John & Arlo,
Hmmmm. I seem to have ignored the most difficult-to-explain aspect of the individual, individual conscious awareness. It's still does not represent, from my point-of-view, an inherently existing, independent self, 'I', whatever,,, but it does seem to be clearly proprietary. Marsha On Mar 18, 2010, at 4:33 PM, MarshaV wrote: > > Hi Arlo, > > You make some great points, and I most definitely do not want to turn this > into a political debate. > Well, then the point I want to make to Ham is that I can agree with him > sometimes when he says > 'You know the YOU exist.', if by YOU he means in the individual, unique > sensory sense. > > Thanks. > > > Marsha > > > > > On Mar 18, 2010, at 3:55 PM, Arlo Bensinger wrote: > >> [Marsha] >> I've often wanted to agree with Platt and Ham about the individual, but I >> also am convinced of the Buddhist's no-self. >> >> [Arlo] >> Platt and Ham remain trapped by the political dichotomy they can't see past. >> To them its an absolute "either-or". Either there is nothing but the >> Supremacy of the Glorious Individual, or there is nothing but the Evil >> Collective. This is there own hang-up, I would not let it bog *you* down. >> >> Platt and Ham are correct in that each "human individual" has, by virtue of >> it's biological boundedness, a unique sensory trajectory as it experiences >> "the world". There is little doubt of this. The sensory information your >> eyes transmit to your brain is unique to your biologically-bound perspective >> in the cosmos. >> >> And as far as that goes, they are correct. Where they fail is in recognizing >> that this is only half of what makes us "us". The other half is social, and >> derives as the biological being appropriates a social reality, a "collective >> consciousness" of narratives, stories, dialogues, metaphors, art, song, >> dance, roles, understandings and so on. >> >> It is this meeting of the unique biological-bounded sensory experience and >> its encoding via a socially-bound symbolic milieu that informs that "we" are. >> >> This, I take it, is exactly what Pirsig meant by restating Descartes dictum >> as "20th century French culture exists, therefore I think, therefore I am." >> >> Thus there is no "self" in any objectivist sense at all. But it does hold >> pragmatic value to us, which is why it persists. >> >> My advice is not to get bungeed up by the individual-collectivist strawman. >> Like all patterns, an "individual" or "collective" is merely a matter of >> focus. And as your focus shifts up and down, this changes accordingly. >> Elevating either over of the other is a political cup-trick. >> >> >> 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/md/archives.html > > > > ___ > > > 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/md/archives.html ___ 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/md/archives.html
