[MD] Reading & Comprehension

[skutvik at online.no]

DMB, All.

Bo before:
> The intellectual level is either SOM or a mental vessel that contains
> ideas, concepts, modes of thinking with SOM one mode and the MOQ
> another, and such SOM's MIND. And if mind prevails then the MOQ turns
> into a somish idealist teaching. There is no compromise between these
> two positions and MOQ's future depends on all SOM's tentacles being
> cut. DMB no exeption. 

> dmb says:
> The intellectual level is either SOM or a mental vessel that contains
> ideas such as SOM's mind? Oddly, that is a false dilemma with only one 
> choice. 

Only by distorting my text the way you do. What I tried to say was that 
the intellectual level is either SOM itself or SOM's "mind" and in a 
metaphysics that rejects the mind/matter dichotomy it's unfortunate to 
introduce the subject because the object follows suit.  

> The first essay in James's radical empiricism is titled "Does
> Consciousness Exist?". In this essay James answers the question in the
> negative. He says there is no such vessel, no such container, no such
> entity or substance. 

Well, why introduce mind (the conscious subject) in form of the 
intellectual level?  

> The second essay is titled "A World of Pure Experience". In this essay
> James says that the subject and object are secondary, are concepts
> derived from something more primary, which he calls "pure experience"
> or "the immediate flux of life". Pirsig equates this immediate flux
> with DQ or the primary empirical reality, as described in both ZAMM and
> Lila. 

This looks innocent, but is a disaster. In ZAMM  the pre-intellectual 
spawned  the intellectual in the form of the subject/object aggregate 
(SOM)  nothing about "pre-concept/conceptual"..

Yes, in LILA Phaedrus revolutionary Pre-intellect/Intellect (=SOM) 
insight was squandered in favor of the Pre-whatever/Concepts. 

> In both cases, you have intellect neither a mental vessel nore SOM's
> mind.

According to the latest definition (that you subscribe to?) intellect is the 
place where symbols or concepts are manipulated, and if that isn't 
"mind" I don't know what is.    

>  Consciousness is a function within experience, not a thing that
> preforms the function. Ideas about the self and subjectivity are just
> that; ideas. 

So says SOM's idealism faction too.

> Ideas are derived from experience and they work to guide future
> experience, which is why they seem so true, but Pirsig and James both
> insist that experience comes first. 

The MOQ says that the inorganic, biological ...etc. levels are 
"derivations" of Experience (=Quality) but nothing about these levels 
just being "ideas". This is undiluted  somish idealism.    

> This is important to understand, otherwise one might be tempted to
> believe the impossible; that the subjective mind is derived from the
> primary experience of the subjective mind. This is the MOQ's copernican
> revolution, you see? Instead of quality being derived from the
> interaction between subjects and objects, subjects and objects are
> derived from Quality.

Listen: The MOQ is supposed to be a relief from SOM where values 
just exists as subjective figments of our minds, objectively seen there 
is just a dead, valueless,  material world. Instead the MOQ says that 
this subject/object distinction is its own highest static level. In this 
context the S/O is recognized for the static good it has brought, while 
its bleak metaphysical outlook is nullified.          

> Instead of experience being made possible by the interaction of
> subjects and objects, subjects and objects are derived from experience.

Yes, subjects and objects (the S/O distinction is Experience's 4th. 
static derivation. What do we bicker about?  
  
Bodvar