[MD] Ah-ha Qua Ah-ha

[Matt Kundert]

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:
This exchange occurred a day or two ago, and my first response was 
to say that this was an important qualification with "many implications" 
(I gestured vaguely).  As I've been thinking about the oddity of talking 
to Marsha, for whom the notion of "assertion" is itself authoritarian 
and anathema, I thought I might put the point by saying that, while 
Marsha is right that the notion of assertion is by its very nature 
authoritarian and arrogant, to vacate the space of assertion in 
philosophical conversation is to turn a _dialogue_ into an _exchange 
of monologues_.  The proper behavioral consequence that Marsha 
has been looking for in excavating the notion of "relativism," I think, is 
just this, but I hesitate to say it out loud except in a near-by room 
with the door closed for fear of violating the new norm.

If this seems funny, it is at the same time true of the consequences 
of the antiauthoritarian relativism Marsha has been pursuing, and lies 
at the heart of what I called a conflict between Marsha's desires--one 
to sit in silence, the other to actually talk to other people.  I think
 Marsha genuinely wants to dialogue with other people, but the mere 
hint of authority or assertional dominance pisses her off.  I find 
Marsha's dialogic style emblematic of the general pattern of 
discourse of Pirsigians.

The tension that creates this style is created by the notion of 
"intellectualizing"--how do we theorize about the non-theoretical?  
_Should_ we?  We all, clearly, go in for Pirsig's answer, "bah, go 
ahead--picking up bar ladies and writing metaphysics is a part of 
life."  But I also think we might better stop and wonder just what 
this thing called "intellectualizing" is that causes the problems.  
Pirsig, among many here, has often seemed bothered by this kind 
of question, mainly because the thought has been that the notion 
isn't esoteric, and quite commonsensical.  "Why ask?  You already 
know."  But, just what is it that we already know, that we are 
constantly doing?

Pirsig, when finally pushed by Paul Turner, said that it was the 
"manipulation of abstract symbols."  What is abstraction, what does it 
mean "to abstract"?  Pirsig, again, leads the way with (in that letter) 
his earlier description as "independently manipulable signs."  To 
_abstract_ is to make _independent_.  It is, in a word, _to isolate_.

This is what I think "intellectualizing" is: the isolation of X from its 
surrounding relationships: the severing of relations.  Marsha, in her 
above short comment, articulates an ambiguity when it comes to 
whether she might agree with this notion, for by saying "it will be a 
false isolation," she could either be saying that _any_ isolation is 
"false" or that _this particular_ one is false.  If the former, then it 
displays the tension we want to know more about.  If the latter, then 
by understanding theory _as_ isolation, "isolating to theorize" displays 
a headache.

These, of course, are my definitions foisted on Marsha's comment, 
but what I hope to isolate is the problem-area I think needs to be 
addressed about what "intellectualizing" is and what's wrong with it.  
Later in that post, Marsha implied that "the point of philosophy is to 
add appreciation to the living experience," and I at the time agreed, 
and still now agree.  But by understanding theory, intellectualizing, 
as isolation, we can now understand philosophy as the skill of 
moving back and forth between the cutting of relations by isolation 
and the thrusting back into relation of the previously cut.  That's 
what "thinking" is.

If this is true, I think it also means that the notion of "pre-intellectual 
experience" is a vanishing point that cannot be understand _as_ itself.  
And _this_ is the case because _nothing_ can be understood 
_as itself_: to understand X qua X ("being qua being" as in Aristotle's 
definition of metaphysics or "ah-ha qua ah-ha" as in Marsha's search) 
would be to cut X from _all_ its relations, but once that is done, what 
is left?

This is the performative contradiction of speaking about silence--you 
can only talk around it.  This is something we've all been toying 
around with in various ways (as Pirsig did too), but I'm not sure 
we've come to grips with what it means.  So, how _do_ we 
understand "pre-intellectual experience"?  By how it functions (like 
some of the ways articulated in "DQ as Pre-Intellectual Experience").  
But by displaying how it functions, I'm defining it, setting it into 
relation to something, which means I've disappeared the thing I was 
talking about.  Which is just the bitch of it.  However, this is _only_ 
the difficulty of those kinds of objects, things, that we've attached 
certain kinds of descriptions to: like, "pre-intellectual" or "ineffable."  
To understand is to set into relation, but these things have no 
relations.

So, what are the functions of these kinds of objects?  One, I think, 
useful function of such objects is to defeat the absolutist from 
closing the loop of life and saying all problems have been solved and 
defined--it ever dispels the notion that, e.g., Plato could have 
encapsulated the Form of the Good.  It functions as the symbol of 
metaphysical openness.  In this way, it functions as the symbol of the 
composition instructor who tells his students that no person will ever 
cease their quest for better articulation.

If these things are the case, then that means the quest to articulate 
inarticulateness doesn't get much better than "I'm not happy with this 
description, but it's the best I got right now."  To push harder is to 
countenance the _actual ability_ to perform the contradiction hiding 
in "speaking about silence."  This means that to _want_ to talk about 
one's most private and special experiences, to try and convey the 
ephemeral, mind-blowing experiences one terms a "direct experience" 
_as_ private, direct experiences is to want to speak in a language that 
only you can understand, because the intelligibility of that notion of 
privacy and directness depends on its being _unrelated_ ("undefined") 
to any but you.

And if this is the case, it is a monologue in an alcove with the door shut.  
The alcove is there, without a doubt, but the dinner conversation can 
only happen out here.  And since this metaphorical alcove is actually 
inside of our minds, we should think twice before telling each other, 
_asserting_ to each other, that we should get more experience in the 
alcove, because if these descriptions are right, then the alcove is a daily 
experience for all of us, the leaving of which happens every time we 
open our mouths.  And what is actually being discussed are more 
relatable things, like meditation, instead of the unrelatable thing that 
was thought to have been discussed, but never actually is.

Matt