From: Paul Turner (paulj.turner@ntlworld.com)
Date: Sun Sep 14 2003 - 19:34:26 BST
Scott
[Scott:]
In any case, my interest is in the mind. Pirsig puts the mind as the
fourth
static level. That means, I take it, that not only the products of
mental
activity (i.e., thoughts) are static, but that mental processes (ie,
thinking) are also static.
[Paul:]
I believe that is what the MOQ says.
[Scott:]
So if I am studying the mind, we have a static
process in the form of a subject studying an object, which is mind
studying
mind. But in the MOQ, the mind is not an object, so this phraseology is
disallowed. This seems like needless obfuscation, as it is readily used
by
other philosophers, SOM and non-SOM.
[Paul:]
The phraseology is not disallowed. The intellect is the collection and
manipulation of symbols standing for patterns of experience. This
includes symbols standing for intellectual patterns e.g. the words
"concept" and "thinking" describe mental processes. The use of
"intellectual patterns" and "inorganic patterns" prevents confusion
between different uses of "object" whilst not diminishing the
ontological status of either.
[Scott:]
But worse than this is that there is no creativity allowed for me (or
for
Shakespeare, for that matter), since all creativity, that is, the
production
of new static patterns of value, is assigned to DQ. Thus, the MOQ seems
to
be on a par with Calvinist predestination. While there is some esoteric
truth to this, I believe, I also believe it is not the whole truth. The
whole truth is that the little self *is* (and is not) the Big Self, that
our
sense of freedom is and is not an illusion. The MOQ only points to the
"is".
We need Coleridge/Barfield/Nishida to point to "is *yet* is not".
[Paul:]
The MOQ says that the small self is the patterns, rather like the
Buddhist "skandha", the five heaps. In a Buddhist tale, when questioned
by Mara "What is a person?", Vajira answered "Mara, why do you insist on
the word 'person'? There is nothing here but a group of processes. Just
as the word 'cart' is used when the parts are combined, so the word
'person' is commonly used when the five skandhas are present."
So I think the MOQ would say that static patterns aren't an illusion,
but the notion of a self to which the patterns cling to is an illusion,
or a figure of speech.
[Scott:]
Thus I see the need to say that the mind is the locus of DQ/SQ tension
in a
human being. You object that this is a return to idealism, because the
MOQ
states that the mind is just a fourth level of static patterns, as on
the
other three levels, while I am distinguishing mental activity from
static
patterns on four levels. I would say instead that, in order to say that
we
are in the slightest degree free, we must recognize DQ (in tension with
SQ)
as mental activity.
[Paul:]
I think that DQ in tension with SQ gives rise to mental activity, it is
the leading edge of mental activity. What I don't think is that anything
we normally understand as mind is any part of what is meant by Dynamic
Quality.
[Scott:]
I see it as no more idealist than the MOQ is, since it
is moving concepts like "awareness" and "thinking" out of the subject to
the
source of both subject and object, as the MOQ does with "Quality".
[Paul:]
I suppose "awareness" may be used tentatively but "thinking" is
definitely not synonymous with Quality. I think it is best to try and
avoid pinning down what is meant by terms such as nirvana, suchness and
Quality, because any terms we invent will be incomplete at best and
misleading at worst.
[Scott:]
If they
are to be kept within the fourth static level, then Quality becomes a
transcendent God, not an immanent/transcendent one, and we are no more
than
automatons, or perhaps Pavlovian dogs, conditionable by value, but not
producers of value.
[Paul:]
Only if we assume experience starts and stops with mind or other static
patterns. The MOQ does not agree with that. The small self is the
patterns and so is not a producer of value but if you drop the idea that
there is a small self that you are limited to then you understand that
experience is Dynamic Quality and static quality together. This
understanding is dharma. This is excellence, arête and virtue.
[Scott:]
Or perhaps one can say that the MOQ is consistent with Theravadin
Buddhism
(go for Nirvana/DQ), but not Mahayana Buddhism (nirvana is samsara), but
since Zen is Mahayana, that speaks to more confusion in the MOQ.
[Paul:]
I don't think the MOQ subscribes to any school of Buddhism in
particular. I think we can equate nirvana with Dynamic Quality and
samsara with static quality and work out how the different schools
translate into in MOQ terms, if we wished to do that. If we do that for
Madhyamika [a Mahayana school], then "individual mind" is the static
patterns and "universal mind" is Dynamic Quality which leads to
something like your "SQ is actually DQ" logic. However, Soto Zen
[another school of Mahayana] was formulated by Dogen after experiencing
"the dropping away of body and mind". In MOQ terms, I think he is
describing the dropping away of all static patterns and was left only
with Dynamic Quality.
So I don't think it is a case of saying that the MOQ is Hinayana or
Mahayana or Soto or Rinzai or any other school. In terms of a
comparison, I think it is more a shared recognition that experience is,
in any configuration, best described as static-dynamic and that there
are many ways to scale the mountain of enlightenment and many ways to
descend into everyday life. Pirsig, for example, thinks that fixing a
motorcycle in a selfless way is a perfectly acceptable way to experience
the static-dynamic tension in experience. Importantly, both the MOQ and
Buddhism also believe that any description of reality is incomplete
without reference to an indeterminate element.
So I don't think the confusion you refer to is any more attributable to
the MOQ than it is to the comparison of different schools of Buddhist
thought. Indeed, the MOQ may be less confusing by avoiding the use of
"mind" in different ways to reflect very different elements of
experience in a way that some Buddhism has done over the centuries.
Paul
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