Hi dmb, > Steve said to dmb: > Metaphysically, according to Pirsig you are a collection of static patterns > left in the wake of DQ. That is all I mean in saying that you begin where DQ > ends. ...DQ is primary experience as Pirsig defines it, but DQ can't be _your > own_ primary experience since it precedes "you." You are a collection of > static patterns left in it's wake. It is only after the fact that we infer > that there was a "you" having experience. This is Pirsig's Copernican shift. > "You" can't be out of touch with DQ since it is constantly being created by > it.
> dmb says: > I see several major mistakes here. You've construed the MOQ's self as > separate from DQ. You have conflated the cultural evolutionary process with > the cognitive process of the individual. And "you" have - once again - spun > the use of a personal pronoun into a metaphysical claim involving the > Cartesian self or the self as a pre-existing ontological entity. These > mistakes produce a very abstract, unrealistic (even bizarre) understanding of > what "you" are and of what "left in the wake" means. Steve: There is no mistake. It probably seems bizarre (at least at first to someone new to the MOQ) since his conception is so different from the traditional notion of self you are clinging to, but that is how Pirsig explains the self on several occasions.* For example, in LC he says, "The MOQ, as I understand it, denies any existence of a “self” that is independent of inorganic, biological, social or intellectual patterns. There is no “self” that contains these patterns. These patterns contain the self." You see? "You," the static self, is contained within the patterns and is indeed distinct from DQ. Best, Steve *See also this LC annotation: "The word “I” like the word “self” is one of the trickiest words in any metaphysics. Sometimes it is an object, a human body; sometimes it is a subject, a human mind...Buddhists say it is an illusion. So do scientists. The MOQ says it is a collection of static patterns capable of apprehending Dynamic Quality." Again, we see Pirsig defining the self as a collection of patterns. That is what I referring to. 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
