[MD] Quick one: causation

[MarshaV]

At 06:05 PM 1/19/2009, you wrote:
>Krimel said:
>[Things-in-themselves] are TiTs because whatever existence they have is
>independent of the perceiver.
>
>dmb says:
>Right. And that's the problem with them. Things in themselves are objective.
>They exist regardless of our perception of them.
>
>[Krimel]
>Ok. But I would say: TiTs exist regardless of our perception of them. TiTs
>are objective to the extent that independent observers can agree about them.
>
>[dmb]
>All the subject can know is their effect on our sense, on our subjective
>experience of them. This is a form of subject-object metaphysics AND the
>implication is that there will always be an epistemic gap between appearance
>and reality.
>
>[Krimel]
>I think the epistemic gap is there regardless of your metaphysics. You don't
>avoid it by pretending its not there. Heidegger seems to do this. You say
>Pirsig does as well. At least if you see a gap you can strive for some
>balance.
>
>[dmb]
>Kant's picture says that all we can ever know is the phenomenal appearance
>but never the actual, pre-existing reality which causes this appearance. In
>this view we are forever one step removed from reality, we can never know
>reality.
>
>[Krimel]
>We temporally removed from any possibility of direct experience of a TiT. It
>is not just a philosophical issue. If you accept for just a second a strict
>materialist view you will see that the process of sensation alone creates a
>time differential. What we sensed is no longer the same by the time we sense
>it. Perception, that is integrating or deriving meaning from sense data
>create even more time lag.

Greetings Krimel,

In this statement there seems to be a strong sense of independent 
self along with the TiT. Do you not see this or is this independent 
self also something that you think inherently exists?


Marsha



>Which is why, as you say:
>
>[dmb]
>The line between what is and what we perceive can never be crossed. Pirsig,
>by contrast, says experience is reality and there is no such gap.
>
>[Krimel]
>See above. I'm not altogether sure Pirsig just claims there is no gap. I
>certainly don't think Lao Tsu says this. I think Lao Tsu says there is an
>unbridgeable gap in our understanding. Our knowledge is always incomplete.
>The best we can do is seek for it in light and shadow. I think Pirsig says
>we can see it in the dynamic flow of experience.
>
>I think my chief problem with your take on this is that it seems to imply
>that because we can't know everything, we can't know anything. Or because
>the Tao resists precise definition no definition is possible. Like Cypher,
>you want to stay in the matrix and accept it for what it appears to be.
>
>I just have a short comment on something you said in a different post:
>
>[dmb]
>Pirsig says that you can go through that book replacing the term "Tao" with
>the term "Quality" and it works every time.
>
>[Krimel]
>I think the opposite is true. The MoQ makes much more sense if you can go
>through Lila replacing the term "Quality" with the term "Tao" and it works
>every time. And when it doesn't the problem is not with the Tao.
>
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.
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The Universe is uncaused, like a net of jewels in which each is a 
reflection of all the others in a fantastic, interrelated harmony without end.
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