Roger, Diana, Elephant, Myer Nore and all Moffers I'd suggest a lateral drift in Pirsig's thought, in order to investigate the RMP's concept of the SELF. � As one lives on the surface of the empty ocean day after day after day and sees it sometimes huge and dangerous, sometimes relaxed and dull, but always, in each day and week, endless in every direction, a certain understanding of one's self begins slowly to break through, reflected from the sea, or perhaps derived from it. This is the understanding that whether you are bored or excited, depressed or elated, successful or unsuccessful, even whether you are alive or dead, all this is of absolutely no consequence whatsoever. The sea keeps telling you this with every sweep of every wave. And when you accept this understanding of yourself and agree with it and continue on anyway, then a real fullness of virtue and self-understanding arrives�. [RMP, Cruising Blues and their Cure]. Ok. Cruising Blues is not Lila, and I don't want to take it as a Holy Text, but it seems to me that these words are not from one who denies the *real* existence of the Self. Actually, the matter of the paper is the self, in the end. He asks for a new (more inclusive) understanding: what you are, it comes from a continuous confrontation with the sea, the sky, the air, the boat. In the same paper, he writes: �An alternative - and better - definition of reality can be found by naming some of its components ...air...sunlight...wind...water...the motion of waves...the patterns of clouds before a coming storm�. We give names to the *components* (sic!) of reality and we receive existence and consciousness only interacting with reality. And even the *self* is just another name we give to one component of reality. The only (intellectual) problem is that when we say *self* as well as when we say *sea*, we just *describe* the existence, leaving aside the *interaction*. Another point of the paper has a lot to say about it: �Old gear that has been through a storm or two without failure becomes more precious than it was when you bought it because you know you can trust it. The same becomes true of fellow crewmen and ultimately becomes true of things about yourself�. It's IMO clear that, when we just apply the rational tools of S/O thinking, the *interaction* we miss is at least as important as the described *existence*. The old gear is always more than what we can describe, because every interaction it has with the storm and with us (including our description of it) gives value to the gear; that means: every interaction with reality changes reality; that means reality is a changing. I think Myer Nore tried to express a similar point with his eggs/chicken post. I'd just say that the egg/chicken relation goes along with the concepts of time and causation. And actually at the beginning of Myer's message there's written: "DQ is always first". IMO there's no time relation. And there's not any other relation of consequence (logical or whatever else). DQ and sQ are always coexisting in Reality. In a recent message to the Italian forum, Andrea Sosio wrote: "The Yin Yang symbol is very interesting. It does not mean simply that opposites are complementary (as many IMO misinterpret); it means that they transform each to the other. It's a rotational -not static- symmetry". DQ and sQ is a dichotomy we use to analyze reality. Like Yin and Yang, reality is the ever present event of continual transformation of DQ to sQ and of sQ to DQ. ========== Roger wrote: "However, I also agree with Marco that the self is real. After all, concepts and patterns are real. Even fictions -- even IMPOSSIBLE fictions -- are real". This is important, even more than it seems to be. A simple example: If I'm alone inside a firing building, it is obvious that the best action is to go out as soon as possible. Let's imagine there are two doors; on the first one there's the caption: "Exit". Upon the second one there's another caption: "To the Gasoline tank". Of course, we all will open the first door. Why? Is the caption reality or fiction? It could be that there's a mistake, and the right door is not the first one. Do we need to open all the doors? No. We behave according to the caption, and that's perfectly *moral*. What do I mean? Simply that the names we give to reality are real. We perceive the *caption*, and we choose. Not only: we can only perceive *captions*. What is the heat of the fire? A biological *caption*. Another example can be found in our PCs: we have links on our desktops, and they point to "objects"... but if we go on analyzing we find only a stupid array of "0"s and "1"s. But if I want to write a new post to MF, I just click a link. Elephant wrote: "So it seems to me, in Sum, that RMP's response to the Freewill/determinism conflict is not to evade the question or restate it in other terms or claim to have 'dissolved' it, but a straight frontal-attack on determinism and it's metaphysical foundations. A straight attack on the metaphysics of determinism and a defence of freewill, together with some new Moqish metaphysical foundations about the primary reality of the Dynamic, and the role of freely choosing Humans in creating the Static Or so it seems to me - and I do hope I'm not alone.". I think I'm not with you. I don't subscribe to the idea that Dynamic is a Primary Reality and that Humans create the Static. The idea that our static concepts are illusions, while reality is simply DQ is IMO a big mistake. Nothing is completely static. Nothing is completely dynamic. We create static patterns (the law of gravity), and then we project and build satellites. And the value (Quality, Reality, What it really is) of the law of gravity is that satellites don't fall! We create geometry, then we project and build the Golden Gate bridge. We write "Exit" on the door, then we use that way to go out. The creation of the Static is the way of evolution. The process is not linear, so there are huge buildings (like the Ptolemaic system, or the Dinosaurs, or the Roman Empire) that will be destroyed to build better configurations on their ruins. But Morality is not the immediate perception of DQ: universe could not evolve that way. Morality is to start from the best static step we can use. We interact with reality thanks to existing static patterns, which are like nails on the rock we are climbing. Like the gear after the storm, those nails will be more valuable as they will demonstrate they work and help our ascension. ========= So, what about the self and the will? The self is a static intellectual concept, and we can well say that we humans have created it. So, there were no selves billions years ago. When the first intelligent human created the intellectual pattern "Hey, if I think that I want to move my arm, I can do it!", the first *self* was born. We can analyze it to discover if it really *exists*, but like in the example of the link on my PC desktop, we'll just find a stupid array of protons and electrons. So, like Pirsig says about Quality, we can try to see what happens if we subtract the Self from the world. It would be the same to give or receive money. No difference between eating and looking at someone else who's eating. No problem to receive injuries, as injuries are against me - the illusory Self. No, sorry, the world could not work very well. The self exists as we have created this "caption" and it works. The will? Idem. To a certain extent, it works. If we analyze it we can well find an absurd array, like the one Diana offers: Diana wrote: " Is the first act, my mental act of will, a voluntary or involuntary act of mind? Whether you answer yes or no it leads to absurdities. If I cannot help willing to pull the trigger, it would be absurd to describe my pulling it as 'voluntary'. But if my will, or choice, to pull the trigger is voluntary then it must arise from a prior volition. ie. -1. My mind willing my mind to will my finger to pull the trigger. And that must also arise from a prior volition. ie. -2 . My mind willing my mind to will my mind to will my mind to will my finger to pull the trigger. And so on ad infinitum. " Yes, this way the concept of Free Will is as absurd as the idea that an array of "0" and "1" expresses my thoughts. The MOQ solution is that every step can't be completely statically identical to the preceding one, as DQ is always there to change things. So when my mind is willing... my mind is not alone. It's interacting with memories and perceptions and expectations, and finally this interaction is DQ at work..... This is Free Will. It could be it's not a good solution, but, after all, all we can do is to find a better mistake. thanks for Your attention Marco MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
