[MD] Hot Stoves and What To Do About Them

[david buchanan]

Dan said to dmb:
I would say that Dynamic Quality only becomes concrete empirical reality afterwards, and then "it" is no longer Dynamic Quality. If you drop the two identifiers and say Dynamic Quality is synonymous with reality, then I would tend to agree with you here. I see you trying to box it in... to make Dynamic Quality into something, when instead it is better to say it is not this, not that.

dmb says:

Well, as I tried to explain before, DQ is "concrete" reality in the sense that it is not "abstract" or conceptual and it is "empirical" reality in the sense that it is directly known in experience. Those identifiers are just another way to make the same point you did, which is that DQ is not to be confused with things we say about it and think about it afterward. 
I mean, to a SOMer or a metaphysical realist, the concrete empirical reality could refer to the physical universe but that's not what I mean at all. James and Pirsig both say that this immediate experience is not physical or mental because those are conceptual categories into which we sort experience after the fact. 
It seems to be further evidence that we actually agree because you agreed when I made the same point without the terms "empirical" or "concrete"....

dmb said:  ... mystics will get off the stove first because they tend to be in closer contact with that pre-conceptual flux of life. For James and Pirsig, that's reality and the concepts that follow are only good to the extent that they successfully operate in that reality, in the flux of life.


Dan replied:
Now... we agree. Thank you,



dmb says:

Good, because I don't like to disagree with you. It makes me nervous. With other people it might be just the opposite, you know? If I find myself agreeing with them, I start wondering where I went wrong.