[MD] Royce's Absolute, conclusion

[david buchanan]

dmb said to John:

We can see this in the description you've provided. Look at that Royce quote and ask yourself some questions. 
In what sense can direct experience be equated with a universal knowing consciousness? (The former is an empirical fact while the latter is a metaphysical entity created by logic but is not known in experience as such.) In what sense is direct everyday experience "not ourselves"? In what sense is direct experience independent of us or beyond us? Pirsig's Quality is called the primary empirical reality and the cutting edge of experience. I don't see how this kind of immediate experience can reasonably be characterized as transcendent or independent of us in any way. Pirsig is talking about the experience of actual people. Royce is talking about something "not ourselves". The incompatibility of these two ideas is obvious, don't you think? 


John replied:


In what sense does that question make any sense? Geez dave, you really gotta clean up your structuring a bit...  I'll construe the best I can, but man... In what sense?  In an intellectual one.  It is a process of thinking which leads to the conclusion that the only Abolute possible is  direct experience.  Thus experience is an absolute. Why do you have to have an Absolute at all?  I can hear you asking down my neck, Because you just do.  This is where the Metaphysical primacy of Value as argued by Pirsig's argument of the good, and Royce's argument from the existence of error, both concur and point to the same results. ...If I was just "you", I'd probably be a lot more complimentary instead of  so scornful.  ipso facto, quip pro quo. Sat on any hot stoves lately? No?  Too bad.  you should. You really should.


dmb says:

If you think those two idea are compatible, then I don't know what else to say. You haven't answered the questions because they can't be answered. I simply used the descriptions of Royce's Absolute, from your sources no less, to ask some questions about the supposed similarities between the Absolute and Pirsig's direct everyday experience. In what sense is direct experience (Pirsig) like a universal knowing consciousness (Royce's Absolute)? In no sense, is direct experience like a universal consciousness. In what way is direct experience independent of us? It's not independent of us at all. It IS us. It is the opposite of "not ourselves". I can't think of anything they have in common. They're features of two completely different worldviews. If Absolutism is a fishbowl universe, a transparent and unified whole, the universe of the radical empiricist is one of those ritual masks of the rain forest people, with feathers and bones and beads and sorts of unrelated but attached items dangling. The only unity is derived from the fact that the various elements hang together.

As I used to tell Father Norton, you're trying to put a square peg in a round hole. 


dmb said to John:
Pirsig's Quality is called the primary empirical reality and the cutting edge of experience. I don't see how this kind of immediate experience can reasonably be characterized as transcendent or independent of us in any way.


John replied:
I know you don't dave.  I know you don't.  And it's a shame.  Such a waste, really.  A mind locked in on itself is a sad thing to see.  If I really did care much for convincing you, it would be here on this point mainly. You poor lonely, lonely man.



dmb says:

Why do you do that? I'm objecting to your willingness to equate "transcendent" with the "everyday". If you know what those words mean, then you know why those concepts can't be equated. How can you fail to see that? Why am I a poor lonely mind locked guy? Because your reasoning is ridiculous and you know it. And you can't think of anything better to say so you resort to childish insults. And then you complain that I don't want to play.

Dude, I'm sorry but I really don't think you know how to play at all, let alone nicely or fairly. Bother somebody else, will you?







 		 	   		  
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