[WillBlake] I don't believe I am arguing against Pirsig, but supporting his heirarchy.
[Arlo] Pirsig is quite clear that mental patterns emerge from social patterns, and he considers concepts such as "self" to be a mental pattern. I still don't see how your proposal is "inorganic-biological-intellectual" with "social" providing some filler or interference. [WillBlake] Arlo is talking about the peripheral mind, that behavior above ground, and claiming that the subconscious thinking is also societal, control by language. [Arlo] Controlled and enabled. I am merely talking about what Pirsig wrote. "Mind" comes from society, not directly from the biological level. When he wrote "our intellectual description of nature is always culturally derived" he was very clear. [WillBlake] This cannot be true, it is the other way around. [Arlo] Maybe, but that is not the MOQ. [WillBlake] A society has a completely different consciousness which we are not privy to, in the same way each individual nerve is not privy to our thoughts. [Arlo] Pirsig calls this the "collective consciousness". I don't know about a society have a consciousness, Pirsig seems to think it does not. But then he talks about the Giant having a will of its own, so I don't know. But the very fact that our thoughts derive from the assimilation of this collective points to a structurating relationship, an unavoidable restriction alongside the very thing that enables it. [WillBlake] If all we are are our thoughts, what are we when we are listening to music without thought? [Arlo] I don't think you answered my question. If we are more than our thoughts, then what else are we? Are you suggesting a "soul"? Or something like that? When we are listening to music, we are very much our thoughts. Music is a symbolic language, one which relies on familiarity with the structure and syntax of the notes, just as spoken language relies on this for understanding its words. Music is a semiotic event. It is not outside culture, it is the language of culture. You can, as Pirsig recommends, break out of the "self", and enter the moment of pure DQ (through meditation, flow, etc.), but this is a dissolution of the very thing (the "self") you are arguing is the core of those moments. Wait, you do answer this here. Sorry. [WillBlake] We are the sum total of our awareness thoughts... [Arlo] Symbolically encoded experiences, sure.... "thoughts". [WillBlake] our subconscious thoughts... [Arlo] "Thoughts". [Arlo] our interaction with the environment.... [Arlo] Not sure what this means. Our interactions with the environment are, as social beings, mediated by language. Do you mean the moment of Quality perception? Or is this in reference to our biology, which you mention next... [WillBlake] the beating of our hearts, the intelligence of our immune system... [Arlo] This is the hardware in which "we" reside. Yes, our unique biology mediates the encoding of our experiences (we "see", and so are able to encode experiences with "visual" icons, e.g.) [WillBlake] the thoughtless passions, emotions, feelings that arise to form thoughts. [Arlo] Thoughtless? Heavens no! Our "passions" (outside of our innate biological reflexes) are fully informed by the cultural language we assimilate. "Love" and "hate" and "pain" and "heroism" and "pride" are all concepts informed by the stories, myths, music, drama, poetry and a countless repertoire of encoded experiences that make up the collective consciousness. Before "language", you would feel "love" only as a cat or dog. As a social being, "love" is so much more, and you feel it only after you assimilate the language to describe it. [WillBlake] The problem with the notion that society dictates thought is that individuals arise (especially in politics), that argue they have a social solution to correct our inner selves. [Arlo] Society does not "dicate" what you think. You are a unique organism with corresponding unique experience. "Culture" gives you the means to encode that experience, and as such both enables and constrains the results of that process. 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/
