dear mary, you say:
Lithien seems to be implying that Zen is DQ. But by her own
definition that cannot be. Saying that Zen mind or God is Dynamic Quality
cheapens Dynamic Quality.
lithien:
you are really stuck with this God thing, aren't you? did you understand
Pirsig's definition of mystic philsophy? let me quote it again:
(p.72)" The term mystic is sometimes confused with "occult" or
"supernatural" and with magic and witchcraft but in philosophy it has a
different meaning....they share a common belief that the fundamental nature
of reality is outside language. that language splits things up into parts
while the true nature of reality is undivided. Zen...argues that the
illusion of dividedness can be overcome by meditation."
lithien sympathizes with mary:
it is natural to reject that which one does not understand.
mary continues:
. I would not want to rely on either one to drive my car while I
am blindfolded.
lithien:
thank you mary. you have just reminded me of a personal experience in which
i drove a car almost blindfolded. i had never been able to understand this
experienced but now your reference has made me understand it.
mary further says:
As to Jung, his ideas are finding fewer and fewer
proponents in psychiatry,
lithien:
there is more to jung than psychology, and you are wrong even in that. his
ideas are increasingly gathering momentum.
mary continues:
After all, according to the MOQ, we had the ability to
move and feel long before we had logic. So I don't find anything here
inconsistent with the MOQ.
lithien:
i dont either, that is my point. did you think i was refuting MOQ?
mary additonally says:
I agree that our "conscious mind" aka static
intellectual level is not the only thing calling the shots.
lithien:
we are again in agreement. maybe we are not as far as you think.
mary concludes:
So by all means tune in to your inner voice. But don't forget logic.
lithien:
that is exactly why i wanted to discuss the zombie articles because there is
room for both sides to exist.
i think the mystic side is just as valid as the logic one.
Lithien
http://members.tripod.com/~lithien/Lila2.html
-----Original Message-----
From: Mary <mwittler@geocities.com>
To: Lila Squad <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Date: Saturday, December 12, 1998 6:06 PM
Subject: MD Brain, Mind, and Intellect
>Hi Squad,
>
>I still think mysticism in general and Zen in particular have no ascendant
>status in the MOQ.
>
>Lithien 12/9:
>zen is a discipline that holds
>instinct in a higher plane than intellect. in a way, instinct replaces the
>intellects ability "to know". only you dont know with the mind but with
>your gut.
>Lithien 12/9:
>i think zen is capturing instinct and realizing its pure knowledge. that
is
>why it is a form of knowing.
>its becoming conscious of the unknowable.
>
>
>Gene 12/9:
>Zen practices do direct us beyond
>thinking, but only after a lot of it has been done. koans are a good
>example.
>
>Bodvar 12/10:
>I am not amused by the turn the
>discussion has taken lately. 'Intuition', 'God', 'instincts'. 'zen'!
>Don't you see that the MOQ is a liberation from all those SOMish
>skyhooks (yes, even 'zen' as used by us Westerns is a red herring).
>
>Lithien on 12/11 quotes me and responds:
>This has confused me. If Zen allows one to respond to reality in an
>instinctive manner then Zen must reside in the biological level. Is this
>what you mean?
>i invite you to read the articles on "the zombie within" and then determine
>whether its the biological level or not.
>
>I wish you had answered my question.
>
>Fintan 12/11:
>What I mean is that Zen/instinct/DQ is from God.
>
>So Fintan, you equate Zen, instinct, and Dynamic Quality. That's fine, but
>it's not the MOQ.
>
>Instinct arises from the biological level. As such, it cannot possibly lie
>in a higher plane than intellect. QED, Zen disagrees with the tenants of
>the MOQ. Lithien seems to be implying that Zen is DQ. But by her own
>definition that cannot be. Saying that Zen mind or God is Dynamic Quality
>cheapens Dynamic Quality.
>
>Fintan 12/11:
>This Zombie stuff is a major chink in the establishment view of reality.
>The ZOMBIE is directly analogous to Pirsig's pre-intellectual Quality.
>
>I disagree. The Zombie article is describing expressions of bioPoVs.
>
>Lithien continued in the 12/9 post:
>another exponent of this different definition of instinct and intellect is
>Jung whose belief in synchronicity and the collective unconscious bypasses
>traditional connotations. in many novels like Herman Hesse's Demian in
>which he says:
>"that which is within you and directs your life knows already. It's good
>to realize that within us there is someone who knows everything, wills
>everything, does everything better than we ourselves".
>
>I read both Siddartha and Demain when I was a teen-ager. I couldn't buy it
>then and I can't buy it now. To say that within us is "someone" who knows
>everything, etc.. is hogwash. Yes, there is instinct and intuition, but I
>do not believe my instincts and intuition "Know" everything. And I
>certainly don't think instinct and intuition do "everything" better than we
>ourselves. I would not want to rely on either one to drive my car while I
>am blindfolded. As to Jung, his ideas are finding fewer and fewer
>proponents in psychiatry, basically because his ideas don't help people
>solve the problems they went to see a psychiatrist for. Jung's ideas are
so
>many intellectual parlour games.
>
>Lithien continues:
>this last quote from the book is the same premise that diana's articles on
>the zombie. that our conscious mind...the rational intellectual ego, is
not
>the only part calling the shots. in fact, may not even be calling any
shots
>at all. in fact, in the article it says that instead of free will, the
only
>thing we may have is free won't. meaning that we cannot will to do
anything
>but rather will not to do it. this zombie side of us is called instinct in
>the articles too.
>
>"When researchers like Merikle speak of the unconscious, they are referring
>to perceptual and information processing skills." The quote you mentioned
>from the article appears as a sidebar to the section on "Irresistible
>Illusions" which is discussing the mechanisms of visual perception.
>
>"A provocative experiment that was reported in the 1980s by Benjamin Libet
>of the University of California at San Francisco suggests that the Zombie
>may be in charge of the brain's decision-making, too. Libet asked human
>volunteers to make hand movements whenever they felt like doing so as he
>measured the electrical activity in their brains. He found that brain
>impulses associated with a movement began about 350 milliseconds before the
>subjects reported any conscious awareness of their intent to make the
>movement. That is, the "voluntary" action did not originate consciously.
>
>The conscious mind was not powerless, however. It could still veto the
>proposed movement during a window of 150 to 200 milliseconds between
>conscious awareness of the intention and its execution, he found. This
>suggests that our conscious minds may not have free will, but rather "free
>won't", according to the neurologist and psychologist Vilayanar
Ramachandran
>of the University of California at San Diego. "
>
>I don't think this statement is backed up by the experiment. It's a pretty
>rash statement. Read uncritically it seems to imply that you cannot
>consciously think of moving your hand and have it move. But as I sit here
>very still I say to myself. Ok, in 1 second I will move my hand - and it
>moves. Further, what did the researchers mean by moving "whenever they
felt
>like doing so"? Emotions and instincts are pre-verbal in the MOQ, so I'm
>not particularly surprised if you should have a biological or emotional
urge
>to move but not express it verbally in your logical static intellectual
>level beforehand. After all, according to the MOQ, we had the ability to
>move and feel long before we had logic. So I don't find anything here
>inconsistent with the MOQ. I agree that our "conscious mind" aka static
>intellectual level is not the only thing calling the shots. We take inputs
>from all levels.
>
>
>One quote I haven't seen mentioned yet comes from the end of the "I've Got
a
>Hunch" section:
>So by all means tune in to your inner voice. But don't forget logic.
There's
>more to winning a Nobel prize than choosing one of the unsolved puzzles of
>the Universe and sleeping on it.
>
>Mary
>
>
>
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