[MD] Metaphysics and the mystic.

[david buchanan]

Ron said to dmb:
When compared to the statement "that which has no value does not exist" how is it we "know" that there is more than the "shoe box"? When speaking about the intelligible we are meaning to "know" it, to have a conception of experience that's what makes experience experience, the very fact that it is intelligible, that it has value. ...

dmb says:
What? In the analogy the shoebox is full of static concepts (sq) and the sky stands for pre-conceptual experience (DQ). To say DQ is pre-conceptual or pre=intellectual is to deny what you just said. (Intelligible concepts are what makes experience into experience.) DQ is just what you experience before you have a chance to think about it. It's the cutting edge of experience before concepts are added. This experience is pure value, as in the hot stove example, and so you know it directly and immediately rather than through intelligible concepts. 


Ron said:
That having been said, one could make the arguement that since "empirical reality" is primarilarly composed rationaly, making "empirical reality" a high Quality idea, the shoebox IS the sky.

dmb says:
What?! Empirical reality is primarily composed of rationality?! No, Ron. That's exactly wrong. In the MOQ the primary empirical reality is CONTRASTED with rationality. This is the MOQ's first cut, it is the distinction between Dynamic and static. This is what Pirsig and James mean when they say, 'There must always be a discrepancy between concepts and reality, because the former are static and discontinuous while the latter is dynamic and flowing'. Here James had chosen exactly the same words Phaedrus had used for the basic subdivision of the Metaphysics of Quality."

Ron continued:
The emphasis being on "that which has no value, does not exist." If the "primary empirical reality" is that "which does not exist", why does all life migrate towards it? how is it Primary? how is it "known" better and more primary than conceptually? than understanding it in some sort of capacity because to understand something is to value it in some sort of capacity.

dmb says:
Oh, dear. Ron, these questions reveal a profound deficit in your understand of the MOQ. Where did you get the idea that the primary empirical reality does not exist or that it has no value? Quite the opposite! "Quality is the primary empirical reality of the world," Pirsig says, and "Quality was value. They were the same thing." And, again, DQ is experience as it's known directly and immediately before it can be known conceptually or intellectually. As Pirsig puts it, "Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions".  

Ron said:
I struggle with this somewhat because since reality is largely composed of thought, HOW we think of things brings us closer to clarity certainly NOT understanding or failing to understand experience or ceasing to is being carried away from it. "Real understanding" is an "understanding" after all. eh?


dmb says:
There must always be a discrepancy between concepts and reality. This does not mean that concepts are unreal, but rather it means we ought not mistake names and concepts ABOUT reality for reality itself. I'd say that's more or less the mistake you're making. You're confusing and conflating concepts and reality. I hope it's not because you've been listening to Marsha, but that's my hunch. 

Sorry for the lack of gentle and patient but I'm totally fed up with this kind of confusion. It's the first cut, the central distinction and I honestly don't see how anyone can understand the MOQ without understanding the first part first.