[MD] The Brujo

[Ham Priday]

Marsha --



> Using Quality/Value/Experience interchangeably,
> experience is experience sans knowability, divisibility
> and definition.   Quality(experience) is quality(experience).
> What is so troubling?   I am not denying experience,
> but all the analogues used to define, divide and know it.
>
> I would guess that a new word or concept comes from
> science, the media, the comics and the artists.  In general
> I would think that a new word or a new concept comes
> from a conceptual playfulness.  I am not denying
> phenomena external to mind, just that it is not the same as the analogues 
> we habitually use to reflect it, analogues
> like 'sensation'. ...

I notice that you use the first person to identify the self that says "I 
would guess" and "I would think", but experience and concepts are left 
without a subject.  Does this mean you believe experience and concepts exist 
independently of your awareness?  The problem I have with your analysis is 
that it lacks a locus of awareness, namely, the sensible 'I' or "self" that 
apprehends.

Perhaps it's the terminology that has me confused.  For me, a "sensation" is 
what I feel directly, without interpretation, such as pain, joy, the touch 
of silk, the sight of color, the smell of brewing coffee, or the sense of 
fear.  In other words, it's my "psycho-physical state" of sensibility at any 
given time.

An "experience" is something that happens to me in my relation with the 
external world -- climbing a hill, meeting a friend, reading a book, 
watching a storm, etc.  Experiences are always "structured" in that they 
infer specific objects or phenomena to which my attention is drawn.

A "concept" is an idea or conclusion, usually derived from experience, that 
I have intellectualized as a theory or principle.  I may seek confirmation 
from others to "validate" or support my conclusion, but the concept 
originates with me and is proprietary to my conscious awareness in the same 
way that sensations and experiences are proprietary to me.  Do you disagree 
with this epistemology?

> There are no objects out there, but a continuous flow of experiences, 
> Quality.  There is no duplication, or repeat of experience except through 
> spovs.  I might want
> to say that Quality is undefinable, unknowable, indivisible,
> and 'sensation' is a concept used to describe it by
> chopping it into something isolated, or separate. ...
 See how Krimel turned 'sensation' into a biochemical and
> All 'we' have are analogues, of all variety depending on
> explanatory need, but the analogues are not the
> experience.
>
> What exactly is troubling you?

What, then, ARE the experiences?  Whose experience is it if not yours?
That is what troubles me about your worldview.  It has no subjective 
foundation.  I can't comprehend a sensation, an experience, a thought or 
concept, or an assessment of Quality without a cognizant subject to 
apprehend it.  Even if the apprehensive self is only a "static point of 
view", that view must be realized by a sensible agent -- that is, you or 
somebody else.

Now, I know you have bought into Pirsig's thesis that there are no subjects 
or objects.  But, surely, you don't deny your own self as the perceiver of 
your world.  Or DO you?  If so, I'm even more curious to learn how you 
justify that denial.

Thanks, Marsha

Essentially yours,
Ham