Hi Carl, Thank you for your post. You may have inadvertantly realized one of the premises for my recent posts. This is perhaps a better way of understanding what I am presenting since it arises out of your own system of beliefs rather than through acceptance of dogma.
My posts are discussions, and should not be viewed as dogma, in my opinion. What I am presenting should be understood within one's own awareness of reality (ontology) and not be simply accepted as the correct system of belief (epistemology). Ontology as I use it here, is "that from which there is no view out". An epistemology has many possible views to that outside. So your ontology provides the view from which you interpret reality, and many epistemologies are available from that. MoQ challenges the very ontology in which we find ourselves within our current Western interpretation. As such, it can not be fit within a Western framework, which is what many in this forum attempt to do. The use of modern psychology being one such attempt to Westernize MoQ. Having said that I will continue the discussion you present below. On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 9:59 PM, Carl Thames <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, Mark, > > To begin, I think you may have inadvertantly hit on a very important aspect > of MoQ in this post. Specifically, what the heck are we talking about. > Consider the first two paragraphs of the definition of psychology in > Wikipedia: > > "Psychology is the study of the mind, partly via the study of behavior, > grounded in science.[1][2] Its immediate goal is to understand individuals > and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific > cases.[3][4] For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit > society.[5][6] In this field, a professional practitioner or researcher is > called a psychologist, and can be classified as a social scientist, > behavioral scientist, or cognitive scientist. Psychologists attempt to > understand the role of mental functions in individual and social behavior, > while also exploring the physiological and neurobiological processes that > underlie certain functions and behaviors. > > Psychologists explore such concepts as perception, cognition, attention, > emotion, phenomenology, motivation, brain functioning, personality, > behavior, and interpersonal relationships. Some, especially depth > psychologists, also consider the unconscious mind.a Psychologists employ > empirical methods to infer causal and correlational relationships between > psychosocial variables. In addition, or in opposition, to employing > empirical and deductive methods, some-especially clinical and counseling > psychologists-at times rely upon symbolic interpretation and other inductive > techniques. Psychology incorporates research from the social sciences, > natural sciences, and humanities, such as philosophy." OK, I am fine discussing within this presentation of psychology. Basically it is the conscious mind providing a model for the unconscious mind even though the conscious has its basis in the unconscious (imo). It is like the presence of a car describing how it came to be. We can use the various features of a car to provide a model in which all these features came to be. You must admit, however, that such conscious interpretation of the mind is incomplete, and can change at any time. > > The word that jumps out to me here is "mind." We have no clue what it > really is. We know what it DOES, but we can't even say with absolute > certainty where it is. I have read several different opinions about where > it's located that made sense from my perspective. Sorry to interupt here, but I agree. However, as you state subsequently, psychology seeks to establish a "system" for the mind. That is, the rules which govern our awareness. When you use the word "clue", I take it to mean that we cannot provide an objective presentation of the subjective. This is in fact what psychology attempts to do through the "scientific method". This would be "explaining" why we think the way we do. We cannot say where it is, because we are creating the where, we are not finding it. This is similar to the > question of whether or not Newton invented gravity. In a way, he did. > Before he began talking about it, the only thing people really knew was that > apples fell down when they seperated themselves from the tree. It was the > concept of gravity that he invented. We knew what it did, not what it was. > The same can be applied to Quality. The same arguments that apply to mind > can be applied to quality, and this, at the heart of it, is my take on the > objections that Pirsig has/had with psychology. We're trying to measure > humidity with a yardstick. The problem to me is that he identified the > concept, but he didn't do much to define the subject any more than Newton > did. Next question: Is it important to really know what it is? Is knowing > what it does enough? Yes, the laws of gravity are a concept. It is a structure in which we interpret what we consider to be real. The concept itself is invented, but this does not mean that the data used to create "gravity" did not exist prior to its conceptualization. We must not confuse the systematized models with where they came from. Newton's presentation of gravity is a method for interpretation. It is quite useful despite its enclosing of the data in a rigorous way. Einsten broke free from this enclosure to present perhaps a better model from which to work from which includes Newtonian concepts for every day use (we cannot travel at the speed of light for example), but diverges in certain cosmological circumstances (time keeping by satelites for example). The determinism implied by Newton was also reinterpreted by modern quantum mechanics to allow for the presence of "free will". This, perhaps, has a greater impact on our daily lives, and personal philosophizing. Science requires a system of measurement since that is the scientific method. This system brings the abstract into the measurable. The measureable thus becomes an interpretation of the abstract. It is the governence of what we call the "objective" over the "subjective", that may not work for the mind. Of course, the objective is much more useful in the social level, since we must exchange intuitive notions in the form of objective concepts. One must realize, however, that the objective does not exist without the subjective, which is its creator (again imo). Modern psychology presents itself as such system of measurement (psychology as a science), and provides a way in which to interpret our very being which we can say is our "mind". It then becomes an ontology with which to create a reality through epistemology. Psychology at present firmly regards our mind as originating from the brain. It is of course not "guilty" of this since it simply codifies our current 21st century awareness, that is, when the brain is asleep, the mind is asleep. By establishing this, psychology (inadvertetly perhaps) prevents the interpretation of the mind in other ways, since it is said to encompass that very ability for "other ways of interpretation". As with any ontology, MoQ seeks to dispel the current notion of Western psychology as "the best view to that inside". MoQ can be used to demonstrate that psychology is lacking in true meaning, in the same way that psychology can be used to demonstrate that any metaphysics is lacking in true meaning (by saying that it is a product of the various determining arisings which create it, to use Buddhistic terms). In this way, modern psychology and MoQ can be viewed as being in a battle. This is no different in concept from rhetoric being at battle with dialectic, as presented in ZAMM. For rhetoric is a personal presentation, while dialectic is an objective search for truth. What you call "Pirsig's objections" would be of similar nature to the "objections" that psychology would have with Pirsig's model. The question would be: Which interpretation of reality is most useful for you? Certainly psychology has its uses, especially in the medical field. However, outside of that it is possible to consider psychology as a very powerful branch of Western thought, and perhaps somewhat misguided in its Knowing the appropriate dogmatic approach. That of course if for you to decide; I can only present my own reservations. In terms of your final question, I would have to equate "importance" with "meaningfulness". Therefore the question could be rephrased as: Is it meaningful to really know what it is? Is knowing what it does enough? This is of course a question that one must ask oneself. In psychological terms we could ask whether this knowing brings happiness. Is to live within a meaningful world a happy world? With regard to your "really know", I can only offer the following opinion: What we know intellectually is what we create as models. Knowing is a creative process, which to me mean that knowing is the same as that which we know; they cannot be different. We create things in order to opperate in a meaningful way, that is knowing and what we project to know. We are not finding something we do not know, we are creating something that we previously did not know. I would say that "really knowing" is a human expression which we can use or not. The intellect of the mind is an expression in the same way that a flower is an expression of a plant. Some people like flowers, others do not. If such knowing is not enough then there are other ways of interacting with reality, like eating a good dinner. Cheers, Mark > > > > > 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
