From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Tue Sep 16 2003 - 01:21:03 BST
Paul,
> [Paul pre:] The intellectual construction of a contradictory dichotomy
> is, in MOQ terms, no more than an intellectual pattern of values
formulated
> from complex symbolic abstractions. So to solve a "contradictory
> identity" paradox one simply rejects the contradictory dichotomy in
> favour of non-paradoxical experience. I believe this is the approach
> that Nagarjuna and the Wisdom Sutras are advocating.
>
> [Scott:]
> Where does the abstraction come from?
>
> [Paul:]
> Experience
[etc.]
My point is in the next two remarks I made (about nominalism and the
mystery), that to take abstraction as a given, not acknowledging that it is
a complete and utter mystery, is to sweep the L of CI under the rug. So to
say that subject and object (or DQ and SQ for that matter) are "just
abstractions" from experience one is assuming there can be experience
without the abstractions. Not these particular ones, necessarily, nor is it
necessarily abstraction that is involved. But something that falls in the
traditionally "subject" side of things is always involved, as well of course
as something on the object side, plus something on the uniting side (so to
speak), and so the L of CI is always a factor in experience.
What I am getting at (and the above does a poor job of it, I realize) is
that all experience is word-like in nature. There is always a triangle:
Quality/DQ/SQ, or meaning-word-interpretant.
> [Scott:]
> This is nominalism, and it is the great error that needs to be overcome.
>
>
> [Paul:]
> Intellectual patterns are symbols standing for patterns of experience. I
> accept that intellectual patterns refer to patterns of value, this can
> be tested by anyone. What I am saying is that taking such symbols and
> further abstracting from them theoretically independent aspects of
> experience such as "self" and "not self", then reflecting them back onto
> hypothetical experience as paradoxes is the great error.
But we don't. It happens before we theorize. It is true that we experience
before we theorize, but for there to be any experience in the first place
there had to be a distinction, whether into "self" and "non-self" or
something else. Hence, in e.g. Kabbala, the initial act of creation is the
Ein Sof withdrawing from itself. What is wrong with our present state of
consciousness is that this distinction does not reunite, in most cases. So
"pure experience" would be a separating/uniting.
>
> [Scott:]
> The ability to abstract, or to create an intellectual pattern, is a
> complete and utter mystery.
>
> [Paul:]
> Agreed.
So I consider it unwise to treat the products of abstraction in nominalistic
terms, as "mere".
> [Scott:]
> As to "reject[ing] the contradictory dichotomy in favor of
> non-paradoxical experience", well, why not just give oneself a frontal
> lobotomy? Why have we bothered to become human at all?
>
> [Paul:]
> To experience.
I would prefer: to create.
> [Paul prev:] The point is that "self" and "not-self" are never given in
> experience, they are arrived at through abstraction, so to say they are
> one and the same is just to say that they are derived from a unified
> experience.
>
> [Scott prev:] Well, I think saying they are never given in experience is
> incorrect. If there are no distinctions, there is no experience, and for
> human beings at this stage in our evolution, the primary distinction is
> between self and non-self.
>
> [Paul:]
> I was obviously unclear about this. Of course empirical experience is
> differentiated, but we never experience differentiations on their own.
> If we did, they wouldn't be differentiations. When we experience
> something on its own, we are enlightened, for then experience is without
> differentiation. So we never experience "self" OR "not-self". We
> experience "self" AND "not-self" together, make and maintain
> distinctions symbolically and isolate them for analysis.
Agree with the last part (we experience AND, not OR), but see above about
experience vis-a-vis differentiation.
>
> [Scott prev:]
> The change in thinking that I propose to
> relate "experience", "self", and "non-self" is not that "self" and
> "non-self" are intellectual abstractions we impose on experience, but
> that experience in itself is the creation of the self and the other. It
> can also create in other contradictory identities.
>
> [Paul:]
> So do you believe that the symbols pick out natural breaks in
> experience?
I believe that there are breaks in experience, or there wouldn't be
experience. The symbols for the breaks will vary.
> [Paul prev:]
> For example, "time as duration" and "time as discrete events" are
> just abstracted descriptions of how one can conceive of "time", so the
> only contradiction is in the hypothetical sense that an experience can
> be described in terms of duration or in terms of events. The description
> has no bearing on empirical experience.
>
> [Scott:] Again, whence the "just abstracted descriptions"?
>
> [Paul:]
> >From experience. "Time" is a term invented to describe an aspect of
> experience. We all experience it, yet nobody can explain it by
> abstraction. Although many have tried.
And failed because it involves the L of CI.
>
> [Scott prev:]
> In any case,
> these "abstractions" became very real to me in trying to discern how a
> computer could be aware. This is because a computer is designed
> explicitly to treat time as discrete events solely, and this makes
> awareness impossible. Hence the difference between a person and a
> computer is that the former actually does experience duration as well as
>
> discrete events.
>
> [Paul:]
> Well, this is a logical deduction made from the prior assumption that
> awareness does actually equate to time as duration and time as discrete
> events. Very interesting though.
The assumption is that time is a mystery, and that it is the same mystery as
that of God, or Quality, or all the undefinables, though we have different
names for the two sides of the polarity in different situations. Hence we
can recognize error when we see an attempt to explain the mystery by denying
its mysteriousness (usually by assuming one side of the polarity is an
illusion derived from the other, as materialist and idealist SOM do).
>
> [Paul prev:] In terms of "DQ" and "SQ", I would say they refer to
> complementary aspects of experience which have been abstracted
> symbolically by Pirsig to provide a metaphysical conception of a process
> of experience. They are also static divisions of experience.
>
> [Scott prev:] I would say that "complementary" does not cover it. They are
> opposed, and by opposing constitute the process experience, Experience
> is never just static or just dynamic. Once named, the names are, of
> course, static.
>
> [Paul:]
> "Experience is never just static or just dynamic"
> Precisely. They are isolated only by abstraction and analysis. Like
> "self" and "not self".
Isolated, yes. The L of CI's basic premise is that neither self nor non-self
have "self-identity".
> [Paul:]
> Okay "all static divisions collapse into a non-intellectual monism
> referred to by Pirsig as Quality" seems like a brush-it-under-the-carpet
> solution. You want to avoid the finality. I agree with that sentiment
> but I acknowledge the limits of intellect in articulating the ineffable.
I see them as the same thing. The L of CI does not try to articulate the
ineffable. It tries to articulate the ineffability of the ineffable.
> [Paul:]
> I see thinking very much as part of experience, but not the whole thing
> and not in a "directionally creator relation" to experience [I'm not
> ready to accept that aspect of Barfield].
Hmm. I believe it was perception that Barfield considered to be in a
"directionally creator relation" to experience, not thinking. I'll have to
check.
>
> I guess this particular discussion comes down to whether one sees
> "contradictory identity" as something imposed by thought on experience
> or something inherent and natural in both [thought and experience]?
I think this question itself needs the L of CI. The "imposed by thought on
experience" seems to beg the question in some way, as does "something
inherent and natural in both". If forced to choose as stated here, I would
go with the latter, reflecting my agreement with the revelation "By [the
Logos] were all things made", but one has to wonder if at some future stage
of consciousness "things" just don't seem so contradictory anymore.
How's that for a weasel answer :-)
- Scott
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