[MD] William James a wrong track..

[skutvik at online.no]

David M.B.. Marsha V. All.

9 Mar.:

Marsha to dmb:
> > To speak of a reality that is a monism using a language that is based on
> > a dualistic reality comprised of subjects and objects is difficult.

Right, the MOQ is a monism in the sense of DQ and SQ being two 
different states of Quality, while SOM's Subjective and Objective are 
two worlds (the source of its many paradoxes) 

DMB to Marsha:
> It's more difficult to talk about monisms and dualisms than it is to
> talk about fish and breadsticks but that doesn't address the point.

Admitted.

> The point is that you're treating intellectual static quality patterns
> as if they were unpatterned, dynamic and ineffable. Concepts are not
> ineffable. When Pirsig says that, "any philosophic explanation of
> Quality is going to be both false and true precisely because it is a
> philosophic explanation", he is saying that Quality is not conceptual
> but philosophic explanations are conceptual. (ZMM, Chapter 20) 

Everything (beyond biology) must be conveyed by language thus 
language existed for tens of thousands of years (the social age) 
without people having any notion of concepts being secondhand 
compared to an alleged firsthand reality. This distinction arrived with 
intellects S/O matrix.       

> This matches the claim he makes in chapter 5 of Lila, where he says
> philosophical mystics, "share a common belief that the fundamental
> nature of reality is outside language". 

After language arrived on the scene it became the chief experience 
conveyor, nothing about conceptual shadow of some real experience, 
all this is intellect's retrospect and I regret that Pirsig fell for this 
Jamesian stuff and identified his Dynamic with  pre-conceptual. All the 
time it was  originally PRE-INTELLECTUAL i.e. pre pre-
conceptual/conceptual. Do you understand Mr. Buchanan?     

> It matches what he tells us in chapter 9, where he says, "even the
> name, 'Quality' was a kind of definition since it tended to associate
> mystic reality with certain fixed and limited understandings." And then
> there is the explanation at the end of chapter 29, where quot es
> William James saying, "there must always be a discrepancy between
> concepts and reality, because the former are static and discontinuous
> while the latter is dynamic and flowing". See? 

Yes, we know, but again originally in ZAMM it said "....

    He simply meant that at the cutting edge of time, before an 
    object can be distinguished, there must be a kind of 
    nonintellectual awareness, which he called awareness of 
    Quality. 

And here is nothing about discrepancies between concepts and reality, 
but between nonintellectual (DQ) and intellectual (SQ)  in the form of a 
subject becoming aware of objects. i.e. the S/O distinction which was 
the only "level" at that stage. See, exactly what the SOL interpretation 
claims. 

> He makes the same point when he says that the MOQ is a contradiction
> because metaphysics is a philosophic explanation full of concepts and
> definitions whereas Quality (DQ) is what you know prior to
> definitions, ahead of definitons.

Mystical raptures like religious ones are always combined with 
overwhelming emotions and emotions cannot fully be conveyed by 
language, sensation not at all, while philosophical insights are 
"conceptual" from the outset and can ONLY be conveyed  by 
language.       

> To use the ineffable, non-conceptual nature of Quality to shut down a
> conversation about the meaning of concepts is, I think, not a
> legitimate move. I mean, dealing with difficult concepts is one thing
> but treating them as pre-conceptual and indefinable only confuses
> Pirsig's often repeated point. Does that point make sense to you? You
> see what I'm saying?

You have to use concepts to describe the "non-conceptual nature of 
Quality". Don't you see the irony here? The MOQ merely says that DQ 
is dynamic and that's something else. Marsha often uses the un-
patterned/patterned distinction and that's DQ/SQ all right, but your 
"pre-concept/conceptual" as identical to the DQ/SQ is merely intellect's 
S/O superimposed on the MOQ.   

Get it?

Bodvar