Hi Arlo, I am not trying to combative but simply trying to understand where you are coming from, not Pirsig, not the MoQ. I could go back and read Lila once again, and I'm sure I would get a different understanding of Pirsig's concept. It is not so much as in what is said, it is in how it is read. This is true with any book that requires interpretation. I do not have the opportunity to discuss this with Pirsig, if, as you say, he personified the entire MoQ.
I still equate your sense of thoughts with the Ego. You state that everything can be reduced to thoughts, except the hardware. Are we just a brain carrying around a body. What about the hardware of the brain. I have studied the brain, dissected it, mapped it, studied the behavioral impact of drugs on animal behavior (and mine), worked with patients who are schizophrenic, autistic, bipolar, all in clinical settings. These thoughts you speak of are not without hardware, they are all based on hardware just as our heart is. When do we become separate from the hardware? When you say the hardware in which we reside, who is this "we" your are talking about? It sounds more like a soul to me, is that what you mean? I would suggest you free yourself of your Ego, it is much easier to do than to free yourself of Self, what is left when you do that, Other? As far as I can feel, I am part of everything, how would I free myself of that. I guess I don't know what you mean by self, please explain. Look into yourself and see how your description of thoughts differs from the standard accepted definitions of Ego as defined by psychology and spirituality. Perhaps this will help you sort out if you are trapped. I am of course premature in suggesting that this is your dilemma since I do not know your thoughts. However, your posts would indicate being stuck in Ego. I of course am no better off. Humbly yours, Willblake2 On May 17, 2009, at 9:14:51 PM, "ARLO J BENSINGER JR" <[email protected]> wrote: [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/ 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/
