[MD] Dewey's Zen

Sun Mar 25 13:21:47 PDT 2012

DMB,
see, I've been playing this same game for a couple of years already - 
reading more mainstream philosophy (I agree that "Dewey's Zen" is not a 
pure example of "mainstream"), finding concepts that are intended to be 
something the MOQ expresses better, and replacing them - writing pages 
and pages of notes for myself. So no, I don't play games with that, 
because it's already something I do systematically. If I want to do that 
to "Dewey's Zen", I'm more likely to borrow the entire book and read at 
least fifty pages. I don't mean to put you down by not playing your 
game. I do understand your game, and playing games is how this more 
serious approach got started.

-Tuukka

25.3.2012 23:13, Tuukka Virtaperko wrote:
> Look, DMB,
> I don't have time for this bullshit. You posted an useful article, I 
> wanted to thank you for that. I guess I just couldn't believe you 
> actually do think it's good to reject positive things other people 
> give, such as respect. I'm not interested in playing your game, 
> because it is not relevant practice for my work. I was interested in 
> the article you posted. You were useful for me, but in a way which you 
> did not intend, and now you seem to say this implies that I'm stupid. 
> Talk about drivel.
>
> -Tuukka
>
>
>
> 25.3.2012 21:55, david buchanan wrote:
>> dmb says:
>> Thanks for playing along, Dan. I'm going to withhold comment and hope 
>> others take a shot at it to too. (Since Tuukka doesn't seem to 
>> understand the core concept of this game, you're the only one to 
>> participate so far.)
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 10:37 PM, david 
>>> buchanan<dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>  wrote:
>>>> This might be fun but it's also a kind of experiment. I was reading 
>>>> a paper and saw many parallels to Pirsig, which wasn't very 
>>>> surprising because it's titled "Dewey's Zen". But I wonder if 
>>>> others read it the same way I do. In certain passages it seems like 
>>>> one could plug Pirsig's terms into the sentences and they'd still 
>>>> mean the same thing - almost exactly. Telling you more than that - 
>>>> like which terms I had in mind - it would ruin the experiment. How 
>>>> about if I just post a bit of it and let everyone take a shot at 
>>>> it? Maybe it would be fun to put in Pirsig's terms wherever you 
>>>> think they would fit. Take your pick or play with them all, but 
>>>> please be explicit enough to let me know if you're seeing the same 
>>>> thing that I'm seeing.
>>> Hi David
>>> Been editing one of my books most of the evening... I love the
>>> writing... the editing, not so much... but since I cannot afford to
>>> pay someone to do it, it falls to me. Anyway, I thought I'd throw out
>>> a few ideas to chew on...
>>>
>>>>
>>>> ...experiences come whole, pervaded by unifying qualities that 
>>>> demarcate them within the flux of our lives. If we want to find 
>>>> meaning, or the basis for meaning, we must therefore start with the 
>>>> qualitative unity that Dewey describes. The demarcating pervasive 
>>>> quality is, at first, unanalyzed, but it is the basis for 
>>>> subsequent analysis, thought, and development. Thought starts from 
>>>> this experienced whole, and only then does it introduce 
>>>> distinctions that carry it forward as inquiry.
>>> Dan:
>>> The author seems to be saying the same thing that RMP says when he
>>> talks about Quality coming first, and how ideas arise from 'it'. The
>>> qualifiers the author uses seem contradictory on the surface though it
>>> is possible I'm not seeing things properly.
>>>
>>>>             It is not wrong to say that we experience objects, 
>>>> properties, and relations, but it is wrong to say that these are 
>>>> primary in experience. What are primary are pervasive qualities of 
>>>> situations, within which we subsequently discriminate objects, 
>>>> properties, and relations.
>>> Dan:
>>> See... the author subtly shifts here into saying these qualities are
>>> pervasive and the demarcation only happens later.
>>>
>>>>   Dewey took great pains to remind us that the primary locus of 
>>>> human experience is not atomistic sense impressions, but rather 
>>>> what he called a "situation," by which he meant, not just our 
>>>> physical setting, but the whole complex of physical, biological, 
>>>> social, and cultural conditions that constitute any given 
>>>> experience—experience taken in its fullest, deepest, richest, 
>>>> broadest sense.
>>> Dan:
>>> A minor quibble here... in the MOQ, experience is synonymous with
>>> Dynamic Quality. Static quality comes later... inorganic, biological,
>>> social, intellectual.
>>>
>>>> Mind, on this view, is neither a willful creator of experience, nor 
>>>> is it a mere window to objective mind-independent reality. Mind is 
>>>> a functional aspect of experience that emerges when it becomes 
>>>> possible for us to share meanings, to inquire into the meaning of a 
>>>> situation, and to initiate action that transforms, or remakes, that 
>>>> situation.
>>> Dan:
>>> To respond to Dynamic Quality, in other words...
>>>
>>>>
>>>> The pervasive quality of a situation is not limited merely to 
>>>> sensible perception or motor interactions. Thinking is action, and 
>>>> so "acts of thought" also constitute situations that must have 
>>>> pervasive qualities. Even our best scientific thinking stems from 
>>>> the grasp of qualities.
>>> Dan:
>>> "Acts of thought" are ideas? Is that what I'm understanding here? And
>>> yes, the MOQ would seem to agree that ideas are as 'real' as inorganic
>>> and biological patterns... they exist on different evolutionary
>>> levels, however.
>>>
>>>> And perhaps my favorite....
>>>>
>>>>             The crux of Dewey's entire argument is that what we 
>>>> call thinking, or reasoning, or logical inference could not even 
>>>> exist without the felt qualities of situations: "The underlying 
>>>> unity of qualitativeness regulates pertinence or relevancy and 
>>>> force of every distinction and relation; it guides selection and 
>>>> rejection and the manner of utilization of all explicit terms."
>>> Dan:
>>> I should think that in the MOQ, culture is the regulating force of
>>> distinctions and relations... remember how Phaedrus read about the sun
>>> flashing green before he actually looked up and 'saw' it?
>>>
>>> Thank you,
>>>
>>> Dan
>>>
>>> http://www.danglover.com
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