Rich - great post. Thanks for pointing out how enmeshed we're all
getting in the free will thing and how the whole idea that if there is
no "I" then "I" can not have free will. It becomes a moot point (mu)
Nice whack on the side of the head post.
Shalom
David Lind
Trickster@postmark.net
rich pretti wrote:
>
> 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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