From: Arlo J. Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Sat Jul 23 2005 - 14:12:38 BST
Ham,
[Ham]
> I did. I'M the guilty one! I invented the label "socio-political
> sophistication" because it characterizes the kind of banter that is going on
here. And I linked it to "philosophology" because I think it's a fitting label
for the various pseudo-analytical positions being defended here concerning the
evolution of Philosophy as distinguished from its essence.
[Arlo]
As I thought. A perjorative blow to that which does not pursue "essence". You
can call it any "name" you wish.
[Ham]
> Arlo, your take on reality is so off kilter from my own that I'm afraid it's
useless to talk to you.
[Arlo]
Sadly, I felt I took a lot of time to outline the social/individual relation,
according to my reading of Pirsig, and my own understanding of semiosis. I
never "devalued" the individual, indeed, I went to lengths yesterday to show
how and why the individual matters (is valued) in this perspective.
You keep talking about the "proprietor of consciousness", and how individuals
carry the social fabric forward. If you'd read what I wrote, you'd see that
this evolutionary aspect of "individuals" to respond to DQ and evolve the
system is never denied. Indeed, it is why "individuals" are valued. Why
"freedom" is valued.
You see this half of the coin as if it were the entire coin. You want to either
ignore and pretend that the "individual" would not exist outside of the social
fabric. Oh, sure, a biological pattern would exist, and that pattern would be
capable of responding to biological level DQ. But how would that person
"reason"? Reasoning is the process of manipulating complex, abstract symobls.
Without a social semiotic process, there is no "intellect", no "reasoning",
indeed, no conception of "I".
THIS is what both Einstein and Pirsig were/are saying. The "I" is a semiotic
point of reference, a reference. The biological pattern underlying the "I" is
not the "I". The "I" emerges ONLY through social semiosis.
Then, through this social semiosis, internalizing the "I" analogue, the
individual is able to re-represent her/his experience back into the social
fabric, injecting DQ into SQ patterns. The individual, however, is not an
objective observer. Her/his "experience" is filtered through the social
semiotic. This is why Pirsig "couldn't see" the green flash. But why he could
when someone else, someone to whose culture valued this experience, was able to
help him value it too.
I'm sorry if my jabs at your "great and glorious 'I'" seemed uncalled for. To
me, its as if someone is jumping up and down saying "what about the day?! what
about the day?!", and I say "You can't have the day without the night." Then
you respond with how I devalue the day, and I try to show you how this is not
true, only to be told again I am a fool for not valueing the day. The analogy
may be a little off, but this is how its seemed to me. Anyways, I am offering
an apology for my sarcasm.
[Ham]
> But it remains for the philosopher to glean meaning and purpose from this
system; and since meaning and purpose are recognized only by human beings like
you and me, the individual is the key factor of philosophy.
[Arlo]
The meaning of life is to glean meaning from life?
[Ham]
> One of the bloggers on a philosophy site defined man as the "decision-maker"
of the universe. That's an astute observation. It is man's decisions, and his
willingness to act on them, that changes history, science, culture, society,
and international relations. Man acts as the free agent of this world.
[Arlo]
To instigate change, man must re-mediate his experience, experience that occurs
through a cultural filer, into the social semiotic system of his culture. Man's
"decisions" occur as a result of cultural semiosis. Man is a "free agent"
socially and intellectually only when he is within a social-semiotic system.
Outside of the social semiotic system, man is a "free agent" in the biological
level only.
[Ham]
> Without sensible experience and human cognizance, there would be no
> world. (I believe Mr. Pirsig would agree, though I'm not sure about you.)
[Arlo]
Sure. Because "the world" is a social-semiotic analogy used to order experience.
Without social-semiotic beings to call it "a world", the only thing that
remains are the biological and inorganic patterns of value that we lump our
social-mythos analogues onto- and then call them "reality".
And, I'd add, Pirsig would agree that without social mediation there would be no
"human cognizance" (apart from biological-DQ responsiveness). And if by
"sensible experience" you mean "ordered/cataloged experience", then he'd agree
to that without social mediation there'd be no sensible experience either.
[Ham]
> You define the "I" as an "emergent analogue" which gives the 'self' little if
any support as a real entity. I like Einstein's definition better. He at
least recognizes the "experiences, "thoughts" and "feelings" that are
proprietary to individual awareness, even though he sees them as an "optical
delusion of consciousness'.
Here's the full Einstein quote:
"A human being is a part of a whole, called by us 'universe', a part limited in
time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something
separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.
This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal
desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to
free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace
all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
If you agree with this, I can hardle complain. However, I believe what Einstein,
not having the terminology of the MOQ is saying, is that his unmediated,
pre-intellectual awareness, his response to DQ, is experienced via a delusion
of separateness from "reality". This "separateness" is carried over into
cultural language and then solidified as a "real separateness". This is a
problem for Einstein, because the separateness is NOT real, but we are so
accustomed to it we see it as real.
In ZMM Pirsig echoes this sentiment: "Phædrus remembered a line from Thoreau:
"You never gain something but that you lose something." And now he began to see
for the first time the unbelievable magnitude of what man, when he gained power
to understand and rule the world in terms of dialectic truths, had lost. He had
built empires of scientific capability to manipulate the phenomena of nature
into enormous manifestations of his own dreams of power and wealth...but for
this he had exchanged an empire of understanding of equal magnitude: an
understanding of what it is to be a part of the world, and not an enemy of it."
Your "I", your separate from the world proprietary consciousness is an "optical
delusion of consciousness". This is also the path of Buddha. You are clinging
to the "I" as if it has some fundamental, absolute reality that IS separate
from existence. It is not. And this is why you fail to see the inherent
evolutionary relation between the individual (who would not exist without
social mediation) and the social (which would not exist without the
individual).
Arlo
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