> [Platt] > Spoken like a true politician. If by "Lone Isolated Individual" you > mean no other people around, you've invented a giant straw man. But, > I'm glad you agree that individuals like Einstein and Mozart can have > original ideas. > > [Arlo] > No straw man. Ideas are the product of dialectical participation of > individuals. It takes two. Einstein and Mozart's ideas are the > product of a shared dialogue of which they participated. They did > not, nor does anyone, develop an idea outside this shared dialogue. > Everything we say is in response to, and anticipates, this social dialogue. > > And I don't mean "other people around", like Pirsig I mean the > assimilation of a collective consciousness, social participation that > gives rise to the formation of ideas.
To me just a fancy way of saying that it's natural for other people to be around, like the sun, moon, and the IRS. > "Mental patterns do not originate out of inorganic nature. They > originate out of society." (Pirsig, LILA) > > The myth you continue to propose, that "individuals" somehow come up > with ideas apart from this social dialogue, is explained by Pirsig. > > "The intellectual level of patterns, in the historic process of > freeing itself from its parent social level, namely the church, has > tended to invent a myth of independence from the social level for its > own benefit. Science and reason, this myth goes, come only from the > objective world, never from the social world. The world of objects > imposes itself upon the mind with no social mediation whatsoever." (Pirsig). No. I am not talking objects in the inorganic and biological levels. I'm talking about ideas on the intellectual level. Nor do I deny that to express ideas stemming from responses to DQ, social level language (such as musical notation) is useful. > Pirsig goes on. "what a mind thinks is as dominated by social > patterns as social patterns are dominated by biological patterns and > as biological patterns are dominated by inorganic patterns. There is > no direct scientific connection between mind and matter." (LILA) What a mind thinks may be "dominated" by social patterns, but not exclusively. Otherwise, there would be no new ideas. Nor would the intellectual level as a separate level above the social ever have evolved and find itself in a constant battle with the social level to maintain its freedom from the forces of social conformity such as political correctness, ad hominem attacks and other intimidations designed to silence ideas. > Pirsig describes this "me" you propose as a Cartesian "me", and says > "This Cartesian "Me," this autonomous little homunculus who sits > behind our eyeballs looking out through them in order to pass > judgment on the affairs of the world, is just completely ridiculous. > This self-appointed little editor of reality is just an impossible > fiction that collapses the moment one examines it." (LILA) Except Pirsig's entire thesis is built on the assumption that we "edit" experience by immediately evaluating it even before thinking about it, direct experience to him being a "sense of liking or disliking." But a little homunculus? Yes, ridiculous. > [Arlo had asked] > If the self is NOT a concept, which is it? A biological pattern? > Substance? Energy? Where does the "self" exist apart from it's being > a "collection of ideas"? > > [Platt's non-answer] > Again begging the question: Where does anything exist apart from > being a collection of ideas? Do you think anything exists apart from collection of ideas? If so, what? > [Arlo] > I think Pirsig is quite clear that the self is a "concept". Consider > the following. > > "This program based on "Me's" and "We's" is the alien. "We" has only > been here for a few thousand years or so. But these bodies that "We" > has taken over were around for ten times that long before "We" came > along." (LILA). Pirsig is saying here that the "me" is only something > that emerged very recently. It is not biological. And if we consider > this following excerpt, we can see that it is not social either. > > "It is the primary empirical reality from which such things as stoves > and heat and oaths and self are later intellectually constructed." (LILA) > > Here we see articulated clearly that, for Pirsig, the "self" is an > intellectual construct. That this is mediated socially is also hinted > at in ZMM. Yes, but doesn't the "bounded" individual include, along with the other levels, an intellectual level of intellectual constructs which would include the construct of "me" and "self?" If you can't separate intellectual patterns from the man, I don't see how you can't separate the intellectual pattern of "self." > "Thus, in cultures whose ancestry includes ancient Greece, one > invariably finds a strong subject-object differentiation because the > grammar of the old Greek mythos presumed a sharp natural division of > subjects and predicates. In cultures such as the Chinese, where > subject-predicate relationships are not rigidly defined by grammar, > one finds a corresponding absence of rigid subject-object philosophy." (ZMM) > > Finally, Pirsig offers the best critique of your assertion here, > Platt, and I simply repeat it. > > "Everyone seemed to be guided by an "objective," "scientific" view of > life that told each person that his essential self is his evolved > material body. Ideas and societies are a component of brains, not the > other way around. .... A scientific, intellectual culture had become > a culture of millions of isolated people living and dying in little > cells of psychic solitary confinement..." (LILA). But, there is no solitary confinement for the individual who believes, as Pirsig and I do, that there's a force in the natural world called Dynamic Quality which individuals (and only individuals) can respond to. This is where Beauty enters the bleak picture otherwise portrayed by SOM. By Beauty's splendor we transcend all levels and measure the value of our ideas by its reflections. Beauty is the ultimate Good and the saving grace from the inevitability of individual isolation and death. Perhaps our discussion, like most philosophical discussions, ends up in a paradox: we're forever separate, but never apart. 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/
