From: David MOREY (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Sun Sep 21 2003 - 14:43:18 BST
Scott:Yes, but also that when you press on either of paired items, it seems
to
turn into the other. For example, to say that SQ can be changed by DQ
implies a unity across the change, so SQ seems to be dynamic, while DQ,
since it is the permanent factor, seems to be static.
DM: totally agree.
Scott: Since I assume the subject only exists in polar relation to an
object, I
> would prefer saying that the S/O divide is a mystery, not that subject or
> object is a mystery. Or rather, they are derivately.
DM:Exactly.
Scott:I think it is the other way: the tree's spirit can occupy us, though
in the
> end this may be that a common spirit occupies both (and, by the L of CI,
> both are different from the common spirit, that is, are individuals).
DM: I would not argue with this, we can only really approach these things
tentatively, but I think individuality has to be seen as a subset of a
larger set.
And at times making it very difficult to say where one individual ends and
another begins.
DM:
> I also think that the dynamic quality possessed by human beings or
> > possessing human beings simply says that they have a future, having a
> future
> > implies indeterminacy and openness, and having a future implies being
> > connected to many different possibilities, and being human means making
> choices and this implies values
> > and a frightening level of responsibility
> > (that almost no one seems to realise)
>
> Scott:
Very important point. It is why I don't differentiate philosophy from
> religion.
DM: For many years I did, but now for me philosophy finds itself walk
straight back into
religion. See this article on Radical Philosophy as a single example of what
seems to be
where post-modernism is now heading:
http://www.radicalphilosophy.com/default.asp?channel_id=2188&editorial_id=13
669
Scott: Here is where I get (relative to current cultural norms) crackpotty.
I
> assume that intelligence creates universes, so it is no surprise that the
> universe is (a) intelligible, and (b) defined just right for intelligence
to
> exist in it. Furthermore...
DM: Yes me too, but how mad do you have to be to think the cosmos does
not seem full of intelligent activity, but not theism, I say activity and
open,
no pre-design, more intelligent activity. How they will laugh at the fall of
the
enlightenment in the future, we are like the flat-earhers us moderns!
Scott:> As I said to DMB, I distinguish carefully between the SOM divide and
the S/O
> divide. Otherwise, I agree. A while back I put forth the idea of an ironic
> metaphysics, one where the only dogma allowed (read: assumptions) are ones
> one cannot understand, i.e., the L of CI. I'm not sure how high it would
> fly, though.
DM: Ironic metaphysics, yes I am definately a tongue in cheek fan of
metaphysics,
as an ontological phenomenologist, or an MOQer, I do laugh when Matt gets
all
upset about metaphysics, because I feel like I am hanger loser than the
pragmatist
can manage. please explain this distinction SOM divide to S/O divide.
Regards
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott R" <jse885@spinn.net>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2003 12:58 AM
Subject: Re: MD Dealing with S/O
> David M,
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> >
> > I would really like to get up to speed with this
> > debate because I find I agree closely with your posts
> > and really like the Barfield and L of CI. But I cannot see
> > why this cannot be used to support the MOQ as it stands
> > without contradiction.
>
> Well, it seems that the difference is that I see the "I" as a locus of
DQ/SQ
> tension, while Pirsig sees the "I" as a set of SQ "capable of responding"
to
> DQ. It could be that this is a difference that makes no difference, and it
> is true that for the purpose of Lila (discussion of inter-level moral
> conflicts) it doesn't. My argument for my position is that it does make a
> difference when it comes to how one understands oneself, or rather,
doesn't
> understand oneself (since I am a contradictory identity), and so what one
> does to "know thyself".
>
> L of CI is very close to Francois
> > Laruelle and his version of open dialectic it seems to me.
> > Laurelle was discussed in Radical Philosophy Magazine 121 last month by
> Ray
> > Brassier..
>
> Is there a web pointer to this? I am unlikely to run across it locally.
>
> > By the way my book is all about free-life and limitation if you want to
> read
> > it.
>
> Not now. Any chance of your putting bits of it online?
>
> > The point of L of CI seems to me to hold onto both unity and choice or
> > openness as not simply prior but implicit in any form of dualist pairs.
>
> Yes, but also that when you press on either of paired items, it seems to
> turn into the other. For example, to say that SQ can be changed by DQ
> implies a unity across the change, so SQ seems to be dynamic, while DQ,
> since it is the permanent factor, seems to be static.
>
> > Laurelle suggests that unlike all other kinds of metaphysics decision is
> > essence. Decision implies splitting asunder that which is originally a
> unity.
> > Decision of course implies dynamic quality. Human experience is nothing
if
> > not full of dynamic quality. The emergence of static quality in human
> experience
> > is an effort, memory and intelligence are required. Analysis/choice
> requires a
> > separation/alienation of what is given. Eg into Kants:
noumenal/phenomenal
> or Hegel's
> > subject/substance. This activity/choice is entirely dynamic and creative
> because you have
> > created whatever distinction you have set up between the two. And the
> distinction implies
> > both the difference and the unity ot the two distinct poles because the
> distinction also implies
> > the givenness of the two terms, hence different but inseparable. I think
> this is what L of CI
> > is also getting at. When we turn to talking about human beings we have
to
> see the
> > full complexity: static biological patterns: we all have 2 hands,
dynamic
> biological patterns
> > all individuals grow and in non-determined ways e.g. brain cell
> connectivities as related to
> > environment, static social patterns-we all sit down to meals, dynamic
> ones -some
> > individuals change class, static intellectual patterns -common usage of
> English, dynamic writing of
> > poems,etc. The problem with SoM being loss of focus on dynamic quality
and
> therefore also the unity
> > of static/dynamic in undifferentiated quality. We need the unity to keep
> challenging the creative
> > differentiation, so you can question when we get bogged down in one
> approach to reality. We SO need
> > to be flexible and dynamic in our numerous language games (emphasis more
> on play), and stop
> > trying to reduce experience to yet another cut of reality, often
focusing
> on just one of the
> > poles after the cut is made.
>
> Wholly agree.
>
> > When you say the subject is a mystery I assume you are pointing to the
> > dynamic quality of the subject. Equally the object is a mystery, why is
> there anything rather than nothing.
>
> Since I assume the subject only exists in polar relation to an object, I
> would prefer saying that the S/O divide is a mystery, not that subject or
> object is a mystery. Or rather, they are derivately.
>
> > For me awareness is possible because really subject and object is a
unity,
> Da-sein or Being-there is what
> > being an aware human being is. Da-sein is not bordered by the outline of
> the human body, the object and
> > subject of awareness are equally Da-sein or what it is to be human. Put
a
> human body in total isolation and
> > you no longer have a human being. And of course we can only start
talking
> about subjects and objects as part
> > of human experience when we have the language to make them start
> appearing, as we divide up our
> > experience. Hence for early cultures your spirit can occupy a tree,
still
> does rather obviously I would
> > suggest, if the tree is not full of your spirit how do you know it is
> there?
>
> I think it is the other way: the tree's spirit can occupy us, though in
the
> end this may be that a common spirit occupies both (and, by the L of CI,
> both are different from the common spirit, that is, are individuals).
>
> I cannot think of awareness as anything other than primary,
> > and has to be based on unity, otherwise you get into rather Kantian
> problems
> > about how knowledge could ever be possible, re-cognise has to imply the
> 're', i.e. the recogntion in
> > subject-object relations is plausible if the movement is from the One to
> the many to a new one. Brassier compares
> > it to a moebius strip, the circle is cut, then twisted and then
rejoined,
> still joined but now a new kind of
> > circle -with an added twist.
>
> Exactly. Another metaphor for the difference-in-unity is the Necker cube
> (two overlapping squares with the corresponding corners joined: one can
see
> it as a 3-dimensional cube in two ways, but never both at once.)
>
> > I also think that the dynamic quality possessed by human beings or
> > possessing human beings simply says that they have a future, having a
> future
> > implies indeterminacy and openness, and having a future implies being
> > connected to many different possibilities, and being human means making
> choices and this implies values
> > and a frightening level of responsibility
> > (that almost no one seems to realise)
>
> Very important point. It is why I don't differentiate philosophy from
> religion.
>
> > and an awareness of many possible futures implies intelligence because
> > intelligence must be chosing between futures, what else is it for? And
not
> > chosing, or repeating old patterns, implies being unaware and
unconscious,
> and perhaps the most sleepy things of all are
> > material beings.
> >
> > Also if human beings are touched by dynamic quality what is our
> relationship
> > to all the static patterns that lie around us? Like frozen bits of
choice,
> like fossils, like bad
> > habits we can't shake off. Perhaps, we are more responsible for what
lies
> around us than we usually think, perhaps this
> > explains the anthropic principle problem.
>
> Here is where I get (relative to current cultural norms) crackpotty. I
> assume that intelligence creates universes, so it is no surprise that the
> universe is (a) intelligible, and (b) defined just right for intelligence
to
> exist in it. Furthermore...
>
> > Oh yes, language and intellect should not be treated as unreal, they are
> > super real, they are the light which we use to illuminate the world,
what
> a world it is with language and intellect! The
> > cosmos is surely an event as much as the microcosm of man is, the
dynamic
> choice implied in all thinking as per L of
> > CI or the non-philosophy of Laruelle, has surely also occurred on the
way
> from big bang to all the
> > complex differentiation of matter and life forms.
>
> they are more than the light to illuminate the world, they are the light
> that creates the world. Not my "little self" language and intellect, to be
> sure, but in a "we are made in God's image" sense. (N.b., please don't
read
> theism into any of this).
>
> > I agree that there is a good argument that MOQ, post-modernism, L of CI,
> > non-philosophy, could be put together into a new metaphysics, a kind of
> meta-physics that is beyond the
> > wildest imagination of the pragmatists and what they mean by
metaphysics.
> We so need not to escape or avoid
> > thinking but we also need to hang onto the oneness/unity of
> quality/experience so that everything is constitutive
> > of who we are rather than as standing up against us. There seems to be
an
> inevitable logic to pushing the SOM divide as far
> > as you can take it so as to understand how the two poles are inseparable
> and from the same source.
>
> As I said to DMB, I distinguish carefully between the SOM divide and the
S/O
> divide. Otherwise, I agree. A while back I put forth the idea of an ironic
> metaphysics, one where the only dogma allowed (read: assumptions) are ones
> one cannot understand, i.e., the L of CI. I'm not sure how high it would
> fly, though.
>
> - Scott
>
>
>
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