Dear Scott,
You wrote 5/9 22:59 +0000 about a big gaping hole in the MoQ, but it is not
clear to me what that hole is according to you.
What do you mean with 'Pirsig ignoring the many/one problem'?
Maybe Pirsig ignored consciousness, but is that a problem? Maybe we don't
need it?
You know I tend to consider consciousness to be -formulated loosely- the
difference between social and intellectual patterns of values. A better way
for me to explain phenomena usually associated with consciousness, its
content or the lack of it is to describe intellectual patterns of values as
patterns of motivations for human activity and to describe social patterns
of values as patterns of behavior that can be acquired and trained.
I was intrigued by the idea you derive from Plato/Kuhlewind that 'ideas
think through me'.
Could we say
- that intellectual patterns of values motivate our actions through us,
- that social patterns of values guide (not determine) part of our behavior,
- that biological patterns of values guide another ('hard-wired') part of
our behavior and
- that inorganic patterns of values guide the rest of our behavior as mass
and energy possessing entities?
What makes you say that 'the ego is basically a social construct' rather
than a construct of intellectual patterns of values (as I would say)? I'd
say that social patterns of values only create differentiation of roles, but
don't break the identification of humans with the group they are part of.
I am wondering what you want with the Kuhlewindian/Barfieldian/Steinerian
distinction between change in consciousness from 'outside' and from
'inside'? That distinction becomes totally meaningless to me if I try to
translate it to my concept of consciousness as the difference between
intellectual and social patterns of values. I find it hard to square you
making this distinction with your earlier objections against Gary's
internal/external (metaphysical) distinction.
Maybe you are referring to another type of consciousness that is more than
or beyond being the difference between intellectual and social patterns of
values because it reaches 'up' to DQ? Maybe DQ doesn't so much operate
'through us'/through 'ego' (as static patterns of values do), but rather
'becomes our identity' if we concentrate on 'immediate experience'?
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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