Hi Rog, Marco, Diana and all, Like Rog, I also find myself agreeing with both Diana and Marco. Diana shows the difficulties (even "impossibilities") of the concept of self. Marco claims that self is real. I think there is no dispute that we DO have a concept of self, but we have difficulties in explaining (verbalizing) how that concept is REALized. I think that the concept of self is realized out of experience. We are used to digesting experiences in a subject/object manner i.e. the subject "experiences" certain properties of the "object". I know of no other way of describing experience. What the MoQ has to say about this is very simple: ***Experience gives rise to Subjects and Objects.*** ... in direct opposition to the "SOM" idea that Subjects and Objects give rise to experience. The ironical twist comes when we look at concepts like CHOICE and SELF WILL. Roger made a very good point about the need to separate the concept of WILL from the concept of SELF. The irony is this: "Self will" implies that it is self, the subject, who makes the choices. However, as an "experiencer", the subject has no choice about what the object does. In a sense, it is the object that has the WILL to behave in the way that it does. As soon as we remember the MoQ inversion and consider Subject and Object as secondary, WILL is no longer an absolute possession of Subject or of Object, but a consequence of how we realize the experience as a subject-object relationship in the first place. The free-will controversy arises precisely because different "selves" conceive their own relationship to the world in different ways. I believe that a "moral" self is a self that recognizes its own choices (and responsibilities) and recognizes the choices of other selves. Without this, moral pronouncements like "Love thy Neighbour" have no meaning. Jonathan Marder MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
