[MD] Rorty and Mysticism

[MarshaV]

Hi Matt,  

On Nov 20, 2010, at 6:29 PM, Matt Kundert wrote:

> 
> Hi Marsha,
> 
> Marsha said:
> Did I make sense about the actual realization not being linguistic?
> 
> Matt:
> I'm not sure I caught the effect of your distinction, "That moment is 
> not linguistic, it's not visual, it is realization."  I take it you're 
> suggesting that the experience you are trying to point at was neither 
> the word "rabbit" to "old woman" (though that is also an experience) 
> nor the visual appearance of a rabbit or old woman (though that is 
> also an experience), but rather the experience of realization sans any 
> particular filling in of the X of what that realization was about (i.e. "I 
> had a realization about X").  You wish to isolate the "ah-ha moment" 
> _as_ ah-ha moment (ah-ha qua ah-ha, as it were).

Marsha:
It will be a false isolation, but yes, I am addressing what I see as an 
experience of realization. (Btw, that isolating to theorize is an example 
of reification and typical of intellectualizing, imho.)   


> Matt:
> I think I see how you'd isolate them, and I have no objection to so 
> doing, but I don't see the end-game, what larger point this says, for 
> example, about the relationship between language and experience.  
> We isolate the commonality, the ah-ha moment that Kuhn called a 
> "paradigm shift," between the rabbit/lady picture, the 3-D box picture, 
> the shift from geocentrism to heliocentrism (thanks to Copernicus), 
> object-centrism to subject-centrism (thanks to Kant), and the shift 
> from S/O-centrism to Q-centrism (thanks to Pirsig), and call all of 
> those moments a single kind of experience, "realization."  That makes 
> sense to me, but I'm yet unclear what you think it means, at least as 
> relevant to any philosophical language/experience issue.

Marsha:
But I am not talking about what Kuhn said, or Kant said, or even 
what Pirsig said, I am trying to express what is directly experienced,
directly discovered, directly known.  

If philosophical intellectualizing is the point, than direct experience 
may not be very meaningful, but if the point of philosophy is to add 
appreciation to the living experience than knowing for oneself through 
direct experience becomes more meaningful.  -  If you are a literary man 
than the two may not be so easily separated, but the distinction may still 
be important if your intent is to gift potential experience to your reader.

What do we know, and how do we know it?  Those are questions I seem 
to have been born asking?   But I don't want to be told, I want to discover.  


> Matt:
> One interesting facet of your analogy is how the ah-ha moment is 
> specifically a realization of the existence of an alternative perspective, 
> which does _not_ carry inherently the suggestion that one perspective 
> is better than another.  I think this is a correct appreciation of 
> paradigm shifts.  The mere awareness of alternatives itself does 
> nothing to suggest that what used to be the only option is now 
> outmoded.  Seeing finally the old woman does not get rid of the 
> rabbit's viability.  Being told that we might be in a solar system and 
> not a geo-system doesn't itself commend heliocentrism.  The ah-ha is 
> a necessary but not a sufficient condition for a full-blooded paradigm 
> shift.

Marsha:
I would say my direct experience was more a discovering first-hand 
what was false.  It is one thing to have a rational understanding that 
my notions of my self and objects has been a misconception.  It is quite 
another to experience the falsity of such a notion directly.  I have read 
the only way to approach Ultimate Truth (Quality) is though discovering 
what is false. And this has proven to me to be moving in the right direction.   

What do you think is required to make a full-blooded paradigm shift?  


Marsha   
 













> 
> Matt
> 
> 
>> Hi Matt,
>> 
>> I'm not trying to be cagey, but it is more that a language 
>> experience.  The truest analogy I know is the one about looking 
>> at the picture that contains the image of an old woman and a 
>> rabbit exclusively.  You start by seeing one, but not the other,
>> and it can be some time before you shift your awareness from 
>> one to allow the other to reveal itself.  There's that moment of 
>> ah-ha... That moment is not linguistic, it's not visual, it is 
>> realization.  The difference I had  was not between old woman 
>> and rabbit, but one of one reality-perspective to another 
>> reality-perspective.  Or I might say in my case, a jump from 
>> subject-object perspective to a NOT subject-object perspective - ah-ha...   
>> It was only for a while, minutes, I think.   
>> 
>> So I've described it, I've used an analogy that I hope is familiar, 
>> but it doesn't even come close to describing the burst of insight.   
>> 
>> 
>> Did I make sense about the actual realization not being 
>> linguistic?   
>> 
>> 
>> Marsha
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