Hi Elephant - I enjoyed your latest post and will try to clarify further.
As you noted, language and grammar usage seem to be formidable obstacles.
I wrote:
Who, or what, HAS this soul?
You replied:
Your talk of possession ("HAS") makes no sense. For something to be
possessed there
would have to be a distinction between the possessor and the possessed,
which is precisely what there cannot be here (which is after all your
point).
Me again: Yes, you're right -'has' is the wrong word. I guess it would be
that souls simply exist. But then, we still have the problem of
differentiating souls from dynamic quality, breaking reality into parts. We
all know where that leads.
I previously wrote:
> In the DQ, as Iread it, there is DQ as the ultimate, only reality -
everything else is a
> pattern, static or dynamic, of Quality. Are you now saying that there are
> TWO things that comprise reality, Quality and souls? In order for there
to
> be distinct individuals, outside or beyond static/dynamic patterns, there
> must be distinct stuff other than Quality. This seems to go against
> Pirsig's whole point.
You responded:
Two things, not one? Yes, purely from a grammatical point of
view, it does seem to me that you can't have experience without an
experiencer. But what the word 'experiencer' denotes in practice, and
whether there can be said to be a *real* distinction between the experiencer
and the experienced (as opposed to a grammatical one) is another matter.
Don't forget that this observation about the gap between the grammar and the
real situation cuts both ways: I mean that if you want to stick with the
"there is only Quality" answer you have to reinterpret the relevant concept
of 'experience' in such a way as also to embrace 'experiencer'.
Are you with me?
Me: Yes, I'm with you on this one. This is tricky, but follow me here.
Yes, 'experience' necessitates an 'experiencer', but not a 'self' or a
'soul'. This all goes back to the dynamic/static quality split. When
something occurs and is experienced, at that moment there is no difference
between the experience and the experiencer - there is only the experience,
as dynamic quality. When I attempt to REPORT the experience, to think,
write or talk about it, I have now retreated to a static view,an'I
experience' view. 'Experience and 'Experiencer' are only distinct in the
static world.
-----
You continued:
Up to a point, this sort of discussion can become quite intractable: simply
a matter of how you choose to put it, which grammatical form you prefer for
the underlying reality. Either rework the meaning of 'experience' (which is
fine so long as you own up to it), or accept that the experience and the
experiencer are distinct. To my taste, though, and following Plato, it
seems that so long as you continue to talk of 'experience' with any meaning
you have to remember the distinct 'experiencer', that so long as you talk of
'The Good' you have to remember 'Eros', that so long as you talk of the
magnetic you have to speak of the magnetism. More to the point, so long as
you talk of 'Quality' you have to remember 'Taste', or, if you prefer
something for the prelinguistic situation, 'Intuition'.
Me Again:
Yes, you are correct, but only in the static description of the dynamic, not
in the ultimate DQ, in my opinion.
I previously wrote:
MARTY:
> First of all, I don't see enlightenment and compassion as the same
> thing; I see it as enlightenment LEADING TO compassion, for once you see
> reality as it is, compassion is the only thing that makes sense.
And you replied:
I agree, of course, but there is also a sense in which it isn't *really*
enlightenment until it actually *has* lead to compassion. And that's a
theme in Jamesian pragmatist thought as well: beleifs are action guiding or
they aren't beleifs. We shouldn't pay attention to what Descartes *says* he
beleives or doubts, we should pay attention to what he actually does. The
'mal genie' "doubt" was just self indulgent pretence. I think this makes
the connection between compassion and enlightement slightly stronger than
the 'leading to' account. And that chimes with some remembered C of E
thinking: it matters not what you *say* about the Love or God, it matters
whay you *do*. Or Eckhart, the theologian that Pirsig refers to - something
to the effect of 'do not yelp about god'. What matters is what you *do*
(though thoughts and words are actions too, they are certainly not the whole
of action, nor in all situations the most important).
I respond:
I'm with you 100% on this one.
To speak clearly is to be understood
To act clearly is to be.
marty j
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