From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Fri Oct 03 2003 - 11:39:57 BST
Hi Paul,
I do love an answer that makes me think. Thanks - I'll come back later; possibly in a wider context.
Sam
"A good objection helps one forward, a shallow objection, even if it is valid, is wearisome."
Wittgenstein
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Turner" <paulj.turner@ntlworld.com>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 10:10 AM
Subject: RE: MD Intellectual level - New letter from Pirsig
> Hi Sam
>
> [Sam:]
> In his letter to you, Pirsig writes:
> > You have to cut it off somewhere, and it seems to me the
> > greatest meaning can be given to the intellectual level if it is
> > confined to the skilled manipulation of abstract symbols that have no
> > corresponding particular experience and which behave according to
> rules
> > of their own.
>
> Do you have any idea about who or what might be *doing* the manipulation
> (ie, who or what has the
> 'skill')? Or is it that the symbols react to Quality on their own,
> without an intermediary? Or
> something else?
>
> [Paul:]
> I think our language presupposes the necessity for "something" to have
> the skill or "something" to react that is in addition to or outside of
> the manipulation or the reaction itself and this makes it difficult to
> answer without sounding intentionally esoteric.
>
> Nonetheless, one answer to your question may be given by drawing on a
> crude analogy with the weather. When we talk of "the weather", we say
> "it is raining", "it is windy" and so on. If we ask what the "it" is
> that is raining without reference to rain or wind we find ourselves
> thinking of nothing. In a similar way, if we ask "what is it that is
> thinking [manipulating symbols]?" it is normal to answer with "the
> mind". If we then ask what the mind is without reference to thinking
> [manipulating] or thoughts [symbols] I suggest we may equally find
> ourselves thinking of nothing. In either case, one is not prevented from
> talking meaningfully about "the weather" or "the mind" but it is always
> with reference to their processes.
>
> Another answer is provided in a piece of Buddhist literature I recently
> quoted:
>
> When questioned by Mara "what is a person?", Vajira answered "Mara, why
> do you insist on the word "person"? There is nothing here but a group of
> processes. Just as the word "cart" is used when the parts are combined,
> so the word "person" is commonly used when the five skhandas* are
> present."
>
> * Skhandas means something like "impermanent heaps" - body, feeling,
> perception, karma and consciousness
>
> An MOQ answer might be - it is not that Sam has intellectual patterns;
> it is intellectual patterns that have Sam.
>
> Cheers
>
> Paul
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