Hi Jonathan, Bo, Platt, Diana (well, who knows... ? ), DMB, Maggie, Erin,
Andrea, all
(and sorry for the length)
Jonathan:
First Marco, I want to thank you for taking the trouble to review my (1998
"3+1" message) [...] I claimed that all Pirsig's examples of Intellectual
Patterns may perhaps better be considered patterns in the other 3 levels.
Marco:
My point is that even society can be largely considered 2+1, and biology 1+1
as well. There must be something new in every level . That is what I have to
look for in order to understand it: the "+1" of the intellectual level.
MARCO (Previous)
«Well, I completely agree that intelligence and thinking (and emotions, I
add) fall nicely into the biological realm... and so on, but I don't think
that in your 3+1 scheme (where intellect is purely "abstraction") nothing is
left out. I think that self-awareness can't fall in any of the 3 lower
levels, and that at the contrary it is the very source of intellectual
patterns.»
J:
Marco, not too long ago, we seemed to agree with each other that atoms could
be considered aware [...] I was extremely irked when someone started talking
about SELF awareness, which I considered had no place in a discussion about
atoms.
M:
Agree. The supposed awareness of atoms was in that thread (more or less)
their ability to behave in an (even dim) dynamic way. The ability of
choosing, evolving, following DQ. It is an awareness of the environment,
something that it is clearly working at the biological level (the famous
amoeba). And that is IMO probably working (I repeat, in a very dim way) even
at the inorganic level.
J:
I now feel the same discomfort as you bring up the concept again, claiming
it to be the "very source of intellectual patterns".
M:
Yet, my fixation on self-awareness originates just during that period. When
I mention self-awareness, I'm referring to a very down-to-earth concept: I
mean the ability (IMO only human, or at most of few superior mammals) to
realize our individual skills and limits and characteristics. And become,
partly, protagonists of our life. In other words, I think we could call it
the awareness of individuality, our emancipation from society.
In my recent post to Platt, I've quoted the Cruising Blues conclusion, where
Pirsig clearly shows that self-awareness comes from a continuous facing our
past, our mistakes, our experiences and our memories. It is IMO something we
have to learn: we were not born aware of our individuality, we have to
become individuals. Erin says it clearly: "self-awareness is a gradual
development and when the 4/5 yr old passes the theory of mind tasks is a
huge step in ego development". Yes, a huge step in a walk that will last
all our life.
It is something no one can really teach me, that is like to say it is not a
social skill. You can't teach me who I am, I can't teach you who you are.
At most, we can exchange methods about how to face our individuality and
improve/refine our knowledge of it. We teach our children they have to find
their self. In this sense, the social context is a support... not more.
Nevertheless, in order to develop it, we need the rest of the world. Our
family, the motorcycle, the boat, the sea, the sun, our job ... are all
occasions for that. Using your 3+1 formula, here is what I was looking for!
My "self" is the "+1"... that has sense only in relation with the other 3...
J:
I think we have to scrutiise this concept, starting by splitting the "aware"
for the "self".... Self only has meaning when paired with its counterpart,
non-self. It is not immediately clear to me where one ends and the other
begins.... It now seems to me that the self/non-self dichotomy is at the
heart of the infamous subject-object split . . . . . . and also the
Cartesian mind-matter duality - surely "Cognito Ergo Sum" is the very
essence of self-awareness!!!!!
M:
I think we agree that the (in)famous Cartesian "Cogito" is very, very
intellectual.
In chapter 22 of Lila, Pirsig sketches a brief timeline of intellectual
development:
«the day Socrates died to establish the independence of intellectual
patterns from their social origins. Or the day Descartes decided to start
with himself as ultimate source of reality. These were days of evolutionary
transformation».
I don't think the "Cogito" is the *very essence* of self-awareness, I think
it is the apex of a certain line of thought (the mainstream western thought)
that *originates from* self awareness. It is the (IMO wrong) idea of the
self as *source* or *starting point* of all reality.
J:
Thus Marco, if you want to have an intellectual level with self awareness as
its source, I think you have to go with Bodvar's SOLAQI idea (that the
Subject-Object division is the mother of all intellectual patterns).
M:
I'm glad you write it. The hardest wars are often between similar peoples...
I've been fighting Bo's idea so many times exactly
'cause our positions are similar!
Where is the difference? According to Bo, the S/O separation IS the
intellectual level, and he doesn't see other possibilities of intellectual
expression. Thus, he has to create a fifth level to put there all what
doesn't fit with the logic of the separated self. Even the MOQ itself! In my
opinion at the contrary SOM, that is indeed the main application since 3000
years in the west, is about the objective clear separation of the self from
the rest of universe, but other ways of intellectual expression are about
finding the role of the self in relation with universe.
The artistic effort, for example, is largely about investigating this
relation. Platt once offered this definition of Art from the American
Heritage Dictionary:
«The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movement,
or other element in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically
the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium»
(Platt, 15 dec. 2000 to MD)
Note that "conscious"; indeed a synonymous of "self-aware".
I don't know much about the Eastern thought (as well as many here, I guess)
but I think it is not exactly about denying the self, rather is about
denying the concept of a self separated from the rest of universe. Try to
tell a Japanese he is stupid, I doubt he can be indifferent to that. We have
not Eastern members here, but we had Diana living in the Far East, who once
wrote:
«Also from my own experience I fail to understand why anyone would think
that the Chinese language doesn't distinguish between subjects and objects.
(as claimed in ZMM) Chinese distinguishes subjects and objects by word
order, ie "I bite dog" is different from "dog bite I »
(Diana, 9 dec. 2000 to MF)
My readings of the Eastern thought are few. I'm waiting my Banyan tree to
grow up :-) so I will have the chance to read more and meditate under its
shade. Jokes aside, "Zen in the art of Archery", "Siddharta" ... however
western writers. My impression is that in both cases they tell how it is
good to surpass the illusion of a separated self. And I agree. The self is
not separated as nothing is separated. It is not the starting point, it is
a sometimes useful intellectual static pattern of value, derived from
experience. The snapshot of a process. I concur with Andrea: "each shape we
take through the years is a manifestation of what we really are, and no such
manifestation tells who we really are, per se".
In few words, my point is that the self has been the first expression of
intellect, and it is still one basic ingredient of intellect. It is a
necessary concept in the SOMish self/universe separation; it is investigated
by artists; eastern thinkers have a different approach, in order to achieve
a sort of fusion between the self and universe or to surpass the self...
But the common denominator is always the self!
J:
On the other hand, this focus on the self (the individual) in the
intellectual level has its own dissenters. It's nice to have David B. back
with us posting on this point, and another pleasant surprise to have Maggie
resurfing to pick up on it.
DAVID B.
«The social level is about society, right? Its about the "giant", the
collective, right? And this is contrasted with the intellectual level, which
is about the individual, right?
No. Its not right. This is one of the main misconceptions about the 3rd
level. Collectivity and individuality both exist in both levels. The
scientific method, for example, absolutely requires many sets of eyeballs
and peer review....»
MAGGIE
«I think it's the second most important
application of MoQ, after the idea of DQ itself.»
M:
Saying that collectivity and individuality coexist at the intellectual level
is perfectly sensible. As well as life. And marble stones. As I've recently
explained with my "birth" idea, intellect has all lower patterns available.
And especially society is the testing environment of intellectual patterns:
"A science in which social patterns are of no accounts is as unreal and
absurd as a society in which biological patterns are of no account. It's an
impossibility". (Lila, chapter 24)
OTOH, DMB talks of the Brujo, saying that he has been an example of
individuality within a society. Of course, we can read everything as we
want, but IMO the Brujo episode is exactly about the emancipation from
society. And about a society that has to deal with it: take it or die. In
the end, it's a game where both society and individual gain value. But the
main player of the game, the Brujo, starts as an individual that is all but
socially focused.
I don't see how individuality exists at the social level. There are *roles*.
Social patterns work well thanks to these roles: a chief for example is very
useful. But from the social viewpoint the chief is not an individual with a
critical viewpoint on society. It's the right guy in the right place, and
its function has sense only as long as the chief leads the group to the
common good. When the chief
eventually develops an own individuality... here we enter the intellectual
level.
By the way, DBM. Your etymology: " inform (form from within)" is to say the
least questionable. The Latin "In" has nothing to do with "from within"...
it is at the contrary more akin to "To, Into". So "Inform" means simply "to
give form to". That "from within" gives the whole thing a subjective smell
I'd avoid. I'm just meaning that creating social information is not
necessarily an individual process. At the contrary it seems to me it is
often a cooperative process.
J:
Note that unlike me David B. still remains faithful to the concept of an
intellectual level, but this no longer focuses on the individual/self.
Instead, David tends to a mystical slant (is that a fair assessment David?).
I don't want to reopen the mystical vs. non mystical can of worms, but do
have an observation about certain "mystical" philosophies, particularly
those of the orient. While Marco focuses on self awareness, Hindu and
Buddhist mystics aim at a state of SELFLESS awareness (Nirvana, Zen).
Thus Marco, I am intrigued where you would put a concept like selfless
awareness in your scheme of things.
M:
About the Eastern thinking I've already answered, and I can't say more. I'm
still waiting for Eastern people here, and their absence is probably the
black hole in a forum devoted to bridge West and East.
I think that self awareness is the source of the intellectual activity, and
also that the human being does not begin with it, nor it ends with it. As
I've written above, there is awareness at every level, so we are selfless
(preintellectual) aware in our social, biological and even inorganic
patterns of behavior. [These behaviors are IMO preintellectual AND static,
though this is an intellectual statement]
About the unconscious mind, I'd say that just like the Newton gravitation,
it was not intellectually existing before the XXth century. Of course it is
very sensible to state that our personality is not made only of what we are,
or can be, aware of. That is like to say that our self-awareness is not all
what we are, and also that we don't know all what we are. Yet, we try to
investigate the unknown. The unconscious is an hunt territory for our
intellectual quests.
Many thanks for reading
Marco
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