[Chris] Individuality is mostly a thing created by the 4th. Level [Arlo] To be precises, I've already said I consider the "self-as-concept" to be an intellectual pattern. My main concern here has been articulating the process by which this intellectual pattern appears.
First, far from the inorganic-biological-individual metaphysics proposed by Platt, Pirsig makes it clear that this "self-as-concept" is not a primary reality but originates out of the social level. Thus, a so-called "feral child" would have NO "self". He would exist only biologically (and, of course, inorganically), responsive only to biological value the same as any animal. Contrary to Platt's idea that "man" somehow is free and agenic only to be enslaved by society, Pirsig shows that intellectual man, the self, emerges FROM social participation. This underscores the "non-apartness" that we share (via the collective consciousness) and the "apartness" that set us apart. In Pirsig's metaphysics, these are mutually emergent. This is also why Einstein considered the "self" to be an "optical illusion of consciousness". He didn't mean, I am sure, that "selves" did not exist, but that our adherence to the "self" as primary reality was wrong. Pirsig agrees, but adds that the self-concept has strong pragmatic value, and its only in confusing this with some primary reality that is the mistake. Bakhtin considers the "self" to be the totality of the shared dialogue internalized by the agent and participated in by the agent. For him, the self is "dialogic". It does not exist outside this social participatory dialogue of which the agent becomes a part. This is very similar to Pirsig's idea that "mind originates out of society" in that it articulates the "process" by which this "origination" occurs. Vygotsky, too, would argue that the conceptual "nature" of the self derives from the cultural milieu experienced by (participation) and assimilated by the biological organism. Pirsig has expressed similar sentiment, articulating how the very notion of "self" is less pronounced in Eastern cultures, where Zen Buddhism is more readily understood, and where it was remarked to Pirsig that they don't understand why ZMM was such a success here, that it is simply "common sense" to them. And this is why I find the whole "lone individual" stuff nonsense, and the idea that "man" is some ridiculous solitary agent out their freely intellecting until big bad society comes along and enslaves him. Are there particular social patterns (as politics or nation-states or religions) that have, historically, bound man? Sure. But it is social-participation from which intellect arises. Rail against repressive social patterns that immorally suppress intellectual patterns, but do not mistake the MOQ for a metaphysics that sees sociality as repressive, far from it, it considers it to be the foundational from which intellect emerges. 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/
