To: Bo, Matt, Peter and Struan
From: Roger
**** THE QUOTES IN QUESTION*******
WILLIAM JAMES:
".....a given undivided portion of experience, taken in one context of
associates, plays the part of the knower, of a state of mind, of
consciousness; while in a different context, the same undivided bit of
experience plays the part of the thing known, of an objective content .....
in one group it can figure as a thought, in another as a thing"
ROBERT PIRSIG:
"...subjects and objects are not the starting point of experience. Subjects
and objects are secondary. They are concepts derived from something more
fundamental which [James] described as 'the immediate flux of life' .... Pure
experience cannot be called either physical or psychical: it logically
precedes this distinction."
ROGER:
Pirsig says the same thing throughout ZMM and Lila. He explains in Ch 9 that
Whitehead's "dim apprehension" is DQ and that objects are not primary but
rather "... a complex pattern of static values derived from primary
experience.... In this way, static patterns become the universe of
distinguishable things."
******* THE DISCUSSION BEGINS....**************
STRUAN:
Now all of [the above] IF TAKEN AS A METAPHYSICAL POSITION reduces to
Idealism.
ROGER:
No way, Jose. This is not idealism. Reality is by no means a product of our
imaginations. ONLY THE BOUNDARIES ARE. Reality (DQ) is dynamic and flowing,
it is what Alfred Whitehead called "The seamless coat of the universe." It
is only our concepts of reality (sq) which are divided, static and
discontinuous. In this way, our philosophizing of reality (which involves
conceptualizing it ) distorts DQ into fragmented, illusory simplifications of
reality.
By the way, there are definite parallels between James/Whitehead/Pirsig's
conclusions in metaphysics and psychology, Godel's famous "incompleteness
theorem" in logic, and Heisenberg's "uncertainty principle" in science.
All three stumble into fundamental limitations in objectivity and duality.
As eminent physicist Erwin Schroedinger noted: "Subject and object are only
one. The barrier between them .... does not exist." He compares
subject/object to placing an object in front of a mirror -- you seem to get
two objects where there is only one. Similarly, when our intellect REFLECTS
upon the world, we get two images, a seer and a seen, a subject and an
object. Schroedinger maintains that "The external world and conciousness are
one and the same thing." Pirsig says much the same thing with pre-conceptual
DQ, which he refers to as "the base of reality."
STRUAN:
Yes I do know about James. He was a psychologist primarily and his philosophy
was entirely concerned
with human experience and consciousness. THIS PRE-SUPPOSES A HUMAN MIND!!!
Thus when he talks about
undivided experience he is talking about something that happens IN THE MIND
before THE MIND
differentiates the experience. His contributions to the philosophy of
Pragmatism ran along similar
lines. In a nutshell, he believed that any philosophy was true if the
consequences of holding it
were satisfactory to the individual - truth being relative to the individual.
This IF IT WERE TAKEN
AS A METAPHYSICAL POSITION is pure idealism.
ROGER:
No, Struan, your "mind" is just another derivation of experience, of reality
(albeit a good one). According to the MOQ, reality (DQ) is undivided. James
points out that you cannot hear the hearer because the hearer is nothing but
the entire stream of sounds heard. Similarly, Ken Wilber clarifies that "The
seer, seeing and the seen are all aspects of one process -- never at any time
is one found without the others."
Once you divide reality, which you do by pre-supposing a distinct mind or
seer, you also pre-suppose the seeing and the seen. You are correct in that
once you start slicing up reality, it is reasonable to assign one of these
slices to be an objective mind. Much of Western Philosophy's history has
been sidetracked by failing to question this very assumption.The solution is
of course to realize that the boundaries and divisions are themselves the
illusion. William James eventually saw this and hence his creation of
Radical Empiricism.
Schroedinger compares dualistic assumptions to the confusion among early
mountain climbers about Guarisankar and Mt Everest. Originally considered
two peaks, it finally came to light that they were the same peak from
different views. Western Philosophy's mind/matter duality is similarly
confused. Which view is correct, the North face or the South? Mind or
matter? Some philosophers have held that only the North face is correct.
Others that the South face is the true one. Some have tried to reduce the
North into the South, and others vice versa.
North-South and mind-matter, are different aspects of one reality. The
boundary though is illusory. Reality, like Mount Everest, is undivided.
There can be no North without South, no mind without matter.
Separating mind, experience and matter can of course be an extremely useful
process if we remember not to mistake our maps for the territory (something
Whitehead calls the fallacy of misplaced concreteness). But Western
Intellectuals have often forgotten their assumptions and gotten lost in
battles over boundaries and divisions that exist not in reality, but just in
tattered,out-dated 2000 year-old maps.
STRUAN:
...'pure experience' still presupposes a mind to have that experience and this
does not in any way detract from the fact that experience has not yet been
divided into subjects and
objects. Again Pirsig tells us, ""...subjects and objects are not the
starting point of experience."
And we can all go along with that; but what is having this experience?
Experience logically
presupposes an experiencer does it not?
ROGER:
The 'experiencer' IS the 'subject' ....right? You can't have a mind or an
'experiencer' without already making the initial division, and as Rod Stewart
sang "The first cut is the deepest." If you have already sliced the world
into an independent experiencer, I would say the other two divisions
(experience and that-which-is-experienced) are pretty much logically
inevitable. But make no mistake, Pirsig and the others I quoted today reject
this first cut as illusory as well.
STRUAN:
And what does the distinguishing? Our old friend the human mind?
ROGER:
In undivided reality, everything you are looking at is you who are looking at
it. That art thou. Or to answer to your question, I will borrow a quote
from RH Blythe "The experience BY the universe OF the universe."
STRUAN:
Even emergentism doesn't help. If
electrons can in some primitive way, 'experience,' then they must be the ones
which are presupposed
in order to divide this pure experience. Whichever way you cut it, it will
not work.
ROGER:
Exactly!!!! When you cut, you destroy something. Once you pull out the
analytical blade and begin dividing reality, you make sq of DQ. But the two
are not synonymous. One is a pale, dead version of the other. One is the
map, the other is the territory.
But to end on a more positive intellectual note, as Pirsig wrote in Ch 7 of
ZMM: "When analytic thought, the knife, is applied to experience, something
is always killed in the process.... But what is less noticed .... something
is always created too. Instead of just dwelling on what is killed, it's
important also to see what's created and to see the process as a kind of
death-birth continuity....." Twenty years later this seed of a thought
transformed and grew into DQ, sq and his evolutionary Metaphysics of Quality.
Struan, I know that you reject Pirsig's accomplishment and that you deny that
many conventional western intellectual patterns are unwittingly mired in
dualistic thought -- but I hope this clarifies why I accept the former and
am so critical of the latter. Plus, I enjoy the dialogue.
Roger
PS -- Sorry for suggesting you 'distorted' Mr Pirsig's position. I suspect
Bo is right about SODV being oversimplified for the audience.
PPS -- Bo, note how this post reinforces your SOLAQI concept?
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