Squad,
Bruce wrote:
>Well you may have got it figured out, but most of
>your argument depends on proving that the
>questions are SOM (which they are) and therefore
>they are wrong (probably right too), but then you
>leap to the conclusion that the MOQ solves the
>problem. I see all the negative arguments against
>the SOM, but what positive arguments ahve you got
>for the MOQ's version of the self? Maybe neither is
>right.
I thought it might be worth going back to LILA for some help with this so I
had a look through for what Pirsig says about the self.
The first time he brings it up is in Chapter 11, with the answer to what
Lila is, "She's a kind of jungle of evolutionary patterns of value ... and
these patterns are evolving toward a Dynamic Quality."
Then in Chapter 14: What holds a person together is his static patterns of
likes and dislikes ... maybe the ultimate truth about the world isn't
history or sociology but biography ... you're a sort of culture of one, an
evolved static pattern of quality capable of Dyanmic change.
Then from a different angle in Chapter 14 with Lila's blethering when she's
drunk: I'm whatever your questions turn me into. It's your questions that
make me who I am. If you think I'm an angel then that's what I am. If you
think I'm a whore then that's what I am.
Then in 15: At this moment, asleep, 'Lila' doesn't exist any more than a
program exists when a computer is switched off for the night ... This
Cartesian 'Me' 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 Cartesian 'Me' is a software reality, not a hardware
reality.
Then he echoes Lila's Chapter 14 ramblings in Chapter 20: Already he's seen
three completely different mirror reflections this week: from Rigel, who
reflected an image of some kind of moral degenerate; from Lila who
reflected a tedious old nerd; and now Redford who was probably going to
cast him into some sort of heroic image. Each person you come to is a
different mirror and since you're just another person like them maybe
you're just another mirror too, and there's no way of ever knowing whether
your own view of yourself is just another distortion.
As you pointed out it is very close to Danah Zohar's self ie:
>"people can only be the individuals they are
>within a context. i am my relationships - my
>relationships to the subselves within my own self (my
>past and my future), my relationships to othres, and
>my relationships to the world at large.
I think the problem you're having with it might be that in Pirsig's self
there is no center of the self which is the way the SOM presents it.
Pirsig's concept is just a convergence of patterns jostling with each other
with no particular location of a knowing self. The SOM view seems more
natural because that's the way things _seem_ to us. I'm not sure if you
were around at the time the Zombie articles were discussed
http://www.newscientist.com/ns/980905/intro.html. Briefly it's a collection
of articles from New Scientist which show that we subliminally perceive and
understand a lot more information than we are aware of. I think these
support the MOQ view that the linear-reasoning intellectual level is just
one aspect of awareness. Total awareness is all the levels at once.
David wrote
>>Troy really nails it. He said, "..copying Dynamic
>elements seems to
>>me a contradiction of terms ... exact copies of such
>things are logical
>>chimeras since DQ is not static, and therfore not
>copiable".
Fine, but isn't this a self-serving argument? Going by the SOM it might
seem like you can copy people; using the MOQ meanwhile it seems like you
can't because of DQ. Thus you conclude that because the MOQ acknowledges DQ
and the SOM doesn't then the SOM must be wrong? (Actually I agree with you,
but that's only because I already believe in DQ)
Bruce wrote
>For the problem at hand, if we just stick to sci-fi
>ideas then the answers are easy enough. If you can
>recreate perfect biology you can recreate the self.
>The trouble is this assumes something that has
>never been done and which there are good reasons
>to believe may never be done.
Yes, I think there are good reasons too - fundamental reasons. But if we're
going to go into artificial life and intelligence I'll save it for another
post.
Diana
MOQ Online - http://www.moq.org
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Thu Jan 17 2002 - 13:08:35 GMT