Donald T Palmgren (lonewolf@utkux.utcc.utk.edu)
Sun, 26 Jul 1998 04:45:02 +0100
On Fri, 24 Jul 1998, Horse wrote:
> Platt and LS
>
> >
> > Are not Pirsig's levels and patterns of value also categories? I would
> > argue that categories and patterns are so similar as to be two words for
> > the same experience - the experience that "this is related to that."
> > Also I would argue, as I believe Martin Striz does, that not all
> > categories are human inventions and made real only by consensus. In his
> > post of July 22 Martin said, "While WE are the ones who identify the
> > patterns and make them SQ, they still exist 'out there' to be
> > identified."
> >
> > Whether patterns (categories) exist 'out there' or not has been a bone
> > of philosophical contention at least since Plato, so I don't think we
> > can settle it here. But my guess is that Pirsig believes that his
> > patterns of value exist 'out there.' I also believe they exist out there
> > although I still wonder if there can truly be an "out there" without
> > there also being an "in here." What do you think?
> >
>
> I agree with you regarding the existence of 'out there'. I don't see
> any other way that we can experience an 'in here'. The two have a
> fairly complex relationship to each other. I do think though that
> there is only 1 out there and that the intellectual realationship
> between 'in here' and 'out' there' results in classification by
> catagory, in order to make sense of the whole relationship and
> what is 'out there'. It is my belief that there is only one 'natural'
> catagory and that is the set of everything. Subsequent division is
> arbitrary.
>
As far as 'in here' vs 'out there' I think both catagories are
missleading. For some time now I've had this debate w/ a friend going
about leaving a book on a table in a room and then leading a room. "The
book still exists," he says. "Yes, I agree w/ you," I say, "but," and
this
is what I've never got him to see, "that is something we agree on; that
is
something WE SAY."
What really exists here? The book on the table or us talking
about
the book on the table, agreeing that it's there on the table, in fact
socialy, intellectualy, *morally* compelled to do so. What we are
really
experiencing is a *moral situation*. The book exists through our moral
projection of it.
"Yea," my friend says, "but it also exists in there as a book on
a
table," and then we're back to the begining: "But that is something YOU
ARE SAYING to me right now! That's what we're really experiencing."
On the other hand, when you say that the book exists 'in here'
that implys some purly psychic/psychological internal reality -- "It's
all
in your head." I don't buy that position either for much the same
reason.
We are moraly obliged to admit various psychic realities... but we never
experience these. What we experience we don't experience as we (each and
every one of us) but as we (all of us together). So, though it might
seem
at first contradictory to what I said above, I believe that what exists
exists in *public space* and (more fundamentaly) *public time*.
One of the really creative moves that Hegel made that sets him
apart from all the other thinkers lumped under the headding "Idealists"
is
the shift from *cogito* to *cogitamus* -- from "I know" to "we know."
Knowing is not an individual being at rest but a collective movement.
So what really exists? Well, what really exists are moral
situations. Actually what really exists is THE moral situation -- the
present one. All others are abstractions from that. The past exists only
in memory and recapitulation, and the futuer only in hopes and fears.
The
only time that really exists is the present. And how long is the
present?
It's the length of time taken by the current situation: taking a shower;
eating lunch; driving to work; singing a hymm in church, and so on.
(Moral) activities have a sertain amount of time built into them. (And
this is where/how time exists.) This is why they can be described as
"moral patterns."
>
> > HORSE: Give me an example of something that is truly absolute.
> >
> > Your belief that there are no absolutes.
> >
I think you both realize that you're just playing around w/ word
games here.
As I see it, it comes down to this: To say something is an
"absolute truth" you mean that it is true always-everywhere. But, of
course we don't ever experience this 'always-everywhere.' All we ever
expernce is here-and-now. Always-everywhere is an abstraction, a
projection from the here-and-now. If you think about it, what we are
really experiencing is a moral obligation make these projections, to
draw
these abstractions. So which is more real: the projected laws of
always-everwhere or the (moral) activity of projecting?
I say that what really exists is the latter.
"But then you make everything relative!"
No, because the activity of projection is a *moral* one.
*Cogitamus* not *cogito*.
Well, that's painting w/ a very broad brush, but I hope it makes
some sense.
TTFN (ta-ta for now)
Donny
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