Rog,
It's always most delightful for me to see you've replied to a post I've
enjoyed writing. I think we're on quite similar wavelengths... we just have
to work through the troughs and eddies...
>>>[Rog] Quit spreading such evil thots. EXPERIENCE HAS US!!!! :-)
Yes yes! Reading lengthy posts of mine from the past, I find that I will
write as if "I" have conscious experience, make choices, etc... and then
somewhere in the work see that I stressd that "EXPERIENCE HAS US!!!". Pirsig
mentions that "substance", "I" and "You", "causality", etc... are words
which we can use so long as we keep in mind that we are using them wrong.
Huh.
This led me to identify the "Self" with Quality. And I mean an identity.
If this is correct, then I have to state that my "self" is NOT my thoughts.
Sorry Descartes. Let me rephrase:
"I think in French and I drink water, therefore I am"
"I am what?"
"I am the Experience of the mental and physical events here and now"
>>>[Rog] No. He says the physical world YOU KNOW is a thought pattern. He
>>>does not deny external reality, there is a big difference. He says what
>>>is fundamentally unknowable and pre-intellectual is DQ. DQ is not a
>>>concept, it is to borrow Keith's term, a place holder for linguistic
>>>reference.
Right. Thank you. "I can see cleeearlly, now..."
>>>[Rog] Closer. Let me clarify that Pirsig would not claim that the world
>>>popped into existence, he would say that the concept of the world popped
>>>into existence. All four levels pop in together out of DQ --
>>>pre-intellectual pure experience.
Good. Quality is that which "causes" the subjective awareness of the
object. What I think Pirsig means is that Quality is that which cause the
"thought" of the "thing", right? Well, I am now understanding "subjective"
NOT to be those thoughts going on inside my head, like P does, but the
Dynamic (not-spatiotemporally definable) ongoing Awareness/Experience of
those thoughts. And "that which experiences" is the Self (capital SSS), and
the Self.... well that is Quality, of course. Reality and Morality. Every
breath you take (you TAKE, because you are not the breath, not the lung, not
the language nor the thought of it all), is a moral event and must be
weighed on the ethical scale. Moral judgements are the fundamental
groundstuff of the world, yes?
>>>Now shout! Hear the loud sound.....Now listen to the
>>>experience....birds....wind.....tourists....AND AN ECHO. and birds
>>>...and traffic...and echo...and tourists and wind and a dissappearing
>>>echo. I suggest that sq is to experience what the echo was in the above.
>>>It is a fainter, distorted version related to prior experience. It too
>>>is pure experience, but it is related to past experiences. Pirsig calls
>>>DQ 'the cutting edge' and sq 'the wake'. When thought of literally, they
>>>suggest the same relationship. So maybe Pirsig didn't miss it.
Ah-hah! That's the ticket! Yes... I think can accept this concept now:
"You normally think of something as either "real" or "unreal", but not
"more" or "less" real. Well, things and thoughts are more or less real. This
is because Reality is Quality. And Quality can be "better" or "worse".
Obviously, there are grades/degrees of Quality. Some things are better than
others... but what's the betterness? Round and round the wheels go...
Better corresponds to More, and Worse to Less - Real, that is, which means
Good. Now this I really like. The Past Exists. Yessirrebob. It doesn't
exist as MUCH as the present, but you better believe it exists. Memory is
vision of the past. The further you "look" back, the fuzzier it gets. The
further you look with your eyes, the fuzzier towards the horizon (BB?).
Right-O.
This is why Ram Dass, Zen, Krishnamurti, etc... keep telling you to "get
with the NOW!". Because it's best. Not stale. Most real. On sail."
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall...
...And this little platypi went to market.
Rich
--PS - Rog: Do you still live in Chicago? Providing my truckpattern coheres,
I plan to drive right near there to visit a friend. I'm thinking of leaving
next Saturday morning and coming back by Wednesday afternoon. I live 3 hours
east of Detroit. If you're free, and you'd like to, I'll you a beer (or
whatever) and we could haggle over the MOQ a bit. My schedule is,
perpetually, flexible.
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