From: Scott Roberts (jse885@earthlink.net)
Date: Sun Oct 03 2004 - 17:16:17 BST
Simon,
>
[Scott prev:]> >The MOQ says that I am a set of inorganic, biological,
social, and
> >intellectual SQ, capable of responding to DQ. I disagree with this
> >definition, preferring to think of myself as a locus of DQ/SQ
interaction.
>
[Simon:]> What's the difference?
[Scott:] The difference is that I consider the Dynamic to be a part of me,
and not external to me.
>
[Scott prev:]> >In my view, the MOQ definition is inadequate to the mystery
of the self, in
> >particular, it seems to me overly dualistic, that there is me here, and
DQ
> >coming from other than me.
>
[Simon:]> Both 'me' and 'other than me' are static differentiations
therefore neither
> can apply to DQ. The MOQ is not dualistic in this sense i.e., the SOM
sense.
[Scott:] It is the MOQ that says that DQ is not-me, so it must be
presupposing a distinction into me and not-me.
In any case, the DQ/SQ split is also a differentiation. The error of the
MOQ (and of SOM, and all nominalisms) is to see differentiation
(categorizing, conceptualizing, etc.) as something that only intellectual
humans do, and as being a static covering up of something prior and pure
and dynamic. Instead, one should, in my view, see differentiation as
dynamic and creative. Of course, one should not become attached to any one
pattern of differentiation.
>
[Scott prev:]> Also, I think it denies creativity, and the
> >ability to make choices, on the part of the self.
> >
> >But since I consider the self to be an irreducible mystery, one should
not
> >think my definition solves any of your questions.
>
[Simon:]> The self is no mystery to Buddhism, it was rejected thousands of
years ago
> as a meaningful philosophical concept. Have you ever experienced your
> 'self'? It only 'appears' when you try and write something down to
describe
> experience.
[Scott:] It's not that simple. Buddhist logic shows that one cannot assume
that the self has inherent self-existence, which is the rejection you
mentioned. On the other hand, one cannot say "I don't exist" without being
self-contradictory. In the end, the Buddhist resorts to the tetralemma: one
cannot say that the self exists, one cannot say that the self does not
exist, one cannot say that the self both exists and does not exist, and one
cannot say that the self neither exists nor does not exist.
Or as Nishida Kitaro might put it: the self exists by negating itself, and
negates itself by affirming itself. This is an example of his logic of
contradictory identity. If one ignores it, for example, by just rejecting
the concept of self, one falls into nihilism, and not the Buddhist "Middle
Way". The Middle Way is about keeping one's thinking in an undecidable
state, neither rejecting nor affirming the self.
>
[Scott prev:] > "DQ/SQ interaction" is
> >just another name for the mystery. My complaint with the MOQ definition
is
> >that in "solving" the mystery, it reintroduces dualism, if not theism.
>
[Simon:]> Dualism, maybe, but not in an SOM way. Theism? Nonsense. The MOQ
is as
> theistic as Buddhism i.e., not at all.
[Scott:] I am aware that Pirsig considers the MOQ to be, as he puts it,
anti-theistic, not just atheistic. Of course he is referring to theism as a
belief in a personal God, and there is none of that in the MOQ. However,
unless mysteries like "where does intellect come from" get better answers
than "DQ created it", the MOQ verges on the theistic.
- Scott
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