Greetings Ham,
At 03:52 AM 5/23/2009, you wrote:
Hello, Marsha --
I have always had trouble following your unique metaphysical language.
That doesn't surprise me. Describing a concept that isn't common to
experience requires uncommon terms. However, this needn't be an
obstacle if the terms are defined, (and I do provide a glossary).
At 03:03 PM 5/20/2009, you wrote:
[skipping to the "troublesome" statement]
Pirsigians like to talk philosophy by splitting hairs. They're
not content to accept existence for what it is -- a self/other
duality, so they've replaced duality with a tetrology of levels.
What do you mean by "accept existence for what it is"? Human
beings once perceived the world to be flat, were they correct? I
think your complaints in the above paragraph are
humorous considering the esoteric and confusing language
you use when presenting your Essence. Ever-changing,
interrelated and interconnected static patterns of value is
what we have to work with, not things-in-themselves.
Was the world flat when they perceived it to be flat? Actually,
they didn't perceive flatness, they deduced it.
Let me change the language a bit. Was the world flat when human
beings experienced it (accepted existence for what it is) as flat?
I don't perceive that Marsha is a "thinking self" like me, I
assume it. I do perceive the world as an "other" to my thinking
self. That is a self-evident fact to me, and I presume for you, also.
No Ham, I experience the conventional world conceptually as my
thinking self, not separate from it.
You may call it an "illusion", but it as an illusion of the
existence you and I share.
Yes, we share the static patterns of value as that is the way the
world conventionally functions, but I see believing this conventional
point-of-view as an illusion that divides human beings from their
interconnectedness with their environment, and causing conflict and
human suffering.
"Static patterns of value responding to Dynamic Quality" is
incomprehensible language to me.
For me, it is the best statement of Conventional Reality I have ever
heard. Goodness!
Yes, Ham, I agree with you that Difference is necessary.
Viva la Difference! It is the mistake of thinking that these
differences are somehow real instead of a convenience
evolved for survival. This misunderstanding seems to be
a maladaptation and the cause of much suffering.
I would say anything that is necessary for my survival is
more than a "convenience." It must be pretty "real", even
if my life is an illusion.
Surviving to kill each other makes no sense to me, but maybe to do so
is a masculine thing...
If I thought food was a mere convenience rather than a necessity,
that misconception would indeed cause me much suffering.
The attachment to food has gone terribly wrong with a few getting
most of the food and filling their garbage dumps with the excess, and
far too many poor starving to death. And the Corporate West is
exacerbating the problem by introducing throughout the world 'suicide
seeds'. There is something wrong with the patterns related to food.
I am considering your description of Sensibility and Being.
They do seem to be two functions of the self, the five senses
as sensual, and thought as becoming. It's the becoming that is
the troublesome ego which confuses itself (spov) for Reality.
Calling your self an "spov for Reality" is playing games with
language. All of existence is "becoming" from the individual's
perspective. "Ego" is a psychological construct that has more to do
with one's attitude or drive than with selfness. These word games
are an easy way to skirt around the concept of proprietary awareness
and avoid referring to the subjective "self" which defines it.
Language is analogy. Surprising isn't it, how much we can use this
shared language and NOT agree with each other. - EGO is not a
little pattern; the ego is the mistaken belief that a controlling
self that can own or disown its patterns. - If I am experiencing
the world fully what would be the need of becoming? Becoming
what? Tarzan? The King of the World? If I am experiencing the
world fully there is no interval for becoming, no ego.
Playing "Pirsig says" with words is using a kind of dialectical
Newspeak that enables you to forget the world you actually experience.
RMP has put together something very Good, very special. Actually, he
has done something tremendous. I could not have done it. So
recognizing the MOQ as a better world-view and RMP's explanation as
wisdom is not a shortcoming. But, as best I can I try to convert
this understanding into my own experience and my own
understanding. And it is my experience that his ideas hold together well.
Neither my view, nor your view, nor RMP's view is Absolute Truth,
and there is beauty in knowing that, don't you think?
There is beauty in poetry, music, art, and nature. But you're
saying there's beauty in not knowing the truth. Inasmuch as my
quest is for Truth, I don't find ignorance beautiful.
I do not consider Dynamic Quality or Emptiness ignorance but as the
origin of all the patterns.
My relative opinion, though, is that the MOQ is a wonderful
step-forward world-view that brings together and East and West,
feminine & masculine, this and that, to point to an elegant and better way.
It's a poetic thought, Marsha. But, aside from the fact that it
makes you feel good, what evidence do you have that thinking and
talking this way is "better" than logic, deduction, or metaphysical
intuition?
You may disagree with my assessment, but I think and feel the MOQ is
Good because it offers a broader, higher point-of-view based on
better reasoning and experience.
People who make "feeling good" their life goal generally wind up
uninformed, overspent, and dependent. (They make good left-wing
liberals, though.)
Oxygen in my lungs feels good. Is that being uninformed, overspent
and dependent?
No Ham, you haven't given me any idea what you think is real about
the self. Where or what is this individuated agent other than Quality?
Beingness, selfness, and thought can be individuated. However, I
can't conceive of an individuated Quality. Can you? Sensibility
(proprietary awareness) is the essential self, not Quality.
The self is a thought-flow of ever-changing, interrelated and
interconnected, inorganic, biological, social and intellectual,
static patterns of value responding to Dynamic Quality. Ham, you
still haven't given me any idea what you think is real about the
self. It seems to me your "Beingness, selfness, and thought" are
static patterns of value often mistaken as trophies.
Where is the separate self you speak about?
Marsha
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