ROGER TRIES TO ACT LIKE A 'KNOW IT ALL' AND
RESPONDS TO RICH's QUESTIONS
To All The Squad:
Forgive me in advance for being too direct, but I am compelled...... I truly
believe that the full impact of the MOQ is not really sinking in to most
members. I know I grow and gain in insight each and every day, and I see it
in others as well, and I am sure as heck not saying I know all the answers,
but IMHO some folks are not allowing themselves to really get the essence of
the MOQ. So forgive my brashness, but I ask each of you to see if my post
make sense... if not, read it again. Better yet, go buy the books I have
quoted from and read them directly. I have built this around Rich's recent
queries, but they apply to many members.
Rich wrote:
>>>>
A thing which has no value does not exist. This seems
quite suspicious when I think of Unicorns. They have value - little kids
really dig them - so they exist, right? hmm... From what sensory experience
comes this knowledge? Pictures. The sounds of storytelling voices... which
are all valued...>>>>
Roger:
Yes, unicorns are just as real as horses. Alternatively, horses are as much
of a "mere" intellectual construct as are unicorns. This should make perfect
sense.
Rich then posed the following questions:
>>>>
1)Other than "immediate" experience, what kinds are there? I find this
ridiculous. Do we have "past" experience?
2) [objects] Appear "after" TO whom/what? Do intellectual patterns
self-reflect?
Inferred BY whom? Deduced BY whom? What? Static patterns of intellectual
value mediated through socially and biologically valuable filters? I don't
get it.
3)Quality (experience) has YOU, according to Phaedrus. So who are you?
>>>>>
I need to answer all three of these questions at once. Let me start with a
quote from William James essay on Radical Empiricism called "Does
Consciousness Exist":
"The instant field of the present is at all times what I call 'pure'
experience. It is only virtually or potentially object or subject yet."
He goes on to explain the creation event of self and world: "...experience,
taken in one context of associates, plays the part as knower, of a state of
mind, of consciousness......in a different context, the same experience plays
the part of the known thing."
In other words, the monitor in front of you and the thought of the monitor
are in two dimesions or levels at once.. intellectual and physical. James
clarifies this is because both are created and/or intersect around the point
of pure experience. James continues..... "What is experience made
of?.......intensity, flatness, brownness, heaviness......" In other words,
he shows that experience is Quality.
James' radical empiricism explains that thoughts and things are created from
patterns of experience. You are a thought and a thing created out of pure
experience (also known as quality).
Zen-Empiricist Kitaro Nishida says it even more clearly: "It is not that
there is experience because there is an individual, but that there is an
individual because there is experience. The individual's experience is
simply a small distinctive sphere of limited experience within true
experience."
Sixty years later, Pirsig writes: [Value]...is the primary empirical reality
from which such things as stoves and heat and oaths and SELF are later
intellectually constructed."
I hope this clarifies Rich's 2nd and 3rd questions. As for the first, James
and Nishida both clarify what memories are in Radical Empiricism. Here is
one definition of "memories" from James: "....mere bits of pure experience,
and, as such, are single 'thats' which act in one context as objects, and in
another context figure as mental states."
Now, I am sure Ken is writing this off as mystical nonsense, but it isn't.
In fact there is an emerging scientific theory of life and cognition called
Autopoiesis (also known as The Santiago Theory) that says the exact same
thing as the MOQ and Radical Empiricism. Science is now waking to the fact
that dualism (also known as SOM) has been assumed in science and that the
assumption is wrong. Being a scientific theory rather than philosophy, the
the term "experience" or "quality" is replaced with the term "cognition."
Below is a summary of the theory from Capra's "The Web Of Life":
"Cognition is not a representation of an independent, pregiven world, but
rather a bringing forth of a world. What is brought forth by a particular
organism in the process of living is not THE world, but A world, one that is
always dependent upon the organism's structure. Since individuals within a
species have more or less the same structure, they bring forth similar
worlds.......This theory doesn't say nothing exists, it says "no things
exist" independent of the process of cognition. ..... The map making itself
brings forth the features of the territory."
If you wade through the science terminology and replace it with our terms,
you can see they say the same basic thing as James and Pirsig. Below is the
autopoietic definition of consciousness:
"Self awareness arises when we use the notion of an object and the associated
abstract concepts to describe ourselves". Experiments have shown that except
for vague glimpses in Chimps and orangutans, that only humans perceive a
'self'. Capra continues: "We can understand human consciousness only
through language and the whole social context in which it is
imbeded.....Consciousness is essentially a social phenomenon".
Now back to Rich:
>>>>>
YOU ARE NOT your THOUGHTS
YOU ARE NOT your SOCIAL STATUS
YOU ARE NOT your BODY
YOU ARE NOT your SPACETIME LOCATION
--So what the dilly are YOU? you are "THAT"
which EXPERIENCES your thoughts, relationships, body and spacetime
location.>>>>
Roger:
YOU are a thought pattern derived from pure experience. Until the thought was
experienced, YOU did not exist other than as pure DQ.
Rich goes on:
>>>
This puts a different spin on the term "subject". "you" the "subject"
experience a stable set of Dynamically evolving patterns of intellectual,
social, biological and inorganic value. I believe this is the exact opposite
of Phaedrus/Pirsig's explanation... writing that "I" don't "really exist,
am just a collection of patterns... well what is the glue which makes them
"cohere"?>>>>
Roger:
Quality, or Pure Experience.
Rich concludes:
>>>>
I think the key to this rests on the answer to this question: Did you
exist before you started thinking? I get the feeling that we (?) are
confused, thinking that we are our thoughts. Nope.>>>>
Roger:
Now I hope the answer is apparent, but I will reinforce that YOU are the
intellectual construct that is said to experience these patterns. Yes, just
like horses and unicorns, YOU are an intellectual construct.
Of course I am real..... (just kidding)
Love and Kisses,
Roger
PS -- Being an intellectual construct is not diminishing. It is the gateway
to the expansion and unification that Kevin referenced. (You still out there
Kev?)
MOQ Online - http://www.moq.org
