From: Sean Ellis (ellisman70@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Oct 03 2003 - 19:26:15 BST
Scott,
Leave us not forget that thinking is a voluntary action whereas digestion is
an automatic response. Thinking is not automatic, it is an act of volition.
Sean
>From: "Scott R" <jse885@spinn.net>
>Reply-To: moq_discuss@moq.org
>To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
>Subject: Re: MD Intellectual level - New letter from Pirsig
>Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 10:49:58 -0600
>
>Paul,
>
>The difference between the weather and the mind is that with mind there is
>memory, and hence self-awareness. Your analogy reminds me of the
>functionalist comparison of thinking, as something that brains do, with
>digestion, as something that stomachs do. The all-important difference, of
>course, is that thinking can think about thinking, but digestion cannot
>digest digestion.
>
>- Scott
>
>----- Original Message -----
>
> > Hi Sam
> >
> > [Sam:]
> > In his letter to you, Pirsig writes:
> > > You have to cut it off somewhere, and it seems to me the
> > > greatest meaning can be given to the intellectual level if it is
> > > confined to the skilled manipulation of abstract symbols that have no
> > > corresponding particular experience and which behave according to
> > rules
> > > of their own.
> >
> > Do you have any idea about who or what might be *doing* the manipulation
> > (ie, who or what has the
> > 'skill')? Or is it that the symbols react to Quality on their own,
> > without an intermediary? Or
> > something else?
> >
> > [Paul:]
> > I think our language presupposes the necessity for "something" to have
> > the skill or "something" to react that is in addition to or outside of
> > the manipulation or the reaction itself and this makes it difficult to
> > answer without sounding intentionally esoteric.
> >
> > Nonetheless, one answer to your question may be given by drawing on a
> > crude analogy with the weather. When we talk of "the weather", we say
> > "it is raining", "it is windy" and so on. If we ask what the "it" is
> > that is raining without reference to rain or wind we find ourselves
> > thinking of nothing. In a similar way, if we ask "what is it that is
> > thinking [manipulating symbols]?" it is normal to answer with "the
> > mind". If we then ask what the mind is without reference to thinking
> > [manipulating] or thoughts [symbols] I suggest we may equally find
> > ourselves thinking of nothing. In either case, one is not prevented from
> > talking meaningfully about "the weather" or "the mind" but it is always
> > with reference to their processes.
> >
> > Another answer is provided in a piece of Buddhist literature I recently
> > quoted:
> >
> > 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 skhandas* are
> > present."
> >
> > * Skhandas means something like "impermanent heaps" - body, feeling,
> > perception, karma and consciousness
> >
> > An MOQ answer might be - it is not that Sam has intellectual patterns;
> > it is intellectual patterns that have Sam.
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > Paul
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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> >
>
>
>
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