Hi Marco, Erin, Rick, Wim, David B. and all,
It's pretty hard to keep track of all the interwoven threads, so I feel that
I need to give an interim summary:
PART 1
******
MARCO (19 Jan 2002):
I think that self-awareness . . . is the very source of intellectual
patterns.
JONATHAN (28 Jan 2002)
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 of1a
self-awareness!!!!!
ERIN and RICK in seperate posts (29 Jan 2002) basically said that Descartes
was wrong.
MARCO (2 Feb 2002):
<<<I think we agree that the (in)famous Cartesian "Cogito" is very, very
intellectual.
[snip]
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.>>>
I don't think it's as simple as that. I think that Descartes idea was a
response to logical positivism. At his time in Europe, both religion and
science had become fully converted to the "out there" absolute reality idea,
even if they argued about what exactly it was. Ths philosophy may well trace
back to Plato - reality is there outside the cave, but being inside the cave
all we see is reflections. This same idea seems to be the basis of Hinduism
(Lila is what we see inside the cave, but true reality is outside).
Now along comes Descartes and turns the idea on its head, saying that the
only reality we really know is what is INSIDE the cave, more specifically in
our own minds.
Till now, nobody had really paid much attention to the subjective side of
things. I'm not saying that his philosophy of mind is what we should
accept - IMO that would be solipsism. However, in true dialectic fashion,
Descartes provided the antithesis to logical positivism. This is verr
important to the MoQ, which I see as the synthesis (and I'm sure that Pirsig
does).
[snip]
Part 2
****
JONATHAN [to Marco]
I am intrigued where you would put a concept like selfless
awareness in your scheme of things.
WIM's answer (29 Jan 2002)
...above the intellectual level, on its way to found a 5th level.
Wim, since I am already having trouble with the fourth level, I find your
suggestion of a fifth unappealing. I think that inflating the MoQ with extra
levels above and below Pirsig's 4 will cause clutter. However, I do
understand that you are alluding to the spiritual side of things.
DAVID B. (3 Feb 2002) is alluding to the same spirituality . . .
<<<. .the MOQ is an intellectual description of a mystical truth.
Pirsig spends no small amount of time and energy struggling with that.>>>
I've with David in the past about whether or not the MoQ is mystical. I
agree with everyone who says that intellectual description falls short of
capturing the entire essence (the Quality) of what is being described. As I
understand, David calls that mysticism - but I don't like all the other
connotations of the word. Thus, some of argument is semantic.
Where I have virtually no argument with David is on where SELF belongs:
DAVID B.
<<<individuality doesn't belong to any level exclusively, nor does
collectivity.
Individual "things" and larger collective systems appear at every level.>>>
MARCO's definition of self awareness (2 Feb 2002):
<<<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.>>>
Marco, I think that you are ignoring the "selves" associated with other
levels. AFAIK, atoms seem to be very well "aware" of their own abilities and
limitations. I'm not sure that you can say the same for humans!!! ;-). I
think you can say that the characteristics define the atom (and the human) -
that is the objective side of self-awareness.
MARCO also gives us the subjective side of awareness:
<<<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.>>> .
Marco can discuss awareness with me and everyone else, but we can't discuss
it with atoms (a consequence of being patterns at different levels?).
With the ease with which we can split awareness into a subjective and
objective side, it is tempting to protray it as a SOM concept, but I think
this is wrong. It may sound presumtuous, but I have a dramatic and simple
equation to propose:
AWARENESS = QUALITY.
To paraphrase RMP (ZAMM end of Ch. 19)
"This means [awareness] is not just the reult of collision between subject
and object. The very existence of subject and object themselves is deduced
from the [awareness]. The [awareness] is the case of the subjects and
objects, which are then mistakenly presumed to be the cause of the
[awareness]."
Marco, I think that the above explains why the self-awareness concept
appeals. But because the self/individual is not a concept confined to one
level, and neither is awareness, why should "self-awareness" be confined to
an intellectual level?
Maybe you provide your own explanation:
<<Note that "conscious"; indeed a synonymous of "self-aware".>>
I don't fully agree. The "hot stove" example from Lila explains why. A
person sitting on a hot stove will immediately react, while he may not react
the same way to a kettle sitting on the same hot stove. This show a clear
awareness of self and non-self that precedes consciousness. The key feature
in consciousness is not the self, but an "awareness of the awareness".
MARCO
<<<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]>>>
You neatly answer my hot stove example even before I give it!!!!!! . . . but
not really.
What you are calling selfless awareness if what I would call
"preintellectual self awareness" (an oxymoron by your terminology).
MARCO
<<<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.>>>
It's much more than that. The amoeba takes a hand in creating its own
environment - when it uses up the food and oxygen in one place, it moves
off. What you end up saying is that the amoeba is aware of itself and the
environment is aware of itself, with no real distinction. All this is more
"preintellectual self awareness".
Marco, the funny thing is, with all the various points where we diverge, I
still see the appeal of your position.
<<<About the unconscious mind, [snip] 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.>>>
Marco, since you consider self awareness and consciousness synonymous, might
I conlcude that you consider the unconscious to be selfless awareness
(rather than self-nonawareness)? Actually, it mightn't matter too much - I
think we agree that our hunt territory should be the quest for more
awareness of both self and non-self.
To paraphrase Rabbi Hillel (1st century BCE):
"If I [do not know] myself who will [know] me, but if I [know] only myself
then what am I, and if not now, when".
Thanks everyone,
Jonathan
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