[MD] Emotions

[mark_maxwell at talktalk.net]

Andre:
What we are exploring here is your: 'If quality is not the same thing as an emotional biological response to it, how is quality experienced?

Squonk:
Yes.
Empiricism may work, but it may work because emotions are good at making it work?
 
Andre:
Hi Squonk, In an effort to move away from a solely emotional 'appeal' through which Quality is experienced (in your words 'sanction the aesthetic of the new arrangement') I suggested the DQ/SQ postulate.

Squonk:
Hi Andre,
I don’t wish to move away from the very area that I am concerned with, because I wish to think about it. The more I think about it, the more it bothers me you see.

Andre:
In ZMM, Pirsig divided Quality into the 'classic (underlying reality of the scientist e.g. motor mechanics) and the romantic (surface reality of the artist) ...classic Quality dependent on a person's knowledge and romantic Quality dependent on a person's emotions'.

Squonk:
Now wait a moment please Andre.
The underlying reality of the scientist is, I would suggest, sanctioned by emotions.
Science is actually, ‘Human science’ when you think about it.
It’s not Pig science is it?
If science is true independently of how anyone feels about it then we have an objective world view don’t we?
If science is really ‘human science‘, then it is an art form of our creation.
And all art, as you noted above is: ’…romantic Quality dependent on a person's emotions’.

Andre:
However, his research into the Native American Indians of LILA did not 'capture' this division. i.e. the 'mystical' component (with their 'vision quests)'. of the MoQ.
Because this is not a scientific, classic experience or an aesthetic, romantic one. (McWatt, PhD, P70)

Squonk:
But if Human science is an aesthetic, it may be inappropriate to apply a Classic/Romantic division to experience: there is an evolutionary relationship between the Classic and the Romantic, and the Romantic came first.
It may be more appropriate to think about a Romantic/Classic continuum; without the more fundamental Romantic there can be no additional Classic art.
Robots have no Romantic basis for creativity for example.

Andre:
Hence the 'improved' DQ/SQ division of LILA. Pirsig himself says (of the DQ experience): 'Dynamic Quality is this upwelling... well it isn't anything I can tell you. This is what you'll hear from the 'Zennies'. But you can discover it if you work on it. But you won't discover it by conceptualisation and this is a huge problem that Zen teaching has. You see it over and over again and this is why they sound so screwy, in their koans and everything. What they're trying to do is to get you to stop conceptualising and start experiencing'. (McWatt, PhD, P69).

Squonk:
DQ is not conceptual, and neither are emotions.
DQ is experienced, and so are emotions.
DQ is an upwelling, and emotions are an upwelling.

Andre:
Notice he never uses an emotional 'feel good/feel bad' reference.

Squonk:
I’ve noticed alright.
But we are back to the initial question: 'If quality (DQ) is not the same thing as an emotional biological response to it, how is quality (DQ) experienced?
Is RMP suggesting there is an ‘experience’ that is not emotional?
I should like to know how that is done.

Andre:
He clearly refers to [the totality of] experiencing ...wherein all 'subjectivity' and 'objectivity' is dissolved (i.e. all static patterns).

Squonk:
The categorisation of emotions as static patterns of biological value has the effect of distracting one from the notion that emotions are Dynamic it seems to me.
I am wondering how ‘experience’ can not be emotional.
If emotional experience is a response to DQ, then DQ is experienced through emotions - therefore no one actually experiences DQ.

Andre:
In this sense, even the suggestion that 'afterwards it feels good/ or bad' takes something away from the DQ/SQ experience.
Imho.

Squonk:
Unless the experience that is attributed to DQ is actually an emotional peak experience which ebbs into dissatisfaction?

You’ve helped me Andre, and I hope you continue to do so.
Thanks,
All the best,
squonk