3WD
PS: I still think we might all just be on a "solipsist journey" not in
the sense that "nothing is real but the self" but that each individual
"self" makes up so much of what it calls "reality" along the way that it
might as well be.
Great insight! This is indeed what I have been arguing for some time. If we
look at recent studies of visual perception, the evidence seems to indicate
that more than half of what we perceive actually comes from within, from the
memories of past visual experience, and the projections that future
experiences will follow predictable patterns. (I don't have references -
you'll have to trust my memory.)
And this is in fairly technical experiments where there is no great
emotional investment, unlike much of real life.
As a student of Gestalt therapy, I became convinced that Fritz Perls was
right when, as an old man, he opined that 90% of what we experience is
projection.
So at one level each self is 'self created', hence inhabits a unique
universe, or more correctly co-creates one.
But that is not the whole story. There is still the remaining 10% which
reflects a reality outside the self. The problem for ideologies such as
Pirsig's is how to discriminate between the two. This is a more fundamental
problem than how to discriminate between the saviours and the degenerates,
which most participants on this forum seem to find difficult enough. I find
the saviour/degenerate polarity almost laughable in its crudity. I much
prefer the Gestalt understanding that I am capable of anything human, from
the most sublime to the most evil and perverse.
Ken Wilber offers a conceptual scheme to allow the discussion to proceed,
with his concept of a holarchic universe where everything is part of a
holarchy, as a whole in one context, as a part in another. His levels are
also a useful understanding, and particularly his contention that it is not
possible to jump levels. It is the element of incompleteness as a part at
any level that prods us into the often painful business of making the
adjustment to the next highest level, in his model. Add to this the
contention that higher levels are not explicable from lower levels, and we
have a passable framework for understanding. Wilber further acknowledges
that different aspects of each individual follow different paths, so that my
aesthetic growth may show no correspondence with my moral growth. (Hence
great art can be created by abominable people.)
I think Pirsig was right in assuming that at the biological level all
experiences are experiences of quality, even if some of the content is
coming from internal sources. Brains are quality seeking or avoiding (since
quality can be positive or negative at this level) mechanisms. But the
emergence of human brains, with language embedded in culture, has greatly
complicated the basic biological framework. This allows for much more
complex feedback loops, which explain some of the more bizarre aspects of
our behaviour. We will not only die for a couple of brothers or a clutch of
cousins, as biological logic might support, but commonly for the most
rat-bag causes. Indeed, the more 'stupid' some of these ideologies and
faiths are, the more willing some people seem to be to sacrifice all for
them. Talk of self created 'reality'.
To understand how reality might be separated from overwhelming fantasy, it
is important to study how fantasy is created, its role in our lives, and how
it can be identified and diminished. The most useful theoretical account, by
far, and also quite readable, is Ken Wilber's 'No Boundary'. There is also
useful material in the second half of the original 'Gestalt Therapy' by
Perls, Hefferline and Goodman. (The theoretical treatment was Goodman's.)
But most of this material is useful only to a degree, to assist in
separating neurotic fantasy from fantasy acceptable to the society. Not that
I see these as identical. Neurotic fantasy is often overtly hurtful to the
individual, and those around him/her. Most therapists are content to reduce
neurotic suffering to 'ordinary unhappiness', as Freud termed it.
To take the really big step and address the fundamental boundary between
self and other, from which the subject/object divide naturally arises, is
not easy. This is in fact the mystic's task, and while in some situations it
can occur without preparation or delay, as John Wren-Lewis testifies, more
often it is a lengthy journey or transformation in which the goal posts keep
shifting, and the task keeps changing, until the recognition that has for so
long been sought simply arises, and shows that the seeking was in itself
immaterial (but still necessary). This path is what Pirsig writes about, but
offers no real help in achieving. He has identified the fatal weakness in
'value free' science, and points to value inherent in personal experience,
which he calls quality. The mystic understanding is that the subject/object
divide is overcome through immersion in this realm of value, without filters
or barriers to what is. Pirsig, unfortunately, gets caught up in trying to
conceptualise a system that can include this realm of value, and while some
of his ideas are useful, the outcome is just theology. It is talking about
value from the outside, and therefore misses the essential core of it.
So, while I agree that each individual self does in fact construct much of
their own reality, there is always some contact with reality outside the
self, and this allows the reduction of fantasy. But the subject/object
fantasy, far from being a simple 'change of belief system' pushover, is the
most difficult thing in the world to change. Even experiences that give an
insight into how it might be without this division are transient, and do not
necessarily make any difference to achieving this transformation. While I
have no experiential basis for claiming that any path to 'enlightenment' is
practical, the Diamond approach of Hameed Ali seems to incorporate the best
of traditional mystic understanding with modern psychological insights and
techniques. 'What Really Matters: Searching for Wisdom in America', by Tony
Schwartz, looks at the contenders. 'The Point', by A.H. Almaas, offers in
in-depth look at the process. But no book can do the work, and this is why
getting stuck with ideas about transformation is simply reading the thirty
thousand page menu without the meal, in Pirsig's metaphor.
I've rattled on too long again...
John B
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