Greetings,
A Buddhist perspective of self: No central unit, but a flow of mental states
which rise, produce function and disappear, which gives rise to the next mental
state producing a stream of mental states.
In Buddhism there is the term 'anatta', no-self:
One cannot say that the self (I) exists.
One cannot say that the self (I) does not exist.
One cannot say that self (I) both exists and does not exist.
One cannot say that the self (I) neither exists nor does not exist.
Some MoQ quotes:
"An example of sammuti-sacca [conventional (relative) truth, or static quality]
is the concept of self. Pirsig follows the Buddha’s teachings about the ‘self’
which doesn’t recognise that it has any real existence and that only
‘nothingness’ (i.e. Dynamic Quality) is thought to be real. According to
Rahula, the Buddha taught that a clinging to the self as real is the primary
cause of dukkha (which is usually translated as ‘suffering’). Having said
this, Rahula (1959, p.55) makes it very clear that it’s not incorrect to ‘use
such expressions in our daily life as ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘being’, ‘individual’, etc’
as long as it is remembered that the self (like anything else conceptualised)
is just a useful convention."
(McWatt, MoQ Textbook)
"This fictitious 'man' has many synonyms; 'mankind,' 'people,' 'the public,'
and even such pronouns as 'I,' 'he,' and 'they.' Our language is so organized
around them and they are so convenient to use it is impossible to get rid of
them. There is really no need to. Like 'substance' they can be used as long as
it is remembered that they're terms for collections of patterns and not some
independent primary reality of their own."
(LILA, Chapter 12)
"This Cartesian 'Me,' this autonomous little homunculus who sits behind our
eyeballs looking out through them in order to pass judgment on the affairs of
the world, is just completely ridiculous. This self-appointed little editor of
reality is just an impossible fiction that collapses the moment one examines
it. This Cartesian 'Me' is a software reality, not a hardware reality. This
body on the left and this body on the right are running variations of the same
program, the same 'Me,' which doesn't belong to either of them. The 'Me's' are
simply a program format.
"Talk about aliens from another planet. This program based on 'Me's' and 'We's'
is the alien. 'We' has only been here for a few thousand years or so. But these
bodies that 'We' has taken over were around for ten times that long before 'We'
came along. And the cells - my God, the cells have been around for thousands of
times that long."
(LILA, Chapter 15)
“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. This
denial agrees with both religious mysticism and scientific knowledge. In Zen,
there is reference to “big self” and “small self.” Small self is the patterns.
Big self is Dynamic Quality."
(RMP, Lila’s Child, Annotation 29)
"It's important to remember that both science and Eastern religions regard "the
individual" as an empty concept. It is literally a figure of speech. If you
start assigning concrete reality to it, you will find yourself in a philosophic
quandary".
(RMP, Lila’s Child, Annotattion 77)
"The MOQ, like the Buddhists and the Determinists (odd bedfellows) says this
“autonomous individual” is an illusion."
(RMP, Copleston)
Marsha
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