From: Paul Turner (paul@turnerbc.co.uk)
Date: Sun Jun 12 2005 - 13:34:37 BST
Ham,
--- You could have said: Yes, I believe evolution occurred independently
--- prior
--- to our beliefs. (That would have been more direct.)
Paul: Yes, I believe material evolution occurred independently of and prior
to our beliefs.
As stated, it
--- leaves
--- me wondering what you really believe. You make your answer contingent
--- on
--- the mutual consensus of science and "MOQ static levels", although I
--- don't
--- see that the latter provides any supportive data or insight on
--- evolution.
Paul: My answer *is* contingent on science, as are the MOQ static levels.
--- Despite your claim that "an individual's thought is as unique as one's
--- DNA",
--- you don't seem to give much credence to personal opinion -- even your
--- own!
Paul: The analogy of the uniqueness of one's beliefs to DNA was supposed to
point out that almost all of our beliefs are inherited (culturally as
opposed to genetically, obviously) but also that, as the <1% of DNA is to
our physical make-up, because of idiosyncrasy the sum total of one's beliefs
are still unique.
However, that is probably the limit of the usefulness of that analogy.
---
--- "Collective consciousness", by the way, is a postmodern twist on Carl
--- Jung's
--- theory of consciousness which distinguished the "collective unconscious"
--- from the subconscious realm of mental activity common to all human
--- beings.
--- This concept became a key element in Freud's development of psycho-
--- analysis
--- and popularized the notion that unconscious motives control behavior.
--- The
--- metaphysical implications influenced such 20th century philosophers as
--- Teilhard de Chardin and Herbert Marcuse. Part of the New Age ideology
--- is
--- the belief that a Collective Consciousness rules over man's behavior, in
--- effect replacing the deity of traditional religion. The archetypes of
--- this
--- belief system include forms, symbols, and mythological themes that are
--- expressed by people in all cultures.
Paul: Which dictionary did you snip that from? :-)
--- What I'm trying to
--- establish
--- here is the need to define human awareness, which is my umbrella term
--- for
--- the "sentience" category that embraces organic sensibility, cognizance,
--- personal memory, intellection, and -- most importantly-- self-awareness.
--- To
--- the best of my knowledge, these "mind functions" have never been
--- addressed
--- or "patterned" by Mr. Pirsig in a meaningful way that would indicate
--- their
--- metaphysical significance.
Paul: In the MOQ, mind, insofar as the term is employed at all, is loosely
defined as intellectual patterns. But, as Matt recently said to Bo, it is
not that mind *has* intellectual patterns or functions, but that mind *is*
intellectual patterns. So it is not so much that you or I *have* beliefs,
but rather that, along with physical and social patterns, you and I *are*
beliefs.
--- You and I disagree on the epistemology of knowledge and ideas.
Paul: Indeed.
--- ....there IS original thought, Paul. There has to be in order to
--- build
--- consensus. And it's the thought that's important, not the linguistics
--- or
--- the metaphor used to express it.
Paul: The idea of thoughts existing before they are "expressed" requires
that we see language as a medium. From there we have the idea of a self
with an independent and intrinsic nature which is using the medium of
language for expression. This is just the subjectivist flip-side of the
materialist view of language as a medium for representation of an objective
world and, as such, is still in the subject-object soup.
--- Well, I guess one could say that reason is a "mental skill". But,
--- again,
--- that IS a function of proprietary intelligence -- loosely termed "mind"
--- --
--- which "humans are born with". So what is your point in denying it?
Paul: If reason is a skill one has to learn, how could it be something one
is born with?
---
--- My point is that what you're now calling "mind" is the pivotal entity in
--- the
--- whole scheme of things. And it has been totally neglected in the MoQ.
--- Mr.
--- Pirsig has handed us a philosophy without a subject.
Paul: Why should the idea of an entity called mind be pivotal to the whole
thing? What does all this talk of mind do for us? What has it done for us?
What is lost when we stop talking about mind as an independent entity
swinging free of culture and language and look at the things people (to whom
we ascribe the possession of a mind) say and do / have said and done?
Regards
Paul
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