ANSWERING THE FREE WILL QUESTION REQUIRES AN INQUIRY INTO "I" & "THOU"
Scott wrote:
>I'll stick with Pirsig: to an extent my behavior is determined by static
>patterns; to an extent I am able to exert my particular will.
Here we have Lila's incredibly brief offer of a solution to this nasty
Platypus. Why didn't Pirsig elaborate, make himself clearer? Surely, he must
have felt he had already done so. I highly doubt that ANY word in Lila does
not serve a specific purpose - which is a sign of rhetorical Quality.
Look, here's the straight, "simple" answer: Pirsig claims (in accordance
with the Buddhist view - ANatman) that there is no (independent) "self", no
"autonomous little homunculus" sitting behind the eyeballs. This is really
important, folks.
Are "you" listening? (or is there simply the event of hearing, and the event
of thinking about those sounds, rather than some extra "subject" which "has"
those thoughts and "feels" those sensations?)
Have you given his discreditation of your"self" any deep consideration? I
truly believe that this CONCEPT is at the heart of much of the MOQ. And it's
obvious why Pirsig would make it so. "Phaedrus", a once "real" "person", got
instantaneously wiped out by a couple of surges of electromagnetic value.
Where did that "I" go? How can "you" be there one minute, and gone the next?
The answer is that there never was any immutable soul, or "I" at the
unchanging centre of such and such a body and social patterns, etc... There
are only the patterns. THERE DOES NOT EXIST A PERSONAL, INDIVIDUATED SELF,
WHICH EXPERIENCES EVENTS INDEPENDENT OF THOSE EVENTS. I mean, "I" am those
events, and not some "thing" which "has" or "experiences" those events.
If this view is correct, then there literally isn't any question of whether
"I" "have" free will, or "am" determined "by" certain patterns of value,
because "I" am a myth intellectually constructed on the basis of biological
and social patterns. See Julian Jaynes - "the Origin of Consciousness in the
Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" - for a truly beautiful explanation
of this concept. (said book being a great view of the hierarchical
transition of power from social to intellectual patterns of value in the
biological patterns of value known as humans... back around the beginning of
writing)
And that's it.
Now, quit yelping about how "I" can "make" all sorts of fancy decisions,
even though "I" also "do" many things against "my will", and am therefore
perplexed whether what "I" do is "free" or "determined". What is happening
there is a circular pattern of misguided intellectual values.
If you really want to understand the MOQ, which is the Copernican revolution
against SOM (Struan - are "you" listening? Have you read Plato? Locke? - SOM
IS most definitely a REAL metaphysic, though IMPLICIT - as you coarsely
pointed out, NOT explicit) then "you" must learn to be CONSTANTLY aware of
the present moment. (better yet, in 3rd person - "there" must evolve a
clear, passive, maintenance-conducive attention...)
After time - much time (this is no one-night stand), according to Zen and
all mystics (and so implicitly, then, the MOQ) there will come an experience
(Soto - gradually, Rinzai - instantly) which is devoid of the naturally
fanatical egotistic monologue normally present in the movement of human
brains. THANK GOD! I don't know about you, but this neurotic little voice
inside my head often drives me up the wall! hehheh....
You see?
Not a revolution "in" "your" "mind", because what has previously been spoken
of as "your mind" (some a-morphous, not-biologically rooted non-physical
"area") is REALLY (per MOQ) a very consistent pattern of thoughts and
feelings (rooted in specific neurological patterns) which nearly always
include the word "I", or "Je", or "Ik", or "Yo", or "Joe", and therefore is
called an "illusion". Not because the thoughts are not real events. They
are. But what they purport to represent - a "really real" "self" independent
of the patterns - is better understood as a DYNAMIC RELATION OF EVOLVING
PATTERNS OF VALUE, or some other such formulation which is not ego-centric
(in other words, which has surfaced from the SOMOCEAN - beautiful metaphor,
I forget from whom.)
So, in short:
The free will Platypus is solved when we come to TRULY (best) "know
ourselves", which is the knowledge of relativity and Unity.
"I" have seriously hesitated sending this message. Why? Because there are
some (linguistic) contradictions (in fact, every time "I" tell "you"
something), and I feel that the many questions which should naturally follow
this little diatribe canNOT be WELL answered in a short space or time, which
is all that is available, for myself.
What I mean is this. The reason I feel that the MOQ is superior to each and
every philosophical/psychological system I've studied is that it is more
complete and comprehensive than any other, and therefore an excellent tool
for analysing all other systems.
Basically, it is "my experience" that "...the MOQ can explain (all other
philosophies, religions and arts) beautifully, but (no other p,r or a) can
explain (the MOQ) worth a (donut)..."
So - if we want to understand the MOQ, the best way is to understand the
WHOLE KIT AND KABOODLE. I believe that any platypus studied in isolation
from the herd will continue to yield poor results, for the simple fact that
the explanation will be incomplete - raising a whole lode of other questions
in other areas... This does not mean that I view our "discussions" (more
often than not self-stroking monologues, this one included) as useless. They
offer many colours for the larger picture. But if you never attempt to get
that panoramic angle, you will forever be yanking the elephant's scrotum,
calling it one thing, while I tug on it's trunk, and another it's tail,
calling it other things.
I gotta go take a shit and think about this. Or do I? Can I?
P.S. - DB, as usual, nailed the Donkey just right:
Circles within cirlces, patterns within patterns, the one and the
many...
But more on this later, when time and bladder permit...
On another note, have you noticed that none of the comparable hierarchical
schemes includes the social level except Pirsig? Wilber comes close with his
"early mind (mythical)", but its not quite the same. Pirsig says that SOM
makes it very hard to see the social level and that this blindness is at
root of amoral scientific objectivity, value-free technology, the mind/body
problem and a whole host of other ills. Pirsig's contribution in this
repsect is, I think, unique. The social level is what makes Pirsig's
hierarchy different that the others, no?
Definitely. That, and of course the "fact" that "...not just life, but
everything, is an ethical activity."
Even these crude actions I'm so un-tactfully letting you know are about to
be performed? Yes - my use of immature bio-examples is meant to illustrate
the negative aesthetic quality present in the (relative) view from our
social patterns.
Gotta run. Got the runs. (I don't really - just in case the lady I'm seeing
tonight reads this - I just dig on silly talk, after being choked by
overly-rational posts about locked rooms and whatnot.)
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