[MD] The Tao of Quality - Verse 1

[Dan Glover]

Hello everyone

On Sun, Mar 10, 2013 at 3:18 PM, Krimel <Krimel at krimel.com> wrote:
> [DM]
> Do we not discover  regularities in experience before concepts?
>
> Dan:
> No. There is only a 'dim apprehension of we know not what.'
>
> [Krimel]
> We experience all sorts of regularities without any apprehension whatsoever.
> The beating heart, the random of hiss of neurons firing in our auditory
> systems, the direction Lincoln is facing on a penny, the name on the tag of
> last our server, the number of pickets on the last fence we passed. In fact
> the number of things we regularly experience without apprehension is vast
> bordering on the infinite.

Dan:
If you are using the term 'experience' in the sense of a subject
experiencing an object, yes. In the MOQ, experience comes first. All
static quality patterns emerge from experience.

>
> [DM]
> Regularities like hot? Is not hotness a form of quality, a static quality we
> understand long before -as a species- we get to language and concepts.
>
> Dan:
> There are different forms of understanding in the MOQ. Take a taste of
> chocolate and then try and describe the taste. We understand biological
> patterns like taste and smell but not in terms we can intellectualize. Is
> that what you mean?
>
> [Krimel]
> Biological patterns are experienced irrationally. They are unnamed.

Dan:
Well, I suppose you could say that, thought you seem to be saying
biological patterns are primary when you say we experience them.
Again, in the MOQ, experience comes first. Static quality patterns
like rationality and irrationality emerge from experience. They are
not pre-existing notions.

>
> Dan:
> Well, again, as perceivers of Quality we wake to the breaking moment.
> Everything else is an analogy. We build up a repertoire of cultural
> knowledge as we grow older. Soon we come to believe that knowledge is the
> world. But it is only what we think the world is. We see what we know is
> true and ignore the rest.
>
> [Krimel]
> We are not at all confined to the breaking moment. We drift back and forth
> in time as we recall the past and anticipate to future. Nor is memory simply
> a matter of what we say about the past. Memory is analog and brings with it
> the bodily experience of the past.

Dan:
Well, I don't know as I said we are confined to the moment. I said we
wake to the moment. Intellect affords us the advantage of building up
a sense of not only the past but the future. Intellect emerges from
experience, however.

>
>> [Krimel]
>> Well yeah, that is an issue and one I have been trying to make so sense
> of.
>> We are creatures geared toward finding difference. We are possessed of
>> an array of sensory neurons for doing just that. But we also have
>> memory which lifts us out of the differences of each passing moment
>> and allows comparisons of the past with the present.
>
> Dan:
> If we look at the 'present' as (direct) experience then it becomes clear
> that static quality in the MOQ is a memory of experience. It always lags
> behind the present. In the moment there are no distinctions. I think that is
> what the Buddha was on about when he spoke of there being no east and west
> in the sky, how our thinking makes it so.
>
> [Krimel]
> If there were no distinctions in the present we certainly could not ride
> motorcycles.  We are able to make discriminations perfectly well in the
> present because we they are not rational. They do not require chopping the
> world into bits they only demand an appropriate response.

Dan:
When we are thinking of the present our thinking leads us astray. The
moment arises pure and unsullied. Our thinking encapsulates it into
that which we know. These distinctions allow us to navigate the world,
to survive. These discriminations arise from experience, be they
rational or irrational.

>
> [Krimel]
>> This yields generalization and
>> analogy where some properties of the present are regarded as similar
>> along some dimension to some previous experience. In language what you
>> get is a semantic network of interconnected pairing of signifiers and
> experience.
>
> Dan:
> As long as it is remembered that experience as you use the term here is
> after the breaking moment. That's where a great deal of confusion arises:
> using the differing meanings of experience as pointing to the same.
>
> [Krimel]
> Assessments of facticity are made instantly without conscious or rational
> intervention in our coping as Heidegger might say..

Dan:
Well, perhaps Heidegger says so but Pirsig doesn't, nor does James. I
would be interested in a quote, if you have one handy, just so we can
compare. I am pretty sure the MOQ would say there is always a lag
between our experiences of the world and our conceptions of the world.

>
> -------------------------------------
>
> Dan:
> I don't think this is right. Distinctions arise after the pre-intellectual
> moment. How could they not? By allowing concepts to infiltrate the
> pre-intellectual we destroy any semblance of the MOQ.
> I've done a quick search of Lila and I find no mention of 'pre-intellectual
> thought.' There is a reason for that. If it is pre-intellectual, how can
> there be thought?
>
> [Krimel]
> The pre-intellectual IS the irrational. But it does involve being, doing,
> acting. Irrational does not mean wrong or crazy it simply mean not rational.
> It is this boundary between the rational and the irrational that causes so
> many problems here. I have offer the rational/irrational binary are a way of
> clarifying the problem.

Dan:
I think we should take care when putting labels on that which we must
not label. Dynamic Quality and static quality are not binary in any
sense of the word. Static quality emerges from Dynamic Quality.
Experience and Dynamic Quality become synonymous in the MOQ.

>
> Dan:
> Perhaps. But they take place after the present moment. Anything, be it
> rational, irrational, digital, analog, are all static quality patterns
> emerging from experience. At least if we are talking the MOQ, which I assume
> we are.
>
> [Krimel]
> To speak of this things renders them static but the irrational, the analog,
> and the heuristic do not require speech. They are modes of being that do not
> carve the world into pieces. The problem with the rational, digital, and the
> algorithmic is that they do.

Dan:
That may well be, but these patterns are still intellectualized,
conceptualized, are they not? Otherwise, how can we know what we are
discussing? An image doesn't require speech yet when we see it we make
the distinction of the image. When I say the Mona Lisa the image
arises, right?

>
> [Dan]
> Thank you for your insights.
>
> [Krimel]
> I appreciate your thoughtful comments.

Dan:
It is a pleasure. Good to talk to you again.

Dan

http://www.danglover.com