LS Re: Anthony's S-O


Donald T Palmgren (lonewolf@utkux.utcc.utk.edu)
Fri, 20 Mar 1998 05:26:49 +0100


On Fri, 13 Mar 1998, Ant McWatt wrote:

> > Now thats where one might find "subjective" and
> > "objective." What about this idea of the
> > (knowing) subject and (known)object. In ZMM P is clear
> > that experience is the result of the bumping together of
> > subject and object.
>
> NO! That is to fundamentally misunderstand ZMM. EXPERIENCE
> CREATES SUBJECTS AND OBJECTS. Subjects and objects are
> derivations from Experience; not the other way round.

        Yes I realize that. My choice of words was misleading. "Bumping
together" is (I think) a nice little metaphore, but you'r right; it does
imply that there are first Ss and Os running around outside of exp. and
they come together to create exp. That's not a view I've ever held. For
one thing, generaly when I talk about Ss and Os I mean Knower and Known,
and that should make it clear that they can only exist as a coupled unit
(You can't have a knower who knows nothing, and you can't have something
which is known that is not known by anything) and that this coupled unit
is what we mean by "experience" -- after all YOU'VE never experienced
anything that didn't involve these two critters. (The point of a monism
isn't eleminate knower-known [unless you're prepaired to pop on off to
nirvana and none of us are], but to show that these two are aspects of
the same thing: *Tat twam asi* [That thou art] as it says in the
Upanishads)

> > Pirsig: (ZMM) Out of Quality come forth S and O
> > (Approximatly meaning Mind-Body) and experience is the
> > result of a S and an O encountering one-another. But
> > Quality is not *in* exp. for it, after all, gives rise
> > *to* exp. (LILA)
>
> QUALITY IS EXPERIENCE. EXPERIENCE IS QUALITY.

        Maybe, but as far as ZMM goes I seem to recall him saying
something like "Q creates exp. (S and O) and thus is not itself directly
experienced (we never know Q as-such [in itself] unless you do colapse
that I-other distinction and zip on off to nirvana and the nut-house) and
is neither S or O." Now obviusly you can't create yourself ("exp. creates
exp.") That's Q in it's role of the trancendentail skyhook (the "thing in
itself")

>
> > P sheds his Eastern flavor and says:
> > What really exists is *only* Quality.
>
> Sorry to correct you again Donny but he certainly doesn`t
> shed his Eastern flavour in LILA. In the latter part of
> this he clearly states that "Dharma" is an Eastern term for
> Quality.

        Yes, I know. I'm saying his ontology is less Eastern. He moves
away from the "Out of the Tao (Q) come forth the pairs of oppsits, and out
of the pairs of oppisits come forth all experience" talk. I could be
wrong, but my impresion is that in LILA he's always talking about what's
in time, while ZMM resinates more w/ trancendential mysticism (talking
about what's "beyond" time -- the atemporal unity).
        (Or these could just be shadows of differient mindsets I was in
when I first read each book. -shrug-)

> > It has two states (these are my own words): the
> > potential and the realized (the in-itself and the
> > for-itself in Hegelian lingo). As his diagram in the
> > Einstein-Magreet artical shows (on the LS web page) he
> > identifies inorganic, and organic SPoV as "objects" and
> > social and intellectual SPoV as "subjects," saying that
> > these insubstantial things are a higher form of value
> > evolution than the spacialy-extended, solid "stuff."
>
> Two points here, "space" is an SOM construct;

        I'm amazied no one picked that up. If space is not real then
consequently neither is time. The universe is a (shal I say "mere")
illusion and what really exists is a trancendent unity which is (by
definition) non-spacial and atemporal. That's called trancendent
mysticism. Easter "philosophy" is saturated w/ it (I'm not saying that's
bad) and German Idealism plays seriously close to it.
        Now is that P's position? And if so, why waste all that paper on
LILA -- what's the point of talking about evolutionary levels if space and
time don't really exist anyway?
        I read it this way: There is first a unity. You could call it Q if
you want but (as the Tao te Jing points out) the point of a name is to
identify the X against all the not-X, and if there is no not-X then it
dosn't need any name. Names (along w/ time-space, knowers and known, the
manifoldness of experience, DQ and SQ...) come in *after* the "knife"
makes the first cut and the unity divides itself. Time and space come out
of the unity (Q) not SOM. (If time and space were created by a
metaphysical *THEORY*... [Well, take your own advice, Anthony])

        Hmmmm...
        "t and s come out of the unity..."
        Now were back at Kant's time paradox. To create something -- to
cause something, to give birth to-- requiers time! First A; then A causes
B; then B. Nothing can create time. That's where Kant said that the
universe dosn't exist (See the "Kant on Recursion" reply), and this is
where the Upanishads say that the world is illusury (and this is where
metaphysics starts getting U-G-L-Y).

        "DQ and SQ come in after the unity, Q, divides."
        Hummm...
        Or another way to look at it is this: DQ is the unity, the in
itself, a mere theoretical potentiality that is necessarily unrealized;
and SQ is the manifold of exp. -- time-space. -shrug-

        All this confusion is what results from taking the qusetion as a
blank to be filled in. I shouldn't do that. Let me back off and start over
again. See if this next mail is any clearer.
                                        Donny

--
post message - mailto:lilasqd@hkg.com
unsubscribe/queries - mailto:diana@asiantravel.com
homepage - http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/4670



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu May 13 1999 - 16:42:56 CEST