[MD] Static patterns are ever-changing?!? i

[David Morey]

Hi DMB

David Morey said to dmb:
...great but I say there is a step missing between flux and reflective thought, this 'material' in experience must have some form or pattern so that we start to experience qualities and not just flux, qualities implies pattern, .... continually changing flux or continually changing patterns,  I assume we do not just experience white noise and then add concepts to it to create experience,....  

dmb says:
You think pure experience is like "white noise"? Where did you get that idea?

DM replies: Try again,  I say above 'I assume we do not… '

DMB: The flux of experience is said to be undifferentiated or unpatterned or undivided. The impression that pure experience is like "white noise" is an impression you got from language like that, I suppose. 

DM replies: yes my point is that such language is incomplete and needs to address percepts or whatever you want to call the content or qualities found in experience. 

DMB: But that's not what the terms mean at all. Concepts are differentiations, the differentiations of consciousness. We use concepts to divide the continuously flowing experience. The dynamic flow of perceptions is chopped into static patterns.

DM replies: I have no issue with the idea that concepts add something to experience,  they identify experiences more clearly,  they abstract,  they draw clear dissections,  they draw out the structure in all flow,  but look up concepts in Wiki,  concepts abstract patterns and regularities found in experience,  look up patterns in Wiki, patterns are regularities or symmetries directly experienced,  these are two different words,  I can't find anyone saying that all pattern recognition depends on concepts,  however this is what you seem to be saying, so all animals and babies use concepts you claim,  so why don't you say so?

DMB: To say that the flux of experience is undifferentiated is to say it is unconceputalized. 

DM replies: unconceptualised is fine, but dynamic flow is clearly full of pattern, the patterns that we value,  the pattern if hot or cold,  red and blue,  patterns prior to conceptualisation

DMB: To say that the flux of experience is unpatterned is to say that it is prior to concepts.

DM replies: No that is just you,  as you think all patterns require concepts, it is a theory,  but is it a good one? I do not think so,  we add concepts to patterns to create our explicit understanding and culture,  but direct experience of patterns do not require concepts,  they just are,  we experience qualities without concepts,  concepts are how we understand patterns but we experience them first pre-conceptually,  your view is the odd one, we notice the symmetry of the funny things on the end of our hands prior to coming up with the concept 'fingers', symmetry is patterned, are you not getting what patterns mean?

DMB: To say that the flux of experience is preintellectual is to say it is not yet divided into concepts. 

DM replies: fair enough, but we experience patterns before the higher level divide of concepts come into play, I am saying that patterns allow us to create concepts,  you seem to think concepts create patterns, but we just experience patterns no creativity using concepts is required, why do you think concepts are so crucial in experience? I guess when we look at our fingers we experience many qualities,  these qualities have a pattern,  they form a finger pattern,  and they repeat,  one finger,  another finger, we do not experience fingers unprocessed,  we are embodied beings,  we have an evolved body,  we are inclined towards recognising fingers more easily than other patterns, is this patterned recognition always conceptual,  just because it has background filtering of some kind, nearing to programming than simply concepts I'd say,  but if you say that it almost implies we never experience pure DQ, except maybe if we cut ourselves off from all direct experience,  meditating perhaps.

DMB: These are just various ways of saying the same thing.

DM replies: not really,  if like me you see patterns and concepts as 2 different things

DMB: All those terms tell you that pure experience is not static, not patterned, not conceptual.

DM: There maybe be a pure experience before any qualities are compared, or seen to group together,  or move around,  or feel good or bad,  but ordinary experience,  abstracted from culture and concepts,  is not so pure,  it is surely full of shapes,  symmetries and patterns. 

DMB But this has nothing to do with white noise. DQ is not a big blank. 

DM replies: yes it is rather full of pattern

The immediate flux of reality is overflowing with feelings and sensations, what Northrop calls an esthetic continuum or Pirsig calls the continuing stimulus that causes us to created the world. It'll prompt you to jump off the hot stove even before you can conceptualize it. We act in response all the time and then think about it later. 

DM yes let's call this pattern,  reflex pattern in fact,  what have you got against the word pattern,  concepts do not create patterns,  they create other things, and they name them and differentiate them,  pattern simply applies to everything, we do not call everything the same word,  look another pattern,  we add concepts to get dogs,  cats,  apples,  the whether,  etc,  but these are all patterns pre-conceptualusation. 

DMB: Please, you have to realize that Pirsig and James use these kinds of terms, not scientists. You are simply misusing the MOQ's terms and in a conspicuously bad way.

DM replies: we all use the words pattern and concept, 2 different words for most of us,  you want to make all patterns dependent on concepts in the MOQ,  I say this is a bad idea and does not agree with immediate experience,  experience and patterns precede concepts, concepts give us culture,  but life,  history,  experience precedes culture.