> Ant McWatt stated to Platt August 24th: > > >Firstly, you have (yet again) put that weasel word individual > >in the phrase a far cry from the MOQ goal of a morality based > >on intellectual principles of individual freedom. However, part > >of the remit in the MOQ (being a Zen Buddhist derived philosophy) > >is to remind us that the concept of individual is a convenient fiction > >that needs to be recognized as such to reduce karmic suffering. It should > >therefore be avoided in the context of the MOQ and used only with > >qualification. > > Ham commented to Ant August 25th: > > I take exception to your statement that individual is a weasel word -- > a convenient fiction -- particularly in the context of Freedom. This > assertion demonstrates once again the failure of Pirsig's philosophy to > recognize the individuality of human experience, which is fundamental to a > metaphysical understanding of existence. By deferring to the Buddhist > notion of karma to explain away the individual, you've brought my > differences with Eastern mysticism into sharp focus. > > Platt then misled Ham back to some SOM fairy land, August 26th 2007: > > Somehow I missed Ant's message to me that you quoted above. But lest you > get the wrong idea from him about Pirsig's failure to recognize the > individuality of human experience let me reassure that he does nothing of > the sort, referring to the individual many times in his writings that > describes the MOQ, such as: > > The MOQ says it [the individual] is a collection of static patterns > capable of apprehending Dynamic Quality. (Note 130, from Dan Glovers > Lilas Child) > > Ant McWatt comments to Ham: > > The latter quote of Pirsigs used by Platt here (Note 130) has been > severely edited and the two other annotations Pirsig made about the > individual in Lilas Child omitted altogether. As such, Pirsigs > understanding of the individual has been distorted by Platt so in the > following, as a corrective, I have quoted Note 130 in full as well as > these two other annotations: > > [130] The word I like the word self is one of the trickiest words in > any metaphysics. Sometimes it is an object, a human body; sometimes it is a > subject, a human mind. I believe there are number of philosophic systems, > notably Ayn Rands Objectivism, that call the I or individual the > central reality. Buddhists say it is an illusion. So do scientists. The MOQ > says it is a collection of static patterns capable of apprehending Dynamic > Quality. I think that if you identify the I with the intellect and > nothing else you are taking an unusual position that may need some > defending. > > Critically (and this is what Platt tends to ignore), in Note 77 of Lilas > Child, we see that Pirsig confirms that his view of the self concurs with > the one held by Buddhism: > > Its important to remember that both science and Eastern religions regard > the individual as an empty concept. It is literally a figure of speech. > If you start assigning a concrete reality to it, you will find yourself in > a philosophic quandary. > > Finally, in the section of Lilas Child titled Questions and Answers > (where Dan clarifies a number of issues with Pirsig including the > individual), note Pirsigs answer here: > > The Buddhists would say [the individual] it is certainly central to a > concept of reality but it is not central to or even a part of reality > itself. Enlightenment involves getting rid of the concept of I (small > self) and seeing the reality in which the small self is absent (big self). > > This analogy is explained further by Pirsig in the following quote: > > The Sioux concept of self and higher self is one I hadnt heard of. At > first sight it seems like a striking confirmation of the universality of > mystic understanding. In Zen Buddhism Big-Self and small-self are > fundamental teaching concepts. The small-self, the static patterns of ego, > is attracted by the perfume of the Big-Self which it senses is around > but cannot find or even identify. (There is a Hindu parable in which a > small fish says, Mother, I have searched everywhere, but I cannot find > this thing they call water). Through suppression of the small-self by > meditation or fasting or vision quests or other disciplines, the Big-Self > can be revealed in a moment sometimes called 180 degrees enlightenment. > Then a long discipline is undertaken by which the Big-Self takes over and > dissolves the small-self into a 360 degrees enlightenment or full > Buddhahood. (Pirsig to McWatt, January 14th 1994)
What Ant tends to ignore in all his quotes from Pirsig and other sources about the concept of the "individual" as a "convenient fiction" is Pirsig's own use of the term repeatedly in Lila and other writings as if the concept was indeed "real," i.e. a high quality value pattern. For example: (caps added). "After the sixties the whole issue of peyote became one of those no-win political contests between INDIVIDUAL freedom on the one hand and democracy on the other" (Lila,.3) "She said the person concerned was one of the most striking INDIVIDUALS in Zuni." (Lila, 9) "Shamans, on the other hand, are arrant INDIVIDUALISTS." (Lila, 9) "In all sexual selection, Lila chooses, Dynamically, the INDIVIDUAL she wants to project into the future." (Lila,15) "Each INDIVIDUAL in his cell of isolation was told that no matter how hard he tried, no matter how hard he worked, his whole life is that of an animal that lives and thinks like any other animal. (Lila, 22) "He'd gotten that word out of his anthropology reading. It indicated there's more to contrarians than just INDIVIDUAL "wrongness." It's common to many cultures. That brujo in Zuni was a contrarian." (Lila, 29) "If you compare the levels of static patterns that compose a human being to the ecology of a forest, and if you see the different patterns sometimes in competition with each other, sometimes in symbiotic support of each other, but always in a kind of tension that will shift one way or the other, depending on evolving circumstances, then you can also see that evolution doesn't take place only within societies, it takes place within INDIVIDUALS too." (Lila, 29) "It's Lila INDIVIDUALLY, herself, is in an evolutionary battle against the static patterns of her own life." (Lila, 29) "All these battles between patterns of evolution go on within suffering INDIVIDUALS like Lila. And Lila's battle is everybody's battle, you know?" (Lila, 29) If further evidence is needed, the following quote from the SODV paper, explaining why people have difference ideas about quality, should prove the clincher: "The reason there is a difference between INDIVIDUAL evaluations of quality is that although Dynamic Quality is a constant, these static patterns are different for everyone because EACH PERSON has a different static pattern of life history. Both the Dynamic Quality and the static patterns influence his final judgment. That is why there is some uniformity among INDIVIDUAL value judgments but not complete uniformity." Does "each person," another way to express the concept of an individual, suggest a convenient fiction to you? I doesn't to me, unless you take the rather odd position that all symbols, words and phrases are "convenient fictions." Platt Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
