[MD] perceptions

[david buchanan]

> From: valkyr at att.net
> Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2013 13:18:07 -0400
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Subject: Re: [MD] perceptions
> 
> 
> Marsha:
> Though, I wonder why you put perceptions (sensual experience) in with concepts (linguistic experience) and assign them both as intellectualizing.  I thought you associated intellectualizing with language.  Perception (sensual experience) does not require language.  imho. 
>  
Marsha said:
In mindful awareness (mindfulness) one drops the narration (language) function for a more perceptual (immediate) experience, but there is still pattern identification in differentiating shapes, smells, sounds, tastes and touch.  The differentiating doesn't disappear with language.  The differentiating is there with perceiving too. 


dmb replied:

"Quality is shapeless, formless, indescribable. To see shapes and forms is to intellectualize. Quality is independent of any such shapes and forms. The names, the shapes and forms we give Quality depend only partly on the Quality. They also depend partly on the a priori images we have accumulated in our memory. We constantly seek to find, in the Quality event, analogues to our previous experiences. If we didn't we'd be unable to act. We build up our language in terms of these analogues."                         



Marsha replied:
Yes!

[And then later]

Though, I wonder why you put perceptions (sensual experience) in with concepts (linguistic experience) and assign them both as intellectualizing. I thought you associated intellectualizing with language. Perception (sensual experience) does not require language. imho. 



dmb says:
Well, those are Pirsig's words. Notice the quotation marks? It's Pirsig who put perceptions in with concepts and describes them both as intellectualizing. 

Since I posted the quote to show how your view is at odds with Pirsig's, your initial response ("Yes!") told me that you did not see the contradiction. But now you do.

Differentiations of any kind are static and so "mindful awareness" - as you describe it -  is not Dynamic experience. It's just intellectual in a less abstract, more rudimentary way. Unlike the naive realist, who thinks the "things" in the world are simply given to the senses, Pirsig and many other philosophers know that our perceptions are profoundly shaped by concepts.