[Marsha] What is this ME, and YOU? Is it the body, the mind, both? Neither? When you write above, "The only real issue is that it is of value TO ME.", what exactly are you defending?
[Arlo] I use the word as a convention, like everyone else. The "ME" I refer to is the "self-at-the-moment", which is indeed fluid and amorphous. As Pirsig said, the words do not need to be abandoned. "This fictitious 'man' has many synonyms: 'mankind', 'people', 'the public', and even such pronouns as 'I', 'he' and 'they'. Our language is so organized around them and they are so convenient to use, it is impossible to get rid of them. There is really no need to. Like 'substance', they can be used as long as it is remembered that they're terms for collections of patterns and not some independent reality of their own." (Pirsig, Chapter 12, Lila) [Marsha] You wrote to me about many faces, some more real than others. Actually, what do you mean by the word real, and how is it determined. [Arlo] I said "none more real than others". "Real" I use almost exclusively in scarequotes, but it suggests an "objective reality", and that is SOM. "Reality" is the pinpoint moment, and the "reality" of my self for you is what exists right-here, right-now between us. [Marsha] There has never appeared before me an individual with more than one face. [Arlo] Even our biological faces change drastically over time. You think "its the same face", but why? Even on the molecular level ever cell in your face is different than 10 years ago. It looks different, is made up of entirely new cells, so why is it "the same face"? Again, we seek continuity, but its convention, not reality. But of course I was not talking about physical faces at the time, and I used the word "face" as I do "mask" or "self". They are, like the word "me", conventions to point to a dynamically arising, socially-negotiated "identity" that is always contextually determined and never the same. [Marsha] There is a lot of difference in your words, it may be that your "intertwined yarn-ball of patterns" has the consistency of Bologna, [Arlo] This is now the third little snide remark you've made. I appreciate that others have to do this because they have nothing else they can do. Indeed, for how many posts now you have not offered any alternative, any reasoned opinion on why I am wrong, and what would be right. Just "you're wrong", unexplained and unexplored accompanied by some little mean jab. So what do YOU think? Let's start here, with a question I asked Ron yesterday. Over the weekend I saw a show on television about a boy who believed he was a girl inside. His legal name was "Mark" but the name he "felt" was "Julia" (or something, don't remember exactly, but you get the idea). What is the "real self" here? Is he really a boy? Or is she really a girl? Is it a girl trapped in a boy's body, or a boy pretending to be a girl? After you answered this, consider that this person was preparing to undergo sexual surgery for gender change. After the operation, does the "real self" change? Would you say "now she is really a girl, but before he was a boy"? Think about it, because the "self" that resides in that gray matter didn't change, did it? How did "Julia" suddenly become "real" when a day prior she was "pretend"? Now let me complicate it a step further. Along the way none of "Mark's" friends new about "Julia". He kept this identity "secret". They all new "Mark". Does this mean they new a "pretend" person? Or the "real" person? What about after the operation, what if they meet "Julia"? Who did they "know" before? Was "Mark" not real? Did he "die"? What do YOU think? 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/
