[MD] knowledge

[Steven Peterson]

Hi Matt,

> Steve said:
> What we don't have is know-that intellectual knowledge
> that could ever exhaust DQ. ... Know-that is always
> secondary because it is knowledge about our know-how
> rather than knowledge of DQ.
> ...
> Knowledge-that increases our know-how. Pirsig of ZAMM
> set out to show that classical know-that has its own
> aesthetic and opens new possibilities for know-how and
> then new know-thats in response to the new know-hows
> in a feeback loop building up analogues upon analogues.
> Intellect, like everything else, has static and dynamic
> aspects. Intellect is not divorced from know-how.
>
> ...Knowledge-that is also always know-how (though only
> intellectual know-how is called knowledge-that.) ...
> Know-how is the dynamic aspect of knowledge and can be
> thought of as being at work on all levels, but on other levels,
> know-how doesn't obtain a static latch as knowledge-that.
> Know-how is maintained through physical "laws,"  DNA, or
> social habits copied from one person to the next.
>
> Matt:
> I like trying to use know-how and knowing-that to unpack
> the static/Dynamic distinction, but the part that always
> eludes is the ambiguity contained in the formulation
> "Dynamic Quality is pre-intellectual experience"--we all
> know that DQ is not being equated to inorganic/bio/social
> static patterns, yet you don't have to squint much to see
> it that way.


Steve:
Yeah, lots of people have read it that way. I think when Pirsig says
pre-intellectual, based on his sport of idealism it goes without
saying that we are also talking pre-social, pre-biological, and
pre-static anything.



Matt:
> For example, I still see no need to use the
> primary/secondary distinction.  If you're not saying this
> above, Steve, you come close to using this formula in the
> third paragraph: "knowledge-that = intellectual know-how".


Steve:
What I was trying to set up was knowledge-that as the static aspect
intellect and knowledge-how as the dynamic aspect of intellect. By
analogy, on the biological level, the static aspect is DNA encoding
while the dynamic aspect is biological know-how. But static latching
creates new possibilities for know-how. I said previously,
"Knowledge-that increases our know-how." At least it can do so. There
is a give and take between the dynamic and static aspects of intellect
and of everything else in the evolution of value patterns.


Matt:
> However, if this formula is true (which I think it is), then
> there's no sense in saying that knowledge-that is not of DQ
> but know-how, as you suggest above, because you also
> seem to assert this formula (which I also think is true):
> "know-how = connection to DQ".  Combining these two
> formulas has the effect of the Rortyan injunction that
> "language does not take you away from reality."
> Constituting the primary/secondary distinction as the
> "know-how is about DQ/knowing-that is about know-how"
> distinction doesn't seem to work much better than saying
> experience precedes language.

Steve:
I didn't much like that conclusion either, but I think we agree it is
Pirsigian. I would say that knowledge-how is DQ and knowledge-that is
the intellectual sq static latching of DQ (other levels have different
ways of latching that we don't usually call knowledge but instead "the
laws of physics" or matter or energy, or DNA encoding or instinct or
customs or mores or moral intuitions).

If we take knowledge broadly to be "using," then neither knowledge-how
nor knowledge-that can take one out of reality. In fact, the concept
of reality itself is knowledge-that--it is a static intellectual part
of our using. Because of the give and take between dynamic and static
aspects of all levels, I don't think either one ought to be called
primary. Once you take the pragmatic perspective of already being
inthe position of having knowledge rather the Cartesian experiment of
imagining not having any there is always a chicken and egg thing with
DQ/sq since existing patterns are needed before you can talk about
dynamic change, but the existing patterns had to have come from some
past change. So which is "primary"? The possibilities for that
"cutting edge of experience" always depend on static patterns. How
could you separate the ocean from the waves? Squonk liked to talk
about dynamic-static tension and always advised saying nothing about
DQ itself. There is so DQ in and of itself any more than there are
static patterns without DQ. Yin and yang come to mind. Static and
dynamic define one another.

Best,
Steve