From: david buchanan (dmbuchanan@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Nov 04 2005 - 23:43:44 GMT
Howdy Mike:
Michael Hamilton asked:
I'm asking a very personal question to everyone who rejects SOL. Have you
seriously shed your subjectivity, in your day-to-day life? Or do you still
experience your thinking as the product of an islanded subject (albeit an
islanded subject with a million and one outside influences)? 'Cos I do.
dmb replies:
Are you suggesting that a person has to shed subjectivity in order to reject
SOL? I think a person might have to "shed" subjectivity in a certain sense
in order to become enlightened, but rejecting the idea that intellect is
intrinsically tied up with SOM only an act of intellectual discrimination or
discernment. And even those enlightened ones are still going to have
experience, they're still going to need some kind of ego consciousness to
function in life. I mean, your question seems to confuse the mystical state
of consciousness with intellectual beliefs and it seems to assume that the
end of subjectivity means the end of one's experience. Hold that thought...
Mike continued:
Thanks to the likes of Pirsig, we can dream up metaphysics in which the
subject/object divide is not fundamental. We can spend as long as we like
thinking about a time and a place in which the subject/object divide never
existed. But we're still thinking as subjects, and any attempt to wipe
subjectivity from one's life entirely would be a regression, not a
progression. I'm all in favour of dissolving one's subjectivity every so
often, in fact I think it should be done regularly, in some way or another.
But to dissolve subjectivity forever would be to eradicate one of DQ's most
wonderful creations, I think.
dmb says:
Dream up a metaphysics and think about a time and a place where the
subject-object divide never existed? The first thing I would point out is
that the MOQ does not make subjects and objects disagppear, they just lose
their status as the primary ontological categories. We still have a self and
the self still has experience, but the self is concieved quite differently.
The subjective self is said to be the static self, the little self. This is
the common sense, everyday self. But then there is the Big Self, the one
that creates the little self. Also I would point out that Pirsig is not
dreaming up a metaphysical system with some hypothetical entity, the MOQ
echoes the perennial philosophy and so in some sense it is very ancient, and
that time and place where the subject-object divide does not exist isn't
just some place in the distanct past. This is from ZAMM, the beginning of
chapter 25.
"Phaedrus felt that at the moment of pure Quality perception, or not even
perception, at the moment of pure Quality, there is no subject and there is
no object. There is only a sense of Quality that produces a later awareness
of subjects and objects. At the moment of pure Quality, subject and object
are identical. This is the TAT TVAM ASI (Thou art that) truth of the
Upanishads, but its also reflected in modern street argot. 'Getting with
it,' 'digging it,' 'grooving on it', are all slang reflections of this
identity. It is this identity that is the basis of craftsmanship in all the
technical arts. And this is the identity that moden, dualistically conceived
technology lacks. The creator of it feels no particular sense of identity
with it. The owner of it feels no particular sense of indentity with it. The
user of it feels no particular sense of indentity with it. Hence, by
Phaedrus' definition, it has no Quality."
dmb resumes:
Despite the idea that SOM and technological alienation are a huge
hinderance, people still have this experience, this sense of identity that
dissovles the subject-object divide is still common enough to have slang
labels for it. Despite our inherited cultural blindspot, it survives in the
undercurrents, in the counter culture and in esoterica. You don't have to be
a bohemian artist or a hippie tripper to understand what these slang terms
refer to, but it certainly helps.
Mike recapped:
Scott's been insisting that the thinking intellect is both static and
dynamic - that thinking can be a synonym of Quality. Bo, meanwhile, insists
on a sharp divide between "intellect" and "intelligence", where "intellect"
should only be used to describe the peculiar brand of intelligence or
thinking that has arisen with the subject/object divide. Gav made the
interesting suggestion that intelligence, under Bo's dichotomy, could be the
synonym for Quality.
dmb says:
My guess is that we're trying to get at the difference between two forms of
consciousness, the little self and the Big self, both of which can have
experiences. It is said that the experience of the Big self can not be
expressed intellectually while the experience of the little self can be
expressed intellectually and is itself and intellectual construct. I suppose
we could say that both are forms of intelligence in some sense of the word,
but that also seems confusing. Its more like the Big self knows
no-thing-ness directly and the little self knows things abstractly.
Mike asked:
Now I'd like to ask a question to the majority on this list who accept
Pirsig's thesis that the subject/object divide is not fundamental to
reality: do you ever experience your thinking to be anything other than a
purely subjective activity? ...My suggestion is that, in replying "no" to
this question, I place myself in the 4th static level, and distinguish
myself from the type of intelligence that preceded intellect. My suggestion
is that the subject/object divide is fundamental to what we are. My
suggestion is that, at the 4th level, Quality manifests itself as separate
intelligences who feel that they are separate.
dmb says:
The basic idea behind "Thou art that" can be expressed in terms of an
indentity between subject and object. Again, in slang terms, the best pool
player in my college used to joke that the trick was to "be the ball". Don't
keep your eye on the ball, but BE the ball. I gotta say, he always won. In
any case, the idea is usually expressed in more grandiose terms so Thou art
that" is expanded beyond the materials in question, whether its a craftsman
or an athlete, so that it means something like "you are the world" or "you
are God". It is said that this ultimate identity is our true identity and
that the little self, when seen as the essential self or real self, is the
illusion to be overcome. Overcoming that illusion is what it means to be
enlightened. As I understand it, SOM and Western materialism have, in
effect, enshrined the illusion as the ultimate realtiy.
Finally, Mike said:
I retract any claim that social- or mythological-level human beings did not
distinguish between self or other. My claim now is that they differed from
us in their mode of thinking, in their intelligence. The
difference is that they did not entirely feel it to be "their" thinking,
"their" intelligence, at all. As Barfield contends, they felt it to be a
participation - not something that springs from inside some shadowy realm
inside their heads, but something more like an all-pervading Nous (mind)
that they could tap into. Or even gods talking to them. It's impossible to
generalise about all 3rd-level consciousness, as it must have varied quite a
lot. But I think we can be very specific about what distinguishes our
4th-level consciousness. In a word: subjectivity.
Finally, dmb replies:
Here I just point out that subjectivity, according to Pirsig, comes from the
myths, legends and grammar of our pre-historic ancestors and quote the
passage that spells it out. Interesting that Western religions assert a very
distinct separation between god and man as well as man and nature, while in
the East, with the doctrine of "Thou art that", says the opposite.
"The mythos-over-logos argument states that our rationality is shaped by
these legends, (the Greek myths, the Old testament, the Vedic Hymns and the
early legends of all cultures which have contributed) that our knowledge
today is in relation to these legends as a tree is in relation to the little
shrub it once was .....there's no difference in kind or even difference in
identity, only a difference in size.
Thus, in cultures whose ancestry includes ancient Greece, one invariably
finds a strong subject/object differentiation because the grammar of the old
Greek mythos presumed a sharp natural divison of subjects and predicates. In
cultures such as the Chinese, where subject-predicate relationships are not
rigidly defined by grammar, one finds a corresponding absence of rigid
subject-object philosophy.
I sincerely hope that helps.
dmb
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