Krimel --
Great subject. And you have treated it wisely, which is to refrain from
jumping to anti-'Aw-Gi' conclusions.
Let me extract from your dissertation some statements that I consider
important, as well as a few that are misleading. My comments are
interspersed in brackets.
I think as all have noted that the concept of self is problematic
but I also think it is important to identify what the problem is.
Part of the problem is, regarding the self as a thing rather than
as a process; or to see it as discrete rather than continuous.
[The problem indeed lies in regarding the Self as a "thing" or an
"existent",
But the solution is not to regard it as "a process" but as subjective
sensibility which is prior to objective events in process.]
Selves, whatever they are or however we conceive of them can
only be seen as metaphysical constructs from a purely phenomenological
or self centered point of view. That is, they only seem metaphysical
when viewed from the inside when we ask where we came from.
[Or, when we ask, as Willblake did, whose worldview is this?]
Willblake2's question highlights the problem with the assumption
of no-self or with the idea of universal consciousness or metaphysical
oneness. Why indeed don't I see what you see or remember what
you do? There are distinctions between here and there, me and you.
One view of the Self is that it is the accumulation of memories and\
experience that have occurred at this particular locus and as Pirsig
notes they are different here than there. We may have similar tools
of perception but we use them from different points of view.
[Each of us is a different point of view. The difference is in time,
space, and the values perceived. Is it a "top down" fallacy to consider
the self as the PoV agent?]
But "I" am not a thing "I" am the accumulations of remembered
experiences and the patterns and processes that lead to their
accumulation.
[You are the KNOWER of reality as an accumulation of patterns
and processes. This knowledge is an intellectual construct of
your value sensibility.]
We begin by not distinguishing between what we know and what
others know or between what we prefer and what others prefer.
An understanding of the Self as both similar to and different from
others grows with us as we mature. It is a product of both inborn
propensities and specific interactions with the environment.
[This is the "accumulation" of processes, not the knowing Self.]
In short I think it is worthwhile to discuss different views of the Self
and talk about what particular views mean and imply; or to talk about
whatever metaphysical implications we see in various concepts of a Self.
To paraphrase Pirsig ...
"This autonomous little homunculus who ... passes judgement on the affairs
of the world, this self-appointed little editor of reality is NOT just an
impossible fiction that collapses the moment one examines it." It is the
subjective Self of the "reality" it experiences. That experiential reality,
not the Self, is what collapses the moment one examines it. For in the
absence of Self there is no experience, hence (even according to Pirsig's
equivalency theory) no Quality (Value) and no Existence. "This Cartesian
'Me' is ...not a hardware reality'. This [mind] on the left and this body on
the right are the dual contingencies of being-aware."
Or, to sum it up, the illusion is not the sensible Self but the existence
which the Self invents from Value and accepts as real. .
Too much pie?
--Ham
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