Dan,
> Let me sort this out a bit... if we communicate with the left side of > our face while standing in front of someone, they are using their > right eye to evaluate what they're seeing. J: Nope, doesn't work like that. first off, both our eyes focus on objects of attention. It's why you go cross-eyed when it's brought close. You only squint when you're aiming a gun or an arrow. Probably why villians are always portrayed as squinty-eyed. D: > Since the sense of sight is > cross-wired to the brain, we use the left side to make sense of what > the right eye is seeing... the rational side. > > J: Hmmm, the way I heard it, both eyes are crosswired to both sides. D: > As I said, I've been doing a bit of research on the Apache for a new > book I'm working on, or rather a revision of an old book. I found it > interesting that when white settlers began arriving in the southwest > the Indians noticed how white babies cried incessantly and how the > white mothers were forever talking to them. On the other hand Apache > babies were docile, rarely crying, and easily adopting to new > situations. > > Apache mothers rarely talked to their babies but instead used their > eyes to hold the baby's gaze. When the babies grew older the white > children were sent to a school where they sat all day absorbing > knowledge from a teacher who used the spoken word to convey lessons. > The Apache children learned about the world by being a part of it, by > participating in the daily doings of the tribe. > > The spoken word is symptomatic of the rational side of the brain while > direct experience is more intuitive. Does that sound right? > > J: Well, it sounds good. I've got some thoughts to share on that "word in our ear" vs the "image we behold" idea but one thing that jumps out at me is that the life of a white woman has always been very busy. Apache moms too, all moms are busy, but the kind of busy that the civilized mother is busy with, isn't real conducive to babies hanging around your neck, and I think Apache babies don't need to cry cuz their moms are usually right there. New humans are smart enough to know to complain loudly when they are born into a world where abstract things are more important than them. > > > J: I would say we are being-in-4-levels and the self is a 3rd level > > pattern. We derive a sense of self from our society - starting with Mom. > > D: > Not according to the MOQ... and I take it that is what we're > discussing... right? > > J: We are discussing actual experience in the light of the MoQ. I don't see what interpretation could possibly add to PIrsig's excellent prose. He doesn't need any outside explanation, imo. But then, neither does the Bible but people seem to prefer the priesthood to thinking for themselves. Everywhere it's like that. But I explained my thoughts on this to ANT and DMB so maybe I don't need to reiterate all that. For now, and ease of communication in the future, when I talk about the individual, I am talking about being in the whole of 4 levels but when I talk about self, I am talking about the social construct that people see and that types on plastic keys and seems to be real to others, as they seem real to me. That's interesting... to be a self you can dwell in three levels but to be an individual you have to think deeper. It makes sense! D: > Perhaps you think of yourself as an individual separate and apart from > all you know while I think of my self as a collection of patterns that > exist in concert with the universe. > > J: My individuality is built of of the richness of what I think about, so what I think about and my individuality are inseparable. But my self is a distinction of convenience that's different from all other selves. > > > >> John: Most great schools of art were exactly that - schools. > >> Groups of individuals. > > > > D: > >> Hmmm. I tend to disagree. A school may appear to be a group of > >> individuals but the value that holds that school together is rooted in > >> culture. Remember how Robert Pirsig describes the university in ZMM? > >> > >> > > > > J: Ok, here's a good topic . I agree that a school is a product of > > culture, but you can't have a culture, without individuals. Any more > than > > you can have any social pattern without biological being and support. > > D: > I would word this differently. In terms of the MOQ, social patterns > arise from biological patterns just as biological patterns arise from > inorganic patterns. The term 'individual' comes from the Latin form of > the Greek 'atom,' that which cannot be cut any further. If you > understand the lesson from ZMM then you must know that to cut the > individual off from its environment will kill it just as effectively > as cutting off one's head. > > The individual in that sense becomes the universe. This is vitally > important to understand not only in terms of the MOQ but in the > process of life itself. > > J: If an individual is inseparable from his conceptions, then the more you conceive, the more you are. We are the universe, but the universe is always expanding and not a fixed thing. That's how I look at DQ. without freedom there is no value. > J: > > An > > ongoing matter of discussion, the way the levels interact. Platt has > hung > > his hat on the idea that the 4th level is the Individual level and I > think > > the point could be made that pure intellect is pure individualism. > > D: > I never agreed with Platt on this or on much else for that matter. > > J: Platt often composes the most beautiful litttle verbal epiphanies you could ask for. I disagree with Platt's love of conservative politics, but I like Platt. I like anybody who can show such devotion and persistence to stay for so long discussing the MoQ. Not many of those kind of people in the world and each one is precious. Look how much Platt contributed in the early days. It's prodigious and a lot of high quality stuff. > >J: > > But the best label i can imagine is, "the high country of the mind" > > Usually it's a lonely climb to get there, but not necessarily. . It's > > better to have a team, if you can find one. More chance of surviving > and > > avoiding the loony-bin. > > D: > By team I take you mean a group of individuals? > > I would say a community of individuals rather than an assemblage of selves, but I just glommed onto that little analytical knife-cut and I'll have to use it for a while before I'm ready to put in my toolbox. D: > I think most of the stories in the bible are tales from more ancient > times when the prevailing culture was one more related to animism > rather than associated with religion. Religion grew out of those old > myths. > > J: Well as far as the Bible story goes, Biblical religion started at Sinai, with the golden calf. That was when Moses instituted religion. It's just something people need. They need to see and control. They can't live in the face of mystery, it terrifies them. D: > When we subsume self and object into a more expansive Metaphysics of > Quality it becomes clearer that there are no individuals as such. > Rather, we are all intimately connected to our environment whether we > recognize it or not. The patterns that form a community are not the > same as the patterns that rule the jungle yet they share an > evolutionary history. > > When we see from the MoQ that true individuality consists of four levels, and not just three, we comprehend how our individuality is interwoven with all life and being. I don't know if we're on the same page, but we seem close, John 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
