[MD] Hoy stoves and those who sit on them

[Ham Priday]

Happy Spring to you, Marsha --


> Maybe I should stick to 'unpatterned experience',  experience
> without overlaying memory/concepts/patterns.
>
> How is experience different than value-sensibility?

You seem to have a semantic problem with cognition which muddles your 
epistemology and makes your understanding of experience something that it is 
not.

I don't see why our common understanding of "experience" must be adjusted or 
redefined to satisfy a philosopher's thesis.  The dictionary defines 
experience as: "The conscious perception of an external, bodily, or psychic 
event."   It says nothing about "patterns", nor does it qualify experience 
as "direct" or "indirect".  In a more general definition, however, it does 
state that experience is "something personally encountered, undergone, or 
lived through,"  indicating that experience is a "process" that is 
proprietary to the individual, rather than an independent realm or level 
accessed or "attached to" by the observer.

Also, there is no difference between experience and "the experienced". 
John's suggestion that "experience may be telling you something" is 
romantically enticing but epistemically wrong.  We bring value into the 
world as being, and the objective reality we construct reflects our value 
preferences.  Through experience we each make our "being-in-the-world" a 
representation of our individual value-complement.

For me, experience is an extension of value-sensibility whereby apprehension 
is oriented to the space/time dimensions of the intellectualized 
("conventional"?) universe.  Thus, "immediate experience" -- e.g., pain, 
pleasure, fear, change, tacticity, sensory perception -- is converted 
(reified?) into discrete objects and events, sometimes called "universals". 
This is the work of intellection in conjunction with memory (your 
"overlaying concepts/patterns").  So that what "begins" as value sensibility 
ends up as what we call experiential or empirical knowledge.

Knowledge conforms to the universal order of our relational existence 
because it is derived from the same fundamental Sensibility/Otherness that 
is primary to every conscious subject ("experiencer").  Only the individual 
preferences, qualitative feelings, psycho-emotional responses, and valuistic 
meanings are unique to the observing subject.

Have I helped to clarify the issue, Marsha, or only further complicated your 
understanding?

Essentially yours,
Ham

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

> Marsha
>
>> The MoQ confusion stems from the fact that Pirsig is a "monist", not an 
>> absolutist.  And, although he did not name or posit an "absolute source", 
>> his equivalency paradigm "Experience = Quality = Reality" leaves the 
>> inference that one or more of these equivalents is "absolute", whereas in 
>> fact all three relate to the finite, existential world.
>>
>> Essentially speaking,
>> Ham

>>
>>>> On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 9:49 AM, MarshaV <valkyr at att.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> > Hello John,
>>>> >
>>>> > How would you break this down to address: the experiencer,
>>>> > the experience and the experienced?
>>>> > because undoubtedly they are descriptions of the same thing,
>>>> > the event, the experience, no?
>>>>
>>>> They are not the same in the conventional use of English.
>>>> _I am seeing a tree. _'I' is the seer.  The experience is seeing.
>>>> The tree is the seen.  Experience has become a trinity.
>>>> What I have been saying is that only the seeing is a fact in
>>>> that moment.  The seer, 'I' , and the seen, 'tree' are surmised
>>>> from the experience of seeing.  They are built from patterns, no?
>>>
>>> I agree the tree, the I, and this act of seeing are built from patterns,
>>> yes.
>>>
>>> But I cannot 'see' how handing the crown of significance to any
>>> one part of the trinity of experience is better in any way.
>>> All three legs of the tripod depend upon the others to avoid toppling.
>>>
>>> "The seeing" is not a fact if it's a hallucination
>>>
>>> The seer is not a fact if there is no seeing.
>>>
>>> The seen is not a fact if either the seer or the seeing disappears
>>> from view,
>>>
>>> Therefore, they are the three, interdependent in order for
>>> experience to occur.
>>>
>>>> There are grammatical rules, dictionaries and social training
>>>> for interpreting the words we use, no?
>>>>
>>>> yes!  Which influences the conceptual frameworks of meaning
>>>> we build.
>>>
>>> I agree completely.
>>>
>>>> > but to address the experience of the hot stove, it depends.
>>>> > It can be good, or it can be bad.  When a child learns to listen
>>>> > carefully to its mother's warnings, that is an overall good.
>>>> > If the child is so badly injured that she dies, it's an overall bad.
>>>>
>>>> Judgements based on individual static pattern histories and dynamic
>>>> context.  I've always wondered if RMP would say there is a difference
>>>> between the value/experience and the judgements made subsequent
>>>> to the experience. I would think there is a big difference, no?
>>>
>>> But as Ham points out, without the judgement there can be no valuation 
>>> of
>>> the event.  However he takes then the judger as absolute whereas I see 
>>> it as
>>> none of the three legs of the tripod can be absolute - you need a 
>>> subject,
>>> an object and a valuation all at once or there is no experience.
>>>
>>>> > Thus the value or Quality of the event is not in the immediate,
>>>> > experience, but in the overall context - an interpretation between 
>>>> > the
>>>> > subject and object AND some third overarching principle of valuation.
>>>> > Interpretation is triadic in nature and thus more inherently stable > 
>>>> > than
>>>> > the diadic relationship of S/O.
>>>> >
>>>> > As you know,
>>>>
>>>> I know Absolutely nothing, how about you?
>>>>
>>>> Marsha
>>>
>>> I thought there were no absolutes. :-)
>>>
>>> John