From: Steve & Oxsana Marquis (marquis@nccn.net)
Date: Wed Jun 15 2005 - 16:43:28 BST
Scott et all,
How does agency fit into this picture? Didn't Pirsig claim as one of the
attributes of a person the ability to respond to DQ? To define an
individual as the smallest 'unit' of agency (along with continuity as you
suggest) clearly gives substance to what we mean by a person as opposed to
just an amalgamation of static intellectual patterns which seems to ignore
obvious individuality. Is this ability to respond (directly) to DQ separate
from intellectual static patterns in the same sense that inorganic and
biological patterns are a separate level (or any of the other levels)? This
would be a good working definition of self-awareness for the MOQ.
Live well,
Steve
> Matt et al,
>
>
> Matt said (to Bo):
> A summary of the position that I believe all four of us [Matt, Paul, Ant,
> and DMB] stand in/with/as: What we call "mind" is better refered to as a
> collection of static intellectual patterns. A person does not _have_
> intellectual patterns, we _are_ intellectual patterns. A "person" is a
> particular amalgamation of static intellectual patterns, the vast majority
> of which we share with other people.
>
> Scott:
> I've said this sort of thing myself at one time, but it doesn't work. It
is,
> in fact, the Theravadin view of the self, which Nagarjuna challenged. It
> doesn't work because it ignores the continuity over the set of static
> intellectual patterns (also, it leaves unsettled where to locate the
source
> of new patterns). So while it doesn't make sense to call the self a
> container of the set of static patterns, it also doesn't make sense to say
> the self *is* the set of static patterns. When I wake up in the morning, I
> need to "place" myself, that is, remember where I am, what I have to
today,
> possibly even my name. All of these are beliefs, but they make no sense
> without the setting called "me". Now this is what Rorty would call an
> intuition that, in his opinion, we should get rid of, but while I agree
that
> the intuition that this 'setting called "me"' should not be assumed to be
an
> independent thing (a container, for example), it is also not the beliefs
> that are gathered. In short, it is one of the poles of a contradictory
> identity (the other being the beliefs). Each is not the other, but each
> constitutes the other. What you four (and Pirsig) are doing is taking one
> pole of a polarity as true, making the other pole "just an appearance",
and
> that fails.
>
> This error arises in the MOQ because of Pirsig's conflation of the
> mind/matter meaning of S/O (S/)[1]) with the intentionality meaning (what
I
> call S/O[2]). The first can be dissolved because all the S[1] can be
treated
> as O[2]. But S[2] is still left dangling, which is why the MOQ, and
> materialist pragmatism, are inadequate and incoherent.
>
> - Scott
>
>
>
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