[MD] Thus spoke Lila

[Ham Priday]

On Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 10:38 AM, Horse<horse at darkstar.uk.net>  wrote to 
Platt:

> This worries me in that a simple phrase/verb such as "to know"
> should cause a problem in relation to what you have called
> the 'real' world of mystic reality.  It makes me think that what
> you have said has no bearing on what you believe, in the sense
> that mystic reality is devoid of concepts and knowing is the
> creation of concepts.
>
> Knowledge of, knowledge about or knowledge that etc. X
> refers to something that can be known. The whole point of
> DQ/Mysticism in the MoQ sense is that it can only be experienced and not 
> known.
>
> Or perhaps I've got it wrong.  Anyone else agree or disagree?

I would only point out that "understanding" goes hand in hand with 
knowledge.  If we don't comprehend X we don't really "know" it; whereas we 
can experience X without comprehending it.

As a non-mystic, the "real world of mystic reality" is meaningless to me. 
For all I know, it may be an experience, a concept, or a fantasy of some 
kind.  I'm fairly certain that it isn't direct knowledge, however.

This gives me an opportunity to express one of my peeves about the Quality 
thesis; namely, Pirsig's use of the term "direct experience".  "Quality is a 
direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions," he 
says.  It implies that we can have an "indirect experience", which is 
nonsense leading to confusion.  All experience is direct.  The experience of 
sitting on a hot stove is no more "direct" than empathizing or identifying 
with a character in a fiction novel.  Even "second hand" experience is 
direct.

What I think he means is that the sense of quality is intrinsic to man and 
precedes experiential judgments. This is why I refer to "sensibility" 
(rather than experience) when speaking of value realization.  Value 
sensibility is the very core of subjective consciousness from which (I 
maintain) all experience is generated.

This epistemology, of course, reverses the common sense notion that 
experience is the passive process of interpreting external information 
received from the sense organs.  Instead, it requires us to accept the idea 
that the world of concrete things and passing events is a product of our own 
value-sensibility, the form and order of which is a differentiated 
manifestation of its uncreated source.

I keep hoping that someone here with better expository skills will seize 
upon this concept and apply it to the MoQ.  It would resolve many of the 
perennial problems hashed and rehashed on the MD.

Thanks for the opportunity, Horse.

Essentially speaking,
Ham