Squad,
I was born three and a half billion years ago
My evolution is the evolution of the universe.
Look upon me ye mighty and despair!
Thanks for sorting out my existential crisis David. For a moment
there I thought I wasn't real, but I now realize that I am in fact the center
of the universe;-)
David's secret ingredient, it turns out, is one we always neglect - the
social level. It's the most mysterious and the one we ignore most.
It oppresses both our intellects and our bodies and it gets a load of bad
press as a result. But we need it to explain how the self evolved out of the
body.
He also says:
>Thou art that. The center is everywhere, the circumference is no where.
>Atman and Brahman.
Our brains are designed to interpret the world in terms of objects and
mechanical relationships, but Atman and Brahman won't fit into this
paradigm. It is not logical to say that two things are the same thing. And
yet it's compelling at the same time. Amongst other books (I'm going to get
a copy of Northrop, promise) I also think Richard Dawkins' Selfish Gene and
Steven Pinker's How The Mind Works are essential reading on this subject. The
sequel to LILA will have to present some strong skientific evidence that our
intellects are pattern-making machines, not Truth-making machines as we seem
to think they are. Pinker and Dawkins show that our brains are biologically
designed to make these mechanical patterns for the purpose of survival.
David Deutsch's Fabric of Reality has a lot of promising material for this
subject (and I'm going to incorporate it into my theories as soon as I've
understood what he's on about).
The universe is not required to make sense. The student pursuing a phd
however, is. When we find something that breaks the rules of logic
but is consistent with all empirical evidence then it becomes illogical to
ignore it and the only the logical thing to do is to question the logic of logic itself.
"I'm not anyone in particular, nor are you, nor is anyone" Steve Hagen.
At the heart of the SOM lies the self. The notion that within each one of us
lies the essence of a human being and that these selves are all equal and
are the most important things in the world. One man one vote! Human rights!
Equality! The most cherished values of the SOM are all derived from the
notion that selves are the starting point of reality.
David:
>The problem with SOM's Cartesian self, that fictional editor behind the
>eyes, is that it is disconnected. In a world where only subjects and objects
>exist, Descartes could say, "I think, therefore I am". But in the MOQ he has
>to say, "French society exists, therefore I think, therefore I am" The SOM
>self ignores the social level of values. The Cartesian self has a giant hole
>in its center. This same misconception is at the root of the mind/body
>problem, the amorality of "objective" science and the terrible loneliness of
>our century. It's all part and parcel of the same problem.
Actually it's quite easy to see that the nature of one's self is largely
dependent on social and biological factors when you think about it. At least
it is if you look at other people rather than your own self. But the SOM has
ripped them crudely apart so we imagine the self is unique and autonomous,
because we can't imagine where it could possibly have come from.
But still, I'm not sure that the intellectual self is the same as what we
generally think of as our essential Selves. I think I am more than my
intellectual level. Even without my little editor and my little subjects and
objects, I think I am still here. The word self isn't well defined as we've
already noted, but I would have said our selves are also identified with our
awareness. Awareness is not just intellectual and so it cannot be reduced to
the intellectual level. I am aware of biological and social values and
dynamic goodness as well, sometimes. The self can be downgraded, but the
awareness remains. Maybe we could call it the soul. But it's not the kind of
soul the church told us about. The self colors the perception of the soul.
When I see my soul on its own, without confusing it with my self I see that
it's not just my soul, it's everyone's soul.
Rich:
>Zen Buddhism, so far as I understand it, sees that "you" are not your body
>or mind - at least not essentially, in reality. In Reality, you are (what I
>translate as) Pure Consciousness (satori). Your consciousness is no
>different in kind from any other being's consciousness. However, what makes
>us each unique, what we call our "self" - "I" - is the specific Flavour of
>each consciousness - the spacetime locale, and the DEGREE of consciousness,
>which is different for each being according to its position on the great
>evolutionary scale of complexity and organization
So I'm thinking we need to make a firm distinction between self and soul.
The selves are all different, but there's only one soul - better to call it
satori to avoid confusion between Christian ideas of one person/one soul. In
the subject-object metaphysics satori and self are muddled up into a single
concept - the subject. In the MOQ satori is dynamic experience while the
self is the pattern of inorganic, biological, social and intellectual values
that combine to create the individual. The degree of satori that each self
experiences depends on the level of awareness of the self, some are more
open to it than others, but we're all capable of it because essentially
that's what we all are.
When we "attend" what we really do is silence the self and let our
soul-consciousness take over. Attend is a verb but it's not really something
that a subject can intentionally do, it's the absence of intentional action
- the transcendence out of self into soul.
And what holds the patterns together? What holds the acorns onto the
branches? What holds the branches onto the trees? What holds the trees to
their roots and the roots to the soil?
Rich again:
>The pattern begins with the inorganic atom, and analogies abound all the
>way up the scale.
The inorganic atom is also Brahman.
Pirsig says that the intellectual "software" patterns on our brains are all
the same. In the same way, we might all have MS Word on our computers. But
they're probably configured in different ways and the documents that we've
written with the program will be different. Similarly the ability to form
social and intellectual patterns is a feature of the biological level. We
all have that ability (though some will be better at it than others). Even
though Tarzan was raised by apes he still figured out how to make a spear
(well, according to Disney anyway). The patterns themselves will be
different but it's the same function. It is a feature of the intellectual
function that it interprets data in mechanical and rational relationships.
The stream of data that it provides is our mind or our intellectual self.
It's a very high level of awareness, but we mustn't confuse it with reality.
When the intellectual self dies, it dies, but satori will still be here.
And the moral is: if you want to live forever don't be selfish be a
soulfish.
Stay tuned for investigations into the self as reflected in others, and what Pirsig really meant by
that haunting statement: "maybe mirrors are all you ever get"
Diana
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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