On Friday, 5/15/09, Arlo quotes Pirsig:
"Descartes' "I think therefore I am" was a historically shattering
declaration of independence of the intellectual level of
evolution from the social level of evolution, but would he have
said it if he had been a seventeenth century Chinese philosopher?
If he had been, would anyone in seventeenth century China have
listened to him and called him a brilliant thinker and recorded his
name in history? If Descartes had said, "The seventeenth century
French culture exists, therefore I think, therefore I am," he would
have been correct." (LILA)
John Carl responds:
Here I would go a little deeper than the author. For the true
definition of human self, the self needs non-human nature to
observe, contrast and define. I'm a man because I'm not a
giraffe, or a flower or ... And these "things" we observe and
define are viewed through the lens of our culture, true enough.
Nevertheless the sage proclaims that the self IS defined by
the ten thousand things and rational intution confirms this.
Descartes should have said "I think (about other) therefore I am."
Arlo believes that society precedes intellect. John believes that non-human
nature precedes both. What's wrong with Descartes' own conclusion: "I
think, therefore I am"? Simply that it does not acknowledge the otherness
of which his thought consists. What Descartes MIGHT have said is: "I think,
therefore something is self-evident." But of course that's a logical
truism, because nothing is more
evident than one's thinking.
All this talk about a hierarchical reality evolving in time and producing an
intellectual creature in the course of it is fraught with difficulty and
paradox. This can be avoided if we simply say that the reality in which we
participate is SUBJECTIVE. That we create our own experience as objects and
events in time and space. That our thoughts reflect this experience in
words and symbols. And that our intellect synthesizes this information into
a coherent, orderly concept of existence.
Now I realize this is an apocryphal suggestion for a philosophy that rejects
both subjects and objects. But if it's possible to speak of "value",
"nature", "culture", "thought" and "intellect" in the MoQ, why is it not
possible to acknowledge these
contingencies as aspects of subjective awareness? For, obviously, if we
weren't aware of them they would not exist (for us), which is to say, there
would be no evidence of their existence.
Moreover, if, as John says, "the sage proclaims that the self IS defined by
the ten thousand things and rational intution confirms this," then
subjective awareness (the self-evident experience of phenomena) defines our
existence.
Does this not support Pirsig's thesis that "experience is the cutting edge
of reality" and that "something that is not valued doesn't exist"?
For the sake of metaphysics, let's get REAL. No matter how we try to parse
it, the world of passing appearances that we call existence is not -- cannot
be -- the fundamental Reality. What say you all? (Kindly restrain your
insults.)
Essentially yours,
Ham
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