----- Original Message -----
From: "Ham Priday" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2008 1:32 AM
Subject: Re: [MD] Static Self
Hi Gav, Marsha --
[Gav, on the Static Self]:
The individual is borne of the intellectual level - it is an idea.
The idea of oneself as an autonomous agent evolves from and
opposes the purely social (bicameral?) level of consciousness....
which operates by the control of the collective via a deity, king etc.
[Ham]
See, Marsha? The MoQuist says "the individual is borne of the
intellectual level". That means DQ is the essence of the self. He also
believes consciousness (at some level) is controlled by the collective --
I assume he means "collective intellect". This epistemology totally
denies the subject of awareness and the possibility of an autonomous self.
No wonder you are confused!
Greetings Ham,
I'm sticking to my guns. Self is an everchanging collection of overlapping,
interrelated, inorganic, biological, social and intellectual, static
patterns of value in a field of Dynamic Quality. I do not deny there is
the concept of a conventional self that appears to be autonomous. But it
ain't so, Ham. You can chase an autonomous self forever and you'll never
find it.
[Ham]
If the individual is only an "idea", whose idea is it? Who but the
individual self KNOWS that it is aware? Does DQ know?
Yes, to me individual and self are synonyms. An idea is an everchanging,
interrelated, conceptual pattern. Probably shared to different degrees in
different languages and cultures. I cannot know anything about DQ. It is
beyond definition.
Ham
Does the "intellectual level" know? If neither knows, "idea" is a
meaningless word, and there is no self.
An idea is pattern of the conceptual kind. Thinking is a process.
Awareness is a process. Both the process of valuing.
[Ham]
At least I know that I do not exist by "control of the collective". I am
my own agent, thank you, and so are you. If it weren't for Pirsig's
Quality thesis, this would be self-evident.
Self-evident can be wrong such as the world is flat or the coiled up rope is
a snake.
[Ham] Obviously, the author has found it necessary to dismiss selfness as
the conscious locus of experiential reality. And, since he attributes
reality to experience, one is left to wonder who or what it is that
experiences.
I am not sure the author has dismissed selfness. I think he disagrees with
an autonomous self. He has suggested the idea of little self and big Self.
I don't have the quote at hand, but it can be found.
[Ham, previously]:
Does a collection of patterns KNOW?
Does a bunch of concepts THINK?
[Marsha]:
A collection of patterns might be conceptual patterns of
the social or intellectual kind. Thinking is an experience
dependent on a cause of some sort, either via the senses
or a previous thought.
[Ham] Yes, it might be, but causal explanations like this invoke the
fallacy of infinite regression and lead nowhere. Rather than ponder what
"causes" thinking, or trying to define thinking as experience, I submit
that it is more important to realize that the Thinker is the Self.
Nowhere to you. I'm liking the Net of Jewels Model: The Universe is like a
net of jewels in which each is a reflection of all the others in a
fantastic, interrelated harmony without end.
Self being dependent (caused) by experiences turns your theory of an
autonomous self into a fallacy. I have already defined thinking as
experience which is valuing. Thinker as autonomous self is illusion.
[Ham]
The notion of thoughts existing somewhere without a thinker is absurd; yet
if you take the MoQ and its Intellectual level literally (as I do), it
seems to lead toward that conclusion.
Literally? Meaning what? The MoQ is an analogy.
[Ham] Arthur Smith's essay on the Mind/Body debate may be enlightening in
this regard. In his Abstract, Dr. Smith writes:
"Human experience is both dualistic and monistic. It is monistic in that
everything is experience, but dualistic in that it involves both knower
and known. Since Socrates, an axiom of Western philosophy has been that
rational discussion begins with defining what that subject matter is. We
could say that consciousness (or at least ordinary human consciousness) is
experience as a knower-self (noesis) that experiences known-others
(noema). Both are essential aspects of experience. Without the noesis,
consciousness would be unconscious. Without the noema it would be
conscious of nothing, i.e., also unconscious. Thus human experience is
noetically dualistic in its distinction of knower and known, but
ontologically monistic in being all experience.
"In that sense, empirical science itself, even when it studies distant
galaxies, is part of the 'science of consciousness,' because it can study
only phenomena in consciousness. However, not everyone would call this a
"science of consciousness." Some want a science of the knower without
reference to the known, and this is where it gets tricky. As soon as we
make consciousness an object of study, it becomes the known, and the
people studying it, the knowers, and an infinite regress of self-reference
ensues. "
--www.arthursmithphd.com/writings.htm
In other words, the knowing-self (noesis) is the locus of all experience
(noema). And if experience is "the cutting edge of reality", as Pirsig
says, having a subject to experience (and perhaps thereby dilineate)
otherness as a differentiated reality is consistent with his theory of a
quality source. Since everything in existence is
individuated and relational, it seems logical that knowing (noesis or
being-aware) would also be divided into individual agents. (You'll have
to tell my why Pirsig avoids the logic of this epistemology.)
Am I getting anywhere with you, Marsha?
--Ham
Thinking is experience. Awareness is experience. Experience is experience,
how it coagulates into a concept is another story. I suppose it depends on
the intensity of its value.
In my interpretation of the self the relationship between levels is not up
or down, but goes in all directions. It might be that because concepts are
stored in bodies. I am not disputing self, but 'autonomous self'.
I don't know if I have this correct via the MOQ. Wish I knew.
This is helping me Ham. I appreciate it.
Marsha
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/
