Roger, Diana, Elephant, Myer Nore and all Moffers
I'd suggest a lateral drift in Pirsig's thought, in order to investigate the
RMP's concept of the SELF.
« As one lives on the surface of the empty ocean day after day after day and
sees it sometimes huge and dangerous, sometimes relaxed and dull, but
always, in each day and week, endless in every direction, a certain
understanding of one's self begins slowly to break through, reflected from
the sea, or perhaps derived from it.
This is the understanding that whether you are bored or excited, depressed
or elated, successful or unsuccessful, even whether you are alive or dead,
all this is of absolutely no consequence whatsoever. The sea keeps telling
you this with every sweep of every wave. And when you accept this
understanding of yourself and agree with it and continue on anyway, then a
real fullness of virtue and self-understanding arrives».
[RMP, Cruising Blues and their Cure].
Ok. Cruising Blues is not Lila, and I don't want to take it as a Holy Text, but
it seems to me that these words are not from one who denies the *real* existence
of the Self. Actually, the matter of the paper is the self, in the end. He asks
for a new (more inclusive) understanding: what you are, it comes from a
continuous confrontation with the sea, the sky, the air, the boat. In the same
paper, he writes:
«An alternative - and better - definition of reality can be found by naming
some of its components ...air...sunlight...wind...water...the motion of
waves...the patterns of clouds before a coming storm».
We give names to the *components* (sic!) of reality and we receive existence and
consciousness only interacting with reality. And even the *self* is just another
name we give to one component of reality. The only (intellectual) problem is
that when we say *self* as well as when we say *sea*, we just *describe* the
existence, leaving aside the *interaction*.
Another point of the paper has a lot to say about it:
«Old gear that has been through a storm or two without failure becomes more
precious than it was when you bought it because you know you can trust it.
The same becomes true of fellow crewmen and ultimately becomes true of
things about yourself».
It's IMO clear that, when we just apply the rational tools of S/O thinking, the
*interaction* we miss is at least as important as the described *existence*.
The old gear is always more than what we can describe, because every interaction
it has with the storm and with us (including our description of it) gives value
to the gear; that means: every interaction with reality changes reality; that
means reality is a changing.
I think Myer Nore tried to express a similar point with his eggs/chicken post.
I'd just say that the egg/chicken relation goes along with the concepts of time
and causation. And actually at the beginning of Myer's message there's written:
"DQ is always first". IMO there's no time relation. And there's not any other
relation of consequence (logical or whatever else). DQ and sQ are always
coexisting in Reality.
In a recent message to the Italian forum, Andrea Sosio wrote:
"The Yin Yang symbol is very interesting. It does not mean simply that opposites
are complementary (as many IMO misinterpret); it means that they transform each
to the other. It's a rotational -not static- symmetry".
DQ and sQ is a dichotomy we use to analyze reality. Like Yin and Yang, reality
is the ever present event of continual transformation of DQ to sQ and of sQ to
DQ.
==========
Roger wrote:
"However, I also agree with Marco that the self is real. After all,
concepts and patterns are real. Even fictions -- even IMPOSSIBLE fictions
-- are real".
This is important, even more than it seems to be. A simple example:
If I'm alone inside a firing building, it is obvious that the best action is to
go out as soon as possible. Let's imagine there are two doors; on the first one
there's the caption: "Exit". Upon the second one there's another caption: "To
the Gasoline tank".
Of course, we all will open the first door. Why? Is the caption reality or
fiction? It could be that there's a mistake, and the right door is not the first
one. Do we need to open all the doors? No. We behave according to the caption,
and that's perfectly *moral*.
What do I mean? Simply that the names we give to reality are real. We
perceive the *caption*, and we choose. Not only: we can only perceive
*captions*. What is the heat of the fire? A biological *caption*.
Another example can be found in our PCs: we have links on our desktops, and
they point to "objects"... but if we go on analyzing we find only a stupid
array of "0"s and "1"s. But if I want to write a new post to MF, I just click a
link.
Elephant wrote:
"So it seems to me, in Sum, that RMP's response to the Freewill/determinism
conflict is not to evade the question or restate it in other terms or claim
to have 'dissolved' it, but a straight frontal-attack on determinism and
it's metaphysical foundations. A straight attack on the metaphysics of
determinism and a defence of freewill, together with some new Moqish
metaphysical foundations about the primary reality of the Dynamic, and the
role of freely choosing Humans in creating the Static
Or so it seems to me - and I do hope I'm not alone.".
I think I'm not with you. I don't subscribe to the idea that Dynamic is a
Primary Reality and that Humans create the Static. The idea that our static
concepts are illusions, while reality is simply DQ is IMO a big mistake. Nothing
is completely static. Nothing is completely dynamic. We create static patterns
(the law of gravity), and then we project and build satellites. And the value
(Quality, Reality, What it really is) of the law of gravity is that satellites
don't fall! We create geometry, then we project and build the Golden Gate
bridge. We write "Exit" on the door, then we use that way to go out.
The creation of the Static is the way of evolution. The process is not linear,
so there are huge buildings (like the Ptolemaic system, or the Dinosaurs, or the
Roman Empire) that will be destroyed to build better configurations on their
ruins. But Morality is not the immediate perception of DQ: universe could not
evolve that way. Morality is to start from the best static step we can use. We
interact with reality thanks to existing static patterns, which are like nails
on the rock we are climbing. Like the gear after the storm, those nails will be
more valuable as they will demonstrate they work and help our ascension.
=========
So, what about the self and the will? The self is a static intellectual
concept, and we can well say that we humans have created it. So, there were
no selves billions years ago. When the first intelligent human created the
intellectual pattern "Hey, if I think that I want to move my arm, I can do
it!", the first *self* was born.
We can analyze it to discover if it really *exists*, but like in the example of
the link on my PC desktop, we'll just find a stupid array of protons and
electrons. So, like Pirsig says about Quality, we can try to see what happens
if we subtract the Self from the world. It would be the same to give or receive
money. No difference between eating and looking at someone else who's eating.
No problem to receive injuries, as injuries are against me - the illusory Self.
No, sorry, the world could not work very well. The self exists as we have
created this "caption" and it works.
The will? Idem. To a certain extent, it works. If we analyze it we can well find
an absurd array, like the one Diana offers:
Diana wrote:
" Is the first act, my mental act of will, a voluntary or involuntary act of
mind? Whether you answer yes or no it leads to absurdities. If I cannot help
willing to pull the trigger, it would be absurd to describe my pulling it as
'voluntary'. But if my will, or choice, to pull the trigger is voluntary then it
must arise from a prior volition.
ie.
-1. My mind willing my mind to will my finger to pull the trigger.
And that must also arise from a prior volition.
ie.
-2 . My mind willing my mind to will my mind to will my mind to will my finger
to pull the trigger.
And so on ad infinitum. "
Yes, this way the concept of Free Will is as absurd as the idea that an array of
"0" and "1" expresses my thoughts. The MOQ solution is that every step can't be
completely statically identical to the preceding one, as DQ is always there to
change things. So when my mind is willing... my mind is not alone. It's
interacting with memories and perceptions and expectations, and finally this
interaction is DQ at work..... This is Free Will.
It could be it's not a good solution, but, after all, all we can do is to find
a better mistake.
thanks for Your attention
Marco
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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