Walter and Y'all: Good to hear from you again. I think you identified the
right issues. Thanks. I've tried to make it read like a conversation. You
know how it works...
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Walter Balestra [SMTP:balestra@ibmail.nl]
> Sent: Sunday, April 09, 2000 5:49 AM
> To: moq_discuss@moq.org
> Subject: RE: MD I found the quote!
>
> The issue of external reality still keeps us busy, and for good reasons
> too.
>
[David Buchanan] Well, I think the issue keeps us busy, but mostly
for bad reasons.
> The main point of dissatisfaction was exactly the point Struan made,
> namely the fact that "experience", if it is primary or not, implies an
> experiencer.
>
[David Buchanan] I think Struan is barking up the wrong tree.
Pirsig isn't up there. (Perhaps it's just his cat.) The MOQ does not deny
the existence of individual persons, in spite of what people have said. How
can anyone think otherwise? The MOQ has a different idea about who and what
we are and it has different ideas about experience, but it certainly doesn't
deny our existence or experience. Quite the oppostie. The MOQ says that
EVERYTHING is an "experiencer" and we are simply not an exception.
> One explanation is that "experience" is not restricted to a mind and
> that's
> also in my line of thinking. But, even if we open our minds and think
> of electrons having experiences as well, the fact remains that this
> presupposes the electron as a static pattern of values that does the
> experiencing.
>
[David Buchanan] Right, inorganic patterns also have experience,
but that's only part of the explanation. And it does depend on the
presupposition that static patterns actually exists. I think this is another
case of barking up the wrong tree. Pirsig doesn't deny the existence of
rocks and trees, history or humanity. He just has different ideas about the
nature of matter, life and our evolution. Seems like too many have either
denied existence of "mind" or "matter" in an effort to get out from under
SOM, but that's just not valid. Data are data and parts is parts. None of it
has disappeared because of Pirsig. People and stoves don't just magically
and suddenly pop into existence at the moment of experience either.
>
> This issue is being answered by Platt, Roger and David B. by regarding
> "primary experience" as "an event that occurs before the senses are
> activated". I hope everyone agrees with me that, though you can agree
> with this or not, this AT LEAST draws questions about the terminology
> used.
> Why call it "experience", for it is bound to be the source of much
> confusion?
>
[David Buchanan] The stuff within quotes is bascially mine. But in
that case I was trying to make a distinction between "primary experience"
and perception through the "physical senses". Primary experience is
alternatively called direct experience, immediate experience or mystical
experience. Its far different than our normal ego-consciousness. Normally,
the primary experience is mediated through the levels of static patterns,
which is what you are. The "physical senses" are bio patterns, the language
and its' conceptual categories are the social patterns and perhaps its also
"filtered" through the structure of your intellect. That kind of process
results in our conventional ideas about reality. And it all happens so fast
that it seems direct and immediate. But it is heavily mediated by the levels
of static quality of which you are composed. Static patterns out there? We
ARE static patterns.
> Why not call it "primary events" or just "events", because I don't even
> see
> why the "primary" most precede the words (or is it that "primary
> experience"
> is before subject/object and "secondary experience" after?)
>
[David Buchanan] Again, immediate experience is not yet mediated.
That's what I meant when I said primary experience is just reality before
you've had a chance to think about it, before the senses are activated.
Their mediation produces our conventional SOM perceptions. I guess we could
call it secondary, but it seems even more removed than that, like fourth or
fifth. But our static social and intellecutal patterns ought not be tossed
out or denied just becasue they're not DQ itself. Static Qualtiy is real
enough and "everything, not just life, is an ethical activity, a mirgration
of static patterns toward DQ". That includes individual persons.
>
> Anyway, even though I like the idea of the events 'being' Reality, this
> still presupposes static patterns of value that are IN the event to
> constitute it. Can there be an event without static patterns?
>
[David Buchanan] Ah, ha! Can there be an event without static
patterns? I think the most famous Zen koan addresses this same question.
What is the sound of one hand clapping? I think two clapping hands is a
metaphor for that conventional perception. Normally, we think of experience
as the point where subject meets object. Their encounter with each other
produces an experience. But the koan is a pardoxical question designed to
help the thinker overcome that conventional view. The sound of one hand
clapping is intentionally beyond logic and is a metaphor for experience
without subjects and objects clashing together. What is the sound? Sounds
like direct experience, sounds like DQ to me.
> Does everyone think that the answer to the above can only
> be found in leaving logic? Do we have to embrace a different
> concept of 'understanding' from that or rational explanation to
> progress beyond?
>
[David Buchanan] As Struan rightly points out, Mysticism is neither
irrational nor unscholarly. Pirsig says that once you see that DQ is
associated with religious mysticism, it produces an avalanche of information
about the nature of DQ. Since DQ is so central to the MOQ, yes, one has to
go beyond reason and logic. Naturally, its no use being unreasonable,
illogical or irrational. That's stupidity, not mysticism. But one of the
reasons Pirsig gives us the MOQ in a novel instead of straight text is the
need to be more than just rational. In ZAMM Pirsig says there a need for an
expanded rationality, and then he wrote Lila. The MOQ is his attempt at
providing that expanded rationality, don't you think?
Thanks for the great questions, Walter. You can proably tell that
I'm not really sparring with you, just using your questions to make a case,
but I thought I'd mention it just to be sure.
And, dear reader, please steal cliched catch-phrases from someone
else. : )
Thanks for your time.
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