That individual conscious awareness would seem to be what John
meant by his phrase "experiences itself as experience."      


On Mar 19, 2010, at 5:17 AM, MarshaV wrote:

> 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.
>>> 
>>> 
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>> 
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