'; i.e. that lies
between 'inhabitant' and 'habitat'.

in the terms that i have been using, this 'quality' is the 'conjugate-
habitat-inhabitant-relation' which is a dynamical one-ness, which our
intellectual descriptions and judgements start off by breaking into
'two' and then struggling to relate the two.   our noun-based or
'being-based' language forces us to do this breaking into two since it
is single issue at a time and incapable of directly conveying, what
the inhabitants are doing and how the habitat is, at the same time,
undergoing spatial-relational transformation.   the poem about the
folks sitting around a fire, each with a piece of wood that they were
reluctant to throw on illustrated how their focus on their
interpersonal issues and actions, occluded from view or 'demoted from
its natural over-riding precedence' in their 'view' and internal
reasoning (in terms of local systems with local agency that act/
interact in absolute logical space), the quality of space they all
shared inclusion in, hence the disagreements amongst them which caused
them to withhold throwing their wood on the fire resulted in them all
freezing to death.

anyhow, the 'meeting of the minds' videoclip is interesting, in its
effectiveness in showing the common acknowledgement, across art and
science, of 'holes' in our scientific view, ... which different
disciplines tend to 'plug' in their different ways (mostly with jargon
such as 'far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics' or 'bifurcation at quark
level' etc.)  pirsig's 'metaphysics of quality', seeks to bridge
between the mystic understanding (e.g. in zen, and in native
visionquests) and the scientific understanding, but as he notes, the
notion of metaphysics' is 'put down' by 'both sides'.  the mystics
claim that 'thought is not a path to reality' (and metaphysics they
say is based on thought while pirsig would say it is based in
quality), and the scientists claim that 'metaphysics' is too mystical
and that science is the only legitimate investigator of reality.

still, while the dancers let themselves fall into the harmony that
dissolves the difference between subject-and-object, inhabitant-and-
habitat, we are predominantly a thinking culture and the holes remain
(the confusing of idealisation for reality) and the incoherence grows
and we are unlikely to re-popularize peyote/LSD and visionquests).
pirsig elicited a big interest in his 'metaphysics of quality'
bridging, but not much real 'take-up', it seems.

postscript. ---i might add that my understanding, in common with
pirsig's it would seem, is that in no sense are my words intending to
'tell it the way it is', but to recount and compare differing ways to
frame and allude to this elusive experiencing of quality that lies
deeper that 'i/we' and 'you/they', science and mysticism being two
options.

it seems to me as if
the ‘view’ of an inherently ‘connected’ world; e.g. a fluid-dynamical
world or ‘holoflux’ as pribram termed it, is starting to show itself
by way of the coherency across many theories and observations.

in fact, ‘view’ and ‘show itself’ are inappropriate terms since we
cannot ‘see’ a world in flux that includes ourselves, we can only be
‘aware’ of our inclusion.

pirsig 'hits the mark' in my view, in noting that 'quality' (in my
terms 'caring') is immediate experience (choiceless awareness in
howard's terms) that 'precedes thought and language'; i.e. in Lila, he
says;

“Thought is not a path to reality.  It sets obstacles in that path
because when you try to use thought to approach something that is
prior to thought your thinking does not carry you towards that
something.  It carries you ‘away’ from it.  To define something is to
subordinate it to a tangle of intellectual relationships.  And when
you do that you destroy real understanding.”

if we ‘bring into connection’ david bohm’s idea that ‘science is a
perceptual enterprise’ and that ‘thinking is an extension of
perception’, together with galison’s observation that human sense
perception is by way of ‘lensing’ whereby we cannibalize the wave
spectrum, ... we are led back to dennis gabor’s ‘theory of
communications’ wherein, he pointed out that photography or the
cinematic view (a time-sequence of ‘frames’ that depict the ‘local
state of affairs’) reduces our view to one that is based solely on the
‘intensity’ of the signal and discards the (spatial-relational) phase
information.

this reduces the holoflux to a flat-screen cinematic view; i.e. in
gabor’s metaphor, it reduces the ‘rotating field’ (e.g. circulatory
flow in the atmosphere) to a ‘rotating vector’ (the ‘apparently local’
pinwheel view of the hurricane).  by this reduction, in our mental
‘playbacks’, we need consider only the time sequence of framed
flatscreen images which imply that the ‘state of affairs’ in the
present frame (each moment) “depends only on the state of affairs in
the immediate past”.

it is not hard to recognize that this mental processing of our sense
perception, which as poincaré notes we have built into the foundations
of mathematical physics, is a ‘linearizing’ technique which reduces
the conjugate habitat-inhabitant relation of the ‘relational spatial
volume’ implicit in a ‘rotating field-flow’ to a time sequence of
snapshots of a rotating local vector (the ‘pinwheel’ image of the
hurricane).

the conjugate habitat-inhabitant relation, when applied to our selves,
denies us the possibility of ‘seeing an image of ourselves’ since,
like the convection cell in the flow, we can only have an ‘awareness’
of our inclusional situation, we can’t ‘get outside of it to look at
it’.

this ‘awareness’ would seem to correspond to the ‘quality’ that pirsig
writes about which is pre-intellectual and pre-lingual.   if we find
ourselves in a forest fire or in a flood, we have a ‘choiceless
awareness’ (in howard’s terms) of ‘quality’ that relates to our
spatial-relational situational inclusion; i.e. to our conjugate
habitat-inhabitant relational essence.

our phonetic language, being based on structures built up from
elemental ‘bits of being’, lends itself to renderings in terms of
‘local images’ that are in turn foundational to the ‘perceptual
enterprise’ otherwise known as ‘science’ (bohm).

of course, our culture recognizes all kinds of ‘problems’ of the sort;
- we have used coal-fired hot water heaters to wash our white linens
that have become sooty and soiled, and then hang them on the line to
dry; -we have organised the machinery of our corporations and public
and private enterprises towards the achievement of productive results
as if this transpired in absolute fixed and empty space, rather than
in a natural space wherein, like the fish in the lake, the inhabiting
agent and the habitat are in conjugate relation; -we have awarded a
nobel prize in economics to joseph stiglitz for his observation that
free-market economies often do not serve us well because they incur
unnaccounted-for ‘externalities’ that others must pay for (exhausting
of resources and pollution of the common space we share inclusion
in) .

in our literature, we have celebrated the quality of ‘giving’ that
transcends ‘the gifts’ as in O. Henry’s ‘The Gift of the Magi’ where
Della, without any money to buy her husband Jim a gift at Christmas,
sells her long beautiful hair to buy him a $20 chain for his prized
pocket watch, given to him by his father while Jim, without any money
to buy his wife a gift at Christmas, sells his watch to buy her a
beautiful set of tortoise-shell combs for her lovely knee-length brown
hair.   the picture of a short-haired della giving jim the watch-chain
while the watchless jim gives della the haircombs, and the two of them
smiling and embracing implies that ‘caring’ is a quality that does not
originate within ‘beings’ and their ‘actions/interactions’ but is
harmony that is ‘in the natural world’ that can orchestrate our
individual and collective behaviours in the manner that spatial flow
resonances orchestrate the individual and collective behaviours of
wildgeese that manifest in the form of their flock-flying, and which
we describe in terms of their ‘cooperation’ and ‘caring’, as if the
dynamics were describable in terms of ‘their local being and their
local agency’.   the o.henry story, the wildgeese story, the hurricane
story, all testify to the fact that the world dynamic is not a
‘mechanical dynamic’ operationalized by notional ‘local beings with
local agency’, but one in which there is a fluid-drive which
orchestrates the dynamics of individuals and collectives, these
‘individuals’ and ‘collectives’ being identified as ‘local beings with
local agency’ but which are themselves ‘gatherings’ within the ‘energy-
field-flow’ (‘fluid-drive’).

the ‘gift of the magi’ is this ‘genius’ that is the flux-drive that
not only orchestrates the behaviour of dynamical forms but creates
them.  as emerson says in ‘the method of nature’;

“ The method of nature: who could ever analyze it? That rushing stream
will not stop to be observed. We can never surprise nature in a
corner; never find the end of a thread; never tell where to set the
first stone. The bird hastens to lay her egg: the egg hastens to be a
bird. The wholeness we admire in the order of the world, is the result
of infinite distribution. Its smoothness is the smoothness of the
pitch of the cataract. Its permanence is a perpetual inchoation. Every
natural fact is an emanation, and that from which it emanates is an
emanation also, and from every emanation is a new emanation. If
anything could stand still, it would be crushed and dissipated by the
torrent it resisted, and if it were a mind, would be crazed; as insane
persons are those who hold fast to one thought, and do not flow with
the course of nature. Not the cause, but an ever novel effect, nature
descends always from above. It is unbroken obedience. The beauty of
these fair objects is imported into them from a metaphysical and
eternal spring. In all animal and vegetable forms, the physiologist
concedes that no chemistry, no mechanics, can account for the facts,
but a mysterious principle of life must be assumed, which not only
inhabits the organ, but makes the organ.”

 * * *
‘incoherence’ is what we get when we confuse the ‘perceptual
enterprise’ (‘science’) that casts the world dynamic in terms of
notional ‘local forms’ (mistaken for ‘beings’) which we impute to have
‘local agency’, and in so doing confuses ‘idealisation’ for
‘reality’.

as ‘the gift of the magi’ suggests, the ‘caring’ quality that is
immanent in nature, is to ‘local object dynamics’ as the ‘rotating
field’ is to the ‘rotating pinwheel’ of the ‘hurricane’.  if we follow
bohm’s understanding, since science is a ‘perceptual enterprise’ and
since ‘thinking’ is an extension of perception, it is ‘science’ that
is confusing ‘idealisation’ for ‘reality’.

ok, here’s my take on pirsig and ‘inclusionality’.

inclusionality is to do with ‘the bridging’ between science and
mysticism in the same sort of manner as pirsig’s ‘metaphysics of
quality’.  mysticism puts us in touch with caring (we become one with
everything), while science is a ‘perceptual enterprise’ wherein
‘thinking is an extension of perception’ (bohm).

in a typical forum we get those who tend to lean towards mysticism as
the ‘primary ground’ and those who tend to lean towards science as the
‘primary ground’.  as ‘bridgers’, when there is conflict between the
views of mysticism and the views of science, the bridgers tend to be
hated by both sides since the mystics see the bridgers’ views as ‘too
scientific’ and the scientists see the bridgers’ views as ‘too
mystical’.  pirsig does a good job of explaining why this is.  (i have
appended to this note, an extract from pirsig’s writing where he
addresses it)

‘caring’ (or pirsig’s ‘quality’) is neither a judgement about an
experience, nor a description of an experience, it is pure experience
or ‘choiceless awareness’.  it is beyond intellection and language.

intellection and language deal in judgements and descriptions about
experience.  this is the realm of ‘thinking’ that, as bohm observes,
is an extension of perception (‘appearance’ to the eye).   the
‘correct view’ can only be ‘correct’ by way of popular/common belief.
if most people believe that local dynamical forms such as the rotating
pinwheel form of ‘the hurricane’ are ‘real’, then this common belief
is the basis for that ‘reality’.  what ‘goes missing’ in this
intellectual reality, is the inherent ‘caring’ in nature that
ceaselessly seeks to heal spatial-relational imbalances as in the
thermal energy flow (which permeates land, sea and atmosphere); i.e.
the ‘rotating field’ view of reality that precedes the ‘rotating
vector’ view.

‘caring’ is not only ‘real’ but it is what heals imbalances and
resolves conflicts.  but ‘caring’ is immediate choiceless awareness
that is not accessible through ‘thought’.  to recall pirsig's comment
on this;

“Thought is not a path to reality.  It sets obstacles in that path
because when you try to use thought to approach something that is
prior to thought your thinking does not carry you towards that
something.  It carries you ‘away’ from it.  To define something is to
subordinate it to a tangle of intellectual relationships.  And when
you do that you destroy real understanding.”

the implications are clear.  if we want to restore ‘caring’ to its
natural primacy over language and intellection, we are not going to
get there by ‘reasoned argument’ (thought and language).  bringing
about an awareness of this is itself ‘caring’ that is sourcing this
‘bridging initiative’ called ‘inclusionality’.   the ‘tangles of
intellectual relationships’ have certainly developed in the course of
this initiative, but this happens when we confuse the ‘metaphysics of
caring’ for ‘science’.  it is neither ‘science’ (the realm of what can
be captured in thought and language) nor ‘mysticism’ (getting in touch
with the undividedness of ‘reality-in-nature’).

there is an undividedness in the rotating field-flow in the atmosphere
but there is a dividedness in the context of the multiplicity of
‘local’ pinwheeling forms or ‘ local rotating vectors’.   science, by
way of its ‘dynamic duo’ ‘thought-and-language’ is going to go with
the notion of multiple local dynamical forms for its ‘version’ of
‘reality’ and is thus forced to ignore the undividedness in the
process.

the ‘victim’ of our confusing what is available to us through ‘thought
and language’ for ‘reality’ is the ‘choiceless aware experience’ we
know as ‘caring’.  the murder weapon is ‘premature obfuscation’ since
thought does not carry us towards ‘caring’ (which is prior to thought)
but carries us away from it.

ted


Excerpts from Pirsig;

“Metaphysics – The First Philosophy

Metaphysics is what Aristotle called the First Philosophy. It’s a
collection of the most general statements of a hierarchical structure
of thought.—that part of philosophy which deals with nature and the
structure of reality.

The fundamental nature of reality is outside language. Language splits
things up into parts while the true nature of reality is undivided.
Quality does not have to be defined. You understand it without
definition, ahead of definition. Quality is a direct experience
independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions.

Positivism is a philosophy that emphasizes science as the only source
of knowledge. It is an outgrowth of empiricism, the idea that all
knowledge must come from experience, and is suspicious of any thought,
even a scientific statement, that is incapable of being reduced to
direct observation.

A Value is Experience

A value is experience. It is not a judgment about an experience. It is
not a description of experience. The value itself is an experience. As
such it is completely predictable. It is verifiable by anyone who
cares to do so. Our culture has a blind spot here. Our culture teaches
us to think it is the hot stove that directly causes the oaths. But
not so! The value is between the stove and the oaths. Between the
subject and the object lies the value. It is more real than the stove.

American Indians are exceptionally skilled at holding to the
everchanging center of things. That is the real reason they speak and
act without ornamentation.”
“ It [metaphysics] has two kinds of opponents.  The first are the
philosophers of science, most particularly the group known as ‘logical
positivists’, who say that only the natural sciences can legitimately
investigate the nature of reality, and that metaphysics is simply a
collection of unprovable assertions that are unnecessary to the
scientific observation of reality.  For a true understanding of
reality, metaphysics is ‘too mystical’.”
“... The second group of opponents are the mystics.  The term mystic
is sometimes confused with ‘occult’ or ‘supernatural’ and with magic
and witchcraft but in philosophy it has a different meaning.  Some of
the most  honored philosophers in history have been mystics: Plotinus,
Swedenborg, Loyola, Shankaracharya and many others.  They share a
common belief that the fundamental nature of reality is outside of
language; that language splits things up into parts while the true
nature of reality is undivided.  Zen, which is a mystic religion,
argues that the illusion of dividedness can be overcome by
meditation.  The Native American church argues that peyote can force-
feed a mystic understanding that Indians had been deriving through
Vision Quests in the past.  This mysticism, Dusenberg thought, is the
absolute center of traditional Indian life, and as Boas had made
clear, it is absolutely outside of the domain of positivistic science
and any anthropology that adheres to it.
Historically mystics have claimed that for a true understanding of
reality, metaphysics is too ‘scientific’.  Metaphysics is not
reality.  Metaphysics is ‘names’ about reality.  Metaphysics is a
restaurant where they give  you a thirty-thousand page menu and no
food.

Phaedrus thought it portended very well for his Metaphysics of Quality
that ‘both’ mysticism and science reject metaphysics for  completely
opposite reasons.  It suggested that if there is a bridge between the
two, between the understanding of the Indians and the understanding of
the anthropologists, metaphysics is where that bridge is located.

Of the two kinds of hostility to metaphysics he considered the
mystics’ hostility the more formidable.  Mystics will tell you that
once you’ve opened the door to metaphysics, you can say goodbye to any
genuine understanding of reality.  Thought is not a path to reality.
It sets obstacles in that path because when you try to use thought to
approach something that is prior to thought your thinking does not
carry you towards that something.  It carries you ‘away’ from it.  To
define something is to subordinate it to a tangle of intellectual
relationships.  And when you do that you destroy real understanding.

The central reality of mysticism, the reality that Phaedrus had called
‘Quality’ in his first book, is not a metaphysical chess piece.
Quality doesn’t have to be defined.  You understand it without
definition, ahead of definition.  Quality is a direct experience
independent of and prior to intellectual abstraction.”

 * * *
END

Enjoy
Regards
Ian