[MD] The Quality/MOQ dichotomy

[MarshaV]

Greetings,

It might be worth considering the Buddhist doctrine of the two truths.


Night





At 02:51 AM 2/28/2009, you wrote:
>Hello All Davids (Swift & Buchanan)
>
>26 Feb.
>
>You said to DMB::
> > Pirsig says that Whitehead was talking about DQ, Whitehead only says
> > that he doesn't have words to describe his experience. Others (Hobbes,
> > Hume, Locke and Kant) have had non or pre-verbal experiences and they
> > didn't describe them as DQ. It feels like Pirsig's experience may have
> > been cut to fit his MoQ.
>
>I admire your will to explore our exploration of Pirsig's ideas and
>you don't get much help from DMB who starts from a position that
>presupposes a thorough knowledge of the basics .
>
>Pirsig refers to various thinkers who had - like himself - had
>insights of an unknown something ahead of our sense of being a
>subjects in a world of objects.  Pirsig crown witness is William
>James, but you are right neither Whitehead, James nor any other
>describe the pre-everything something as DQ, so Pirsig cuts and
>pastes to fit the Quality Idea.
>
>And this is so because Pirsig absolutely first "discovery" was the
>"quality" concept that couldn't be assimilated, after that came the
>insight that Quality was the pre-everything. ZAMM tells how P. -
>after having pestered everyone with quality - was asked by his
>teacher colleagues if quality was objective or subjective. Then
>followed the "dilemma" where he examined the two alternatives .
>
>And after finding out that quality was neither objective nor
>subjective he performed the in-out turning of everything, namely
>that the S/O pair wasn't reality's ground, but a fall-out from Quality
>that now made was the said ground and he then started to ponder
>how a Metaphysics of Quality would "look" like,
>
>DS says (after DMB has talked about the Hot Stove example):
> > He may not know what gets him off the stove but I suggest it's the
> > feeling of pain. Science has names for all the receptors in the skin
> > and has traced a nerve path from pain receptor to muscles that doesn't
> > go by way of the brain.
>
>The said example is a variant of the pre-intellectual one in ZAMM
>but Pirsig was so obsessed by the Quality=Reality issue that he
>entered it in LILA and here it confuses considerably because
>MOQ's static range had been enlarged to four levels. It's just as
>you say David: what gets any living organism off an uncomfortable
>spot is the BIOLOGICAL perception of Quality. You are also
>correct about what's called the autonomous nerve system.
>
>DS says: (after DMB has given another speech)
> > I hear you but I'm not necessarily buying. The way I see it there are
> > two language levels: the feeling level of direct experience (Pirsig
> > calls DQ) and the words as symbols for feelings that verbalizers use
> > when reflecting on past experience (SQ). The feeling level used by
> > animals and pre or non verbal humans (read babies and primitives) is
> > preverbal but not necessarily preintellectual. We have no way of
> > knowing and it would be arrogant to suggest that nonverbal people are
> > also bereft of intellect.
>
>IMO there is no language level. There is the said biological level
>(what you call "feeling" and I call "sensation") This level spans an
>enormous field from bactria to the mammal organism. Sense
>organs may not be present yet all organisms sense what's good
>and bad for them.(ref. the "amoeba" passage in ZAMM page).
>
>Now, enter the social level where I think emotion is the expression.
>This is a human level and IMO  language was present from the the
>start, it was the biological "stepping stone" to the 3rd. level, but
>even if  language is present it was merely as a communication
>pattern and very much "pre.intellectual". I mean Stone Age people
>did not regard words as symbols reflecting anything, this latter is
>the 4th.level looking down on the 3rd.
>
>I think you confuse the intellectual level with intelligence. A usual
>pit-fall.
>
> > dmb: In this sense, DQ is nothingness but not in the sense that
> > reality is entirely absent. Instead, it is experience as directly
> > known, prior to the divisions and distinctions imposed by our
> > definitions and conceptualizations. Pure experience is
> > undifferentiated, undivided experience while words and ideas chop
> > reality into the ten thousand things, the static reality of culture,
> > language and world view.
>
>Phew! DMB represents the view that the pre-everything's unity is
>destroyed by our "definitions and conceptualizations. It's unity was
>first broken by the spawning of the inorganic universe, then - on
>top of that - the biological universe ...etc. With the social level
>language entered, but - as said - mankind from that age did not
>regard language as "concepts different from the real world"  this
>was intellect's S/O business.
>
>DS
> > DS: While I agree that "words and ideas chop ." it does not
> > necessarily follow that pure experience is undifferentiated. I
> > experience non verbal sights and sounds and can still tell the
> > difference between them.>
>
>Right, as an organism you perceive biological quality by SENSING,
>as a social being you perceive EMOTIONS and as an intellectual
>being you perceive REASON
>
>And that's as much as I manage.
>
>Bo
>
>
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Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.........
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