[MD] Rorty and Mysticism

[MarshaV]

On Nov 21, 2010, at 6:33 PM, Matt Kundert wrote:

> 
> Hi Marsha,
> 
> Matt said:
> You wish to isolate the "ah-ha moment" _as_ ah-ha moment (ah-ha 
> qua ah-ha, as it were).
> 
> Marsha said:
> 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 like that qualification, and it adds important implications to the 
> understanding we think we get from addressing an experience "in 
> isolation" (since all isolating maneuvers are abstractions by their very 
> definition).  But I'm not sure I have a sufficient or systematic 
> understanding of what all of those implications are.

Marsha:
How can you suggest that important implications have been added,
and then confess you are unsure as to sufficient or systematic 
understanding of what all of those implications are when the 
addition of the word 'implications' was yours?  


> 
> Marsha said:
> 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.
> 
> Matt:
> I think this is a reflex reaction on your part to my involuntary, reflexive 
> thinker-mapping (or "philosophology" as some still derogatorily put it).  
> Because if what you express about what you experience directly is to 
> have any relevance to what anyone else experiences directly, then it 
> would be in relationship to how they express what they experience 
> directly.  Right?

Marsha:
The implicated meaning of the reflexive reaction is unclear to me.
Please elaborate.  


> 
> Marsha said:
> 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.
> 
> Matt:
> Well, I prefer "literary person," but aside from that I'm not sure how 
> to understand the notion of "direct experience" as you use it here.  
> Something that becomes blurry for a literary person, which I take it 
> is someone who enjoys reading over sunsets (though there is nothing 
> better than reading in front of sunset).  However, I'm also not sure 
> how to take the distinction between "philosophical intellectualizing" as 
> the point of philosophy vs. "adding appreciation to the living 
> experience" as the point.  Put the way you did, I'm not sure there _is_ 
> a point to "philosophical intellectualizing" if it doesn't add to our living 
> experience (with the important caveat that the import of such isolated 
> intellectualizing is sometimes dormant and obscure for generations).

Marsha:
I'm more comfortable giving thumps on the head then receiving them,
but since I didn't specifically address you there might be some 
confusion whether I was, in fact, making a general statement or 
addressing you personally as a man.  

Is there a difference between theoretical philosophy and practical 
philosophy, like the difference between theoretical physics and 
practical physics?  Maybe as I am using them, there is, in theory, 
no practical difference.  Maybe there is no difference between 
daydreaming of writing a book and actually writing a book.  Do 
you enjoy reading of a sunset more than experiencing a sunset? 
If you answer yes, I can well imagine you might enjoy daydreaming 
of writing a book more than writing a book.  Dormant and obscure 
may be a condition of almost anything if you didn't consider time 
something real.  Do you?  And do forget my mentioning "adding 
appreciation to the living experience" as a practical matter.
You wouldn't understand...  


> Marsha said:
> 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:
> All philosophers are born wondering such things, but I'm also not sure 
> I've ever encountered one who wanted to be told.

Marsha:
Agreement!  -  Hurray!  It surely doesn't take much to make me happy.   


> Marsha said:
> 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.
> 
> Matt:
> I guess I'm not sure what you mean by "experiencing the falsity of 
> such a notion directly."  

Marsha:
I know you don't.  That would require the first-hand experience that 
you are rejecting, or kind of rejecting.   


> I guess a lot rides on what counts as a 
> "direct experience" and what counts as a "first-hand discovery."  

Marsha:
Not in my case, I've experienced them both.  


> Matt:
> Because, as I understand the practice of a reflective individual, the 
> experience of falsity and truth is always direct, a matter of 
> self-discovery as one hears about ideas and test drives them in their 
> own experience.  

Marsha:
Would that be first-hand understanding or an understanding 
published by someone else?  


> Matt:
> That's the default position of life for James.

Marsha:
Oh, James said.   


> Matt:
> I've discovered all kinds of truths in the last three months, though many
> of them were from reading books, and the test driving occurred on 
> paper and in my mind as I moved ideas from one mental context to 
> another.  Does this kind of activity not count?

Marsha:
Does it count?  What did Lila say?  Oh yes, if it is reality for you than 
it is going to count for you.  Far be it from me to tell you differently.  


> Marsha said:
> What do you think is required to make a full-blooded paradigm shift?
> 
> Matt:
> Ah, that was probably misleading, or not carefully thought out.  What 
> I had in mind is the fact that, though we may suddenly change our 
> minds radically by force of single experiences, those shifts may not 
> be justifiable at the time.  So, I guess the blood I'm talking about is 
> the blood of static patterns that come in the wake of the initial 
> perspective shift.  The blood might not come--nothing guarantees 
> ahead of time that a perspective shift is Dynamic Quality or degenerate 
> (what I've called Pirsig's "indeterminacy of DQ thesis").  A good 
> example is Copernicus: the state of the discipline of astronomy at the 
> time made the initial thought of heliocentrism not particularly attractive, 
> certainly no more so than geocentrism.  And it had nothing to do with 
> the authoritative hold of tradition: it was just that heliocentrism had as 
> many, though different, problems as the Ptolemaic system, if not more.  
> It wasn't until the addition of Kepler's elliptical orbits and Galileo's 
> mechanics that heliocentrism became demonstrably better at predicting 
> the movements of planets and setting up further physical and 
> astronomical discoveries.  (If I remember my history correctly, it was 
> German mathematicians that kept Copernicus alive in the interim, 
> because it made the math potentially so much easier.)

Marsha:
All are conceptually constructed, ever-changing, interdependent, 
impermanent static patterns of value.

---

My summary, you like the many ways you can ask the question: what is DQ?  
I like defining my first-hand experience as a realization moving me closer 
to Quality.  Let's hope your questions and my first-hand experiences 
continue to evolve.


Marsha




 
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