At 11:16 PM -0800 2/10/00, John Beasley wrote:
>the question Pirsig fails to answer; how do we separate the saviours from the
>degenerates?
We don't, history does.
>The debate on free will seems to have moved from ugly shouting to muted
>semi- agreement to intellectual gymnastics, with ultimate stalemate as all
>you >patterns of value writhe in terminal confusion. How do I discriminate
>a quality >response from this lot?
You don't. You create one yourself and share it with us.
>Not that I am saying this is a pseudo question, as I do take fantasy to be
>a >meaningful term.
In what pseudo way?
>... The real cycle you're working on is a cycle called yourself."
>(ZMM Ch 26) Zen and the art of self maintenance! ZMM can be read as the
>>recovery of a self, and the subsequent recovery of relationships.
Not only can be, SHOULD be.
>That is the power of the novel, in my view.
I agree completely.
>That this seems not to fit with the metaphysics of Lila is really not a
>>problem.
I agree that I don't see any problem, but I see in your next sentence that
you do.
> Pirsig was sadly captured by a rather noxious meme which caused him to
>spend >umpteen years agonising over intellectual issues rather than get on
>with >working on himself.
That is so funny! I bet you don't like intellectuals very much John. If
you spent time with a lot of them you'd discover that the "working on one's
self" is exactly "agonising over intellectual issues". The self is a
creation of the intellect, doncha know. Figured that one out last night on
this very forum. Very proud of myself I am. Or proud of my excellent
choices in reading material... I think I read it on this forum somewhere.
Anyway, I digress.
You see, for a very intelligent person, these "intellectual memes" are of
more interest than any of the ego games that the socially created "self"
desires. I'm not an incredibly intelligent person myself, I'm just
intelligent enough to really appreciate the incredibly intelligent and I
notice a common thread that runs through genius - it gets obsessed with
intellectual constructs in a way that seems weird to us mere mortals, but
sometimes takes us into places we couldn't have imagined. I enjoy this
when it happens and I find it more enlightening to cheer and encourage when
I see that happening, rather than try and find ways to tear it down. You
feel differently, ok. Perhaps you don't like people thinking more smartly
than you do. I can understand that.
>Working on himself would have involved dialogue, something he obviously
>found >difficult. (I won't bore you with the quotes again relating to how
>he got >sidetracked from American Indians to anthropology and metaphysics
>- its in the >book.)
Many people find dialogue very difficult. When you're very smart there's
nobody to talk to. Not many would even tear their eyes off Opray Jesse
Raphael Cruise, to even make the attempt and if they did, they wouldn't
find much to hold their interest very long. Pardon my naivete, but I
assumed most people who were reading these words and had read Pirsig's
work, LIKED all that "intellectual stuff".
I agree it is a common trait of intellectuals to avoid the kind of snappy
dialogue you get on TV and in movies. They're real boring to read if
you're not used to 'em.
>There is a sense in which the 'little editor' self is a fantasy, and the
>>mystics are no doubt right to critique it, though sadly they have not
>been able >to provide me with experiences to convert me to their view.
Wouldn't it be cool if they could! Wouldn't it be neat if enlightenment
was something you could just go out and convert people with?? I'd dig it,
but I'm a lazy, instantly gratified amurican I am and I don't have much
time for all that spiritual discipline stuff.
>Like Owen, my experiences which I label self and freedom of choice are at
>least as real as my other experiences, and are often most powerful and
>>disturbing. Telling me they are illusory does not change that. I would
>like to >believe that I am just a part of the universe which is unfolding
>as it should, >but when I wake up in the night remembering some obligation
>left undone, it is >my clear impression that I, myself, am culpable.
That sounds good to me. I'll try it too. Next time somebody tries to
assign an arbitrary blame to me I'll tell them John B. is culpable.
Usually I myself avoid all blame. When I don't get something done... well
that was the OLD me, the brand new me in this moment doesn't take any
responsibility for the old me's promises, the new me is a whole new
creation founded in the very moment I apprehend and contemplate my "self".
It chooses from a rich course of memory and rationalization and perception
as to what to think about the past - sometimes my new me wants something
accomplished and wishes the old me had gotten it done, but since it didn't,
my new me has to figure out some way of getting the job done. Since my new
me doesn't like pain, it usually pawns off the job on the future me. Me's
are very clever creatures at work avoidance.
>And I worry how the injured party will in future treat 'me'. I am even so
>>self-bound that I wonder as I write these words how various 'others'
>involved >in this discussion will respond, and if 'I' will be flamed.
>Help! Release me from my nasty memes. Restructure my patterns, please.
>I long to be selfless, like you'all.
Do you really mean that?
Ok, lemme give you may mantra. Ummmmmm.....
Let me ask you a question sincerely. Did I flame you in this message so
far? Would you consider anything I've said "inflammatory"?
I guess I did point out that you must not spend much time with
intellectuals because you don't understand intellectuals and therefore must
not be one yourself and so I guess that could seem kinda like flaming... I
guess.
But I don't think of it as flaming. I think of it as a completely honest
reaction to what you said about a book I really, really like a lot. I'm
defending the guy who I feel sorry for. Sure, he's a famous and rich
author and you're just a guy on this mailing list, far as I know, but
something in me sees the lowly nerd being snubbed at the movie theater and
the school dance and the social gathering and on the field of athleticism
and just about everywhere humans derive pleasure from one another socially.
And I want to protect that ostracized nerd. I guess I identify with him
myself so I hear that persistent cry throughout ZAMM and Lila and in my
own life. So therefore when you are attacking something I identify with,
my "self" arises to do battle just like yours does. So does that give me
any moral credibility since "you started it". Let's ask Mom.
I guess I always smile a bit when I think of words being compared to
flames. Hold you hand over a real candle while I type BURN BURN BURN BURN
and see which hurts you the most. If words hurt us, then isn't it because
we assent to their truth? And if somebody shares a truth with us about
ourselves, we should thank them, not get mad at them. If they are wrong
about us, then how can that hurt? They just need to be corrected.
Don't worry about your word being rejected when it happens. That was the
old you. The new you is a lot smarter than that. You's keep on getting
smarter if they submit to the intellectual process willingly.
>Lyell Watson in 'Dark Nature' explores morality from an evolutionary
>>perspective, as I guess Pirsig does. Watson says "By its very nature, a
>complex >society creates calculating beings - ones who recognize the
>consequences of >their own behavior, who predict the response of others,
>and who measure the >net profit and loss in everything that happens." I'm
>happy to call this >selfhood.
The self is a socially created construct. Yup. Subject to investigation
by the intellect - a highly moral activity. It's more moral for a mind to
destroy a self than it is for a self to destroy a mind. Oops, but I'm
wading out amongst the obnoxious memes of the intellectual again. Sorry..
Let's go back to talking about you.
The really interesting pattern is the strong resistance of this social self
to the intellect. There is this huge struggle going on between the levels
of intellect and society and society feels threatened just like the
socially created self feels threatened by intellectual probings and
questionings. I find that fascinating. Don't you?
> Another useful term is agency. Agents are self conscious, and an important
>locus of value for an agent relates to this self. An agent conflates the
>>biological organism, the social actor, and the thinker, with their often
>>conflicting moralities, into a whole, a whole that acts, and whose
>actions have >consequences of great complexity.
Ok, I'll take your word for it since it's your term.
> New York is not an agent,
Would you mind defining an agent more fully then? Because New York
definitely conflates (I finally looked the word up, Struan!) the biological
organism, the social actor and the thinker with their often conflicting
moralities into a whole that acts and whose actions have consequences of
great complexity.
There must be a secret to agency you haven't yet revealed.
> hence the Giant analogy is flawed.
Not established till you tell us how they differ.
>In fact I would go so far as to assert that morals, hence quality, are
>>meaningless concepts without agents.
Secret agents, you mean. Since you haven't yet shared how the analogy is
flawed, you are holding a secret of agency and hence I can't figure out
whether you are even making sense to yourself. But fork over double oh
seven and I'll listen.
> Pirsig reifies "Quality".
Oh great. Another one to look up. Reify.
>Its some sort of 'ether' that somehow explains the universe, like
>phlogiston >explained fire before chemistry developed better explanations.
Yes I suppose to a fly, the boys can see the difference from the girls, but
damned if I can make it out from up here. Phlogoston, Quality, Tao, X,
God, Buddha, AhShanti, Riboflavin, Moss, whatever the hell you wanna call
it, it's all the same stuff.
Been there, done that. Bored with it. Quality is what we're discussing
today because the term does have meaning in the context of a whole (or
getting there) metaphysics. X doesn't. And so far the metaphysics of Secret
Agencyism don't do a thing for me neither. Whereas Quality does indeed
light my fuse.
But that's just me, I'm sure it's a stupid thing to fasten on and you're
quite correct. But what could you have been thinking when you signed up to
read posts on such a stupid term by such a stupid author?
>When Pirsig explores organismic quality with its
>focus on survival of the organism, or social quality, where right and
>wrong is >linked to actual agents, he is on the right track. He just gets
>carried away >with all his system building, and spoils a promising start.
Whew! These sorts of posts always baffle me completely. I just don't get
the point in criticism of the artist by the rabble. Is it a game of
oneupmanship whereby one's ego is boosted through identification and
transcendence of the elevated other? I mean what exactly is the point?
Carried away with system building? Did you read the book at all? The book
was ABOUT system building. A system building guy who reached the end of
his systemic rope and found... a whole 'nother system. No doubt it's not
an easy thing to contemplate to those of us still stuck in the old system,
and I don't think the paradigm you are born with lets you go easily, but I
don't understand how a person could actually read either of those books and
not see that "system building" is pretty much the whole point of 'em.
To me your criticism of the book is like a cave man irritated with all the
words on the paper he uses to wipe his butt. The System Building you
despise is pretty much the entire point. The internal dialogues of a man
wrestling with the old systems that no longer fit new knowledge.
>There is little doubt that the self is an emergent arising from
>consciousness >and intellect as these have evolved in humans.
You can get real wrapped in a hurry in the question of whether the self
arises from consciousness or is it the other way around... I think Pirsig
was wisest to leave the question alone. Understanding of the proper
relationship between self and consciousness isn't something you discover by
focusing upon the proper relationship between self and consciousness. It's
something that arises when you're looking elsewhere. So I don't feel
exactly comfortable contributing to degeneracy by talking about it. But I
can go along with your intellectual construct as seeming about as useful as
any other... so yeah, the self arises emergently from consciousness which
is primarily intellectual. Seems that way to me too, and I can't see any
logical alternatives. Basic agreement.
>Self awareness can be painful, and it is not surprising many people would
>>rather escape this pain.
Now we're getting to the question I'm most interested in, since it seems to
be the major force blocking the evolution of intellect.
Why? Why is it so painful to be aware of one's self? I agree with you in
an observedly empirical way, many people do indeed shrink back from knowing
themselves. Why is this? I honestly can't figure it out. When the choice
is presented to me, I'd rather know myself completely and if somebody else
reveals more of my self to my mind for analsysis, I'm always grateful to
them. If there are flaws, well I can only change the flaws that I know
about so it helps to have them pointed out. But when I try and return the
favor I'm usually rejected. There's this fear in it that I don't quite
comprehend what its rational basis is. I assume it must have a
non-rational basis. Can you talk about it?
>Self is indeed marked by separation.
That's one clue as to how we know it's not ultimately real.
> The really big question is whether separation is best handled by avoiding
>it, >seeking to numb down the awareness that goes with it, and seeking
>solace in >mystic union, or by accepting separation as real, the mind as
>real in its own >domain, choice as real as it seems to be, and moving on
>to explore contact, >dialogue and encounter, respecting my self as much as
>those other selves with >whom I appear to share a planet. I like the
>thought of transcending the ego
>constriction of my self, and I'll let you know when I find the way, but I
>don't >wish to, nor can I, simply deny my experience of self as an agent,
>whose >choices count.
>John B
Well I agree you can't deny your experience of self. If you try it will
come up a with a hundred thousand different assertions to defend itself.
You can analyze it, in fact I'd advise everybody to do so. Know Thyself
is advice that can't go wrong. It's a social construct, a mental creation
and thus open to mental probing and analysis. I think if you sincerely want
to transcend the self you need to grasp it first.
The preceeding message is brought to us by the first Z in ZAMM. The whole
purpose of Zen is to get the student to grasp his slippery self in his
hands and examine it. Be my guest. Personally I'm lazy and would rather
just admit the thing doesn't exist without having to go through all that
disciplinary rigamarole. I'm a lazy westerner I am.
John C
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:00:38 BST