[MD] Marsha's (s)OL

[plattholden at gmail.com]

Dear Ham, 


On 17 Oct 2009 at 13:40, Ham Priday wrote:

 
> The concept of "negation" is rooted in the precept that an absolute can only 
> create an "other" by denying some aspect of itself.  An analogy I use is 
> that of the mountain-climber who has ascended to the summit and can only 
> proceed by descent.  In other words, existence is "reductional" rather than 
> an "addition" to absolute Essence.  As Cusa put it, the first principle is 
> the 'not-other' from which all otherness is negated.  Entities are therefore 
> 'negates' estranged or separated from the primary source.

Your philosophy would be a lot clearer to me and perhaps others if at 
the very beginning you had stated your belief in the premise that 
"Reality as we know it has emerged from a primary source I call 
'Essence.'" (I presume that's accurate.)

> [Ham]:
> > Absolute Essence is not an "experience"; it transcends experience.
> > What you experience "in the presence of great beauty" is
> > differentiated value.
> 
> [Platt]:
> > After I put the experience into words, the value I experience
> > becomes hardened into the proverbial finger pointing at the moon.
> > But, there's nothing "differentiated" about the value experience
> > itself prior to thought.
> 
> Prior to thought (or intellection) there is no experience but sensibility. 

I consider "experience" and "sensibility" to be synonyms. Our 
disagreement ultimately rests on this difference. 

> I concluded some time ago that Pirsig's notion of "pure, pre-intellectual 
> experience" is epistemically flawed, which makes value-realization 
> incomprehensible in the cognitive sense.  For that reason, I refer to pure 
> (undifferentiated) value as Sensibility, as distinguished from Experience 
> which is always relational.  Experience is, indeed, "the cutting edge of 
> reality," as Pirsig says, but it's the reality of Existence, not DQ or 
> Essence.  I think this is where my communication problems with the 
> Pirsigians begins.  The autonomous agent of Value is not itself Value 
> (Quality) or a "pattern of" Value; the agent is individuated Sensibility, 
> otherwise known as subjective awareness.  Regrettably, Mr. Pirsig has all 
> but rejected proprietary awareness in his zeal to "overcome" subject/object 
> duality.
> 
> Platt, I sincerely believe that if you will open your mind to the 
> self-evident truth that all experience is differentiated and relational, and 
> acept the metaphysical principle that "from unity comes diversity", you will 
> have little difficulty understanding my philosophy.

The more I attempt to translate your philosophy into plain English the 
more I find we have fundamental disagreements, the example cited 
above about the meaning of "experience" and "sensibility" being a case 
in point.

> May I specifically recommend two musical treats that I've come to cherish in 
> my golden years?  One is 'The Presentation of the Rose' sequence from 
> Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier.  The second is Franz Liszt's 'A Faust 
> Symphony'.  I have a superb new EMI recording of the latter by Kurt Mazur 
> and the Gewandhaus Orchestra.  (The seven-disc set includes contains several 
> of the composer's more familiar tone poems and piano concertos.)  But then, 
> as your dad implied, I may be making love to a cow ;-).

Thanks for the suggestions. I will ask for those for Christmas as my 
family claims to be constantly at a loss as to what I would like under the 
tree.

But, speaking of coincidences, in yesterday's Wall St. Journal was a 
great article entitled, "The Mystery of Music, What about it has such 
power over human beings?" The author quotes Stravinsky:

"Music is suprapersonal and superreal and as such beyond verbal 
meanings and verbal descriptions.?

Doesn't that ring a bell? Another gem -- quote from British musicologist 
Donald Francis Tovey: 

"I have (this sounds like fantastic nonsense, but it isn't) frequently 
caught myself positively solving some problem (or a more or less 
philosophical nature) in, say, the key of A minor, where I had utterly 
failed to reason it out in words."

Isn't that wonderful? The article is posted at: I know you'll enjoy it.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240529702044883045744333400
69373698.html    

Warm regards,
Platt