[MD] Experience of both the actual and the possible

[David Morey]

Hi Dan


Sorry to have taken so long to reply. Please see my comments below.

DM said: I am suggesting that we experience both SQ and DQ aspects to any 
given
> experience, such as experiencing a banana. You seem to be saying we only
> experience DQ, all SQ is only something built out of DQ after the event,
> using ideas and memories.

Dan replied:
I am not saying we only experience Dynamic Quality. Using the term
'experience' in that manner, you are suggesting a subject experiencing
the world of objects (bananas), or in this DQ case, a subject
experiencing, what? If Dynamic Quality is not this, not that, then
what is one experiencing? Rather, in the MOQ experience is primary while 
subject and objects,
patterns of value, memories, and everything else is secondary. Dynamic
Quality and experience become synonymous within the MOQ. Maybe you'll get 
it. Most people don't.

DM now says: You are jumping to incorrect conclusions and not answering my 
questions. I can assure
you I have grasped such MOQ basics as experience is prior to any conceptual 
schemes
to explain experience whether they are SOM or whatever. Let's be clear I 
suggested we talk
about a banana just as an example of what we might be having an experience 
with, hard not
to use an object as an example as this is how language works. Might point is 
that we can
experience not only dynamic qualities but static ones, and it is because of 
such static or
patterned or repeating qualities that we can then move on to talk about 
having an experience
of something as regular, patterned or remembered as a banana. Sure you have 
to string quite
a variety of SQ experiences together to get into the conceptual heights of 
named objects like
a banana, but all I wanted to do by focussing on experiencing as banana was 
to keep the
experience simple. Now what you seem to be saying is that experience is 
really only
ever DQ at the basic level, SQ is always a secondary construction of 
patterns. What I am
saying is that surely there are simple experiences of static or patterned 
qualities long before
we get to language or concepts (like banana). Surely we experience patterns 
in our direct
and simple experience, for example when there are two patterns (bananas if 
you like)
being experienced at the same time (hanging on the same plant). And when we 
are
experiencing something as moving this is a form of SQ because we experience 
it as
moving, we don't experience it as disappearing and reappearing in a 
different place.
You seem to be saying SQ is all about intellect and concepts but I am 
suggesting SQ
is experienced at a much more basic level. Otherwise experience will remain 
flux
and never move through the stages of sophistication that only after millions 
of years
reaches those of intellectual level SQ and the postulation of SOM or better 
still MOQ.

DM said:
> I am suggesting that we experience a level
> of SQ prelinguistically, yes there is obviously a post-linguistic level
> of SQ involving words, ideas, memories and concepts. But do we
> not construct post-linguistic forms of SQ and construct names like
> banana out of pre-linguistic SQ elements, elements such as repeating
> patterns of smell, taste, sight, etc. You could object that such 
> comparisons
> involve a time delay and memory and therefore imply the use of ideas and
> analogies to construct a pattern and the relevant SQ. But then this seems
> to make ideas and memories more fundamental to the MOQ than SQ.
> But is the MOQ not meant to see DQ and SQ as the originating qualities,
> does Pirsig really see ideas and memories as underlying SQ, thereby making
> SQ non-fundamental to his metaphysics?

Dan said :
Static quality patterns are secondary. They arise from experience.
See, when you say we experience a banana, what you are really saying
is that the banana is primary and our experience of it is secondary.
But a banana like all other static patterns are always secondary to
experience. A banana is a reconstruction of the experience. There is
always a time lag involved between experience and what we take as
reality.

DM now replies: Yes sure, but experience is reality, the primary reality, 
and to me
it has DQ and SQ forms, forms of quality, and these are basic and what
we use to build our linguistic and conceptual formulations on. My point
is that quality has this SQ aspect as basic, otherwise you are just left 
with flux
and you can't build anything on sand or water.

DM said:
> Alternatively, what about looking at two items, one in each hand, you have
> them present to you at the same time, is not the fact of their similarity
> experienced by you prior to putting a label on it and calling them both
> out as bananas. I'd also that you can experience not only the similarity
> between these two items, but their difference. Now the similarities
> is all about SQ, but we always experience more than any patterns,
> similarity, SQ. We also experience difference, and if this difference
> is not patterned, what do we call it? I suggest all difference is part
> of what we mean by DQ. This is something like what Heidegger
> means when he says if we look at all the being (SQ) we complete
> fail to notice the Being (DQ) of experience. Same with scientism,
> it has all the best theories (SQ) to explain the world but these are
> never complete and a surplus or remainder as Zizek says remains.
> I appreciate that you and others are trying to explain SQ and DQ
> in terms of what Pirsig has said but what I am trying to do is test
> the MOQ against a wider context of ideas and thinkers to see
> how it contrasts with or fits in with these other ways of thinking
> about experience-reality.

Dansaid :
Good luck with that. I am probably the last person you want to talk
with as  I write much more philosophy than I read. If I am having
problems sleeping, I pick up a copy of Marty's Being and Time and I am
soon happily snoring. God, is there anything so dry as dead white men
going on and on about nothing at all?

DM now replies: fair point, Heidegger is a terrible writer, although there
is much of interest to be said about Nothing and No-thing!

> DM said:
>>
>> Is experience only something that you can have about what is
>> present in the now? This looks like a version of presentism and various
>> philosophers have seen this as part of standard empiricism and
>> I am surprised to find that you think it is part of the MOQ
>> but is that your position?
>
> Dan said:
> I have no idea what you are talking about. The MOQ subscribes to pure
> empiricism.
>
> DM said: I have always seen the MOQ as a form of radical empiricism so 
> that it
> considers not only the perceptual realm as a key aspect of experience but
> anything we can experience as vital to the full plurality of our
> experiences,
> so we also experience feelings, values, ideas, images, memories, numbers,
> fantasies, etc, whatever we experience is real and part of experience and
> is either made up of statric/repeating qualities or dynamic ones. Seems to
> me
> you are thinking ideas and memories are some sort of add ons to experience
> that are allowing us to make SQ out of DQ. Is that really what Pirsig is
> suggesting?

Dan said:
No, that is not what I am saying. Ideas, or intellectual patterns of
quality, emerge from experience to inform us of the world. Again, you
seem to be insinuating that we as subjects are (somehow) using the
objects of our experience to inform us of the world. You seem to be
saying these objects are primary and experience is secondary.

DM now replies: No I am not, you are bringing up memories and
secondary add ons, I want us to stick to DQ and SQ and see these
as primary and basic and the starting point, it is you who seems to
want to make SQ an add on dependent on memory and concepts,
quality does not need these add ons at the basic level of experience
is what I am saying. Now if you are telling me that Pirsig sees SQ as
secondary and dependent on memory and concepts before it can
be experienced then maybe that is correct, but I think that is not
a good idea, if you think that is what Pirsig is saying and agree with
it then please just say so, just failing to see what I am saying and
suggesting I am talking about SOM is just failing to get what I am
saying, maybe the banana was a bad idea, but I just wanted
to discuss the status of DQ and SQ given a simple example of
an experience.

>  Dan said:
Calling us the orthodoxy is rather rude, in my opinion. It is
suggestive of dogmatic thinking and inflexibility. I am all for
learning new things about the MOQ. But if someone is going to teach me
something, they better do their homework first. So far, I don't see
that you have done that.

DM now replies: Well you're jumping to conclusions again incorrectly,
my homework standards are pretty good, and 'orthodoxy' just recognises
that some of you guys may have an agreed interpretation that I
am not in agreement with, I could have just called it the general consensus
if you prefer that term, however I know that you and some others have spent
a lot more time and effort on the MOQ than I have, that's great, it is 
greatly
appreciated, and it is good work done in a good cause that I support too.
Now I am more than happy to recognise that what you are telling me about
the MOQ may well be in line with what Mr Pirsig has said, I am quite happy 
to
accept that my interpretation of the MOQ may be different from the consensus
view or even what Pirsig intends, but it is not a form of SOM, that is a 
complete
red herring, I'm just hoping you and other people can grasp what I am 
saying,
we can then get on to the task of deciding whether it is compatible or not
with what Pirsig has written and after that I would hope we could discuss
whether it is more flawed or better idea of the MOQ compared to the problems
we know about with respect to SOM and suggesting an alternative to SOM.
That is the informed position we should easily be able to reach and from 
which
we can discuss the merits and demerits of different interpretations. I do
respect the consensus views and wish to learn more about them and explore
them in further detail but I also wish to discuss potential alternatives
and options that clearly exist, all this talk of is this really going back 
to SOM is
total misunderstanding and a total red herring of my views, and I am 
surprised
that anyone who remembers me can go off on such a tangent but never mind,
probably failed to explain my banana example carefully enough. I have no
problem with there being a consensus view that differs from my own, without
a consensus how could we consider of judge potential alternatives or 
improvements?
Please do not be defensive with me, you have nothing to be defensive about,
and please see my questions as a genuine means to try and progress the 
issues
and disagreements being discussed. All good Socratic stuff that is what this
forum is surely for.