Re: MD Self-consciousness

From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Thu Nov 06 2003 - 04:54:34 GMT

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    David,

    Several posts back you objected to my use of the terms "inside" and
    "outside". Since then I have only been trying to correct the misapprehension
    that you made then that I was using these terms as something real, as
    something fundamental to my philosophical position. All I was using them for
    was to refer to how we think before we get philosophical. The tree exists
    independently of me. My thoughts are within me. That sort of thing. Where we
    go from that point is, of course, what is being debated.

    I am not saying the "natural attitude" is primordial, but it is just where
    we start from, once we have grown up enough to speak the language well
    enough to be able to read philosophy or anything mildly intellectual. We are
    natural dualists, not because that is how "things really are" but because
    that is the framework in which we live our lives and speak our language.

    But when we start thinking about it, *then* we question this dualism. Which,
    of course is what every philosopher after Descartes has done. What most have
    done is to deny one or the other of the SOM categories, either the subject
    or the object, but that has failed because the concept of subject cannot
    subsume the concept of object, and vice versa. That is, to claim that mind
    is "just" atoms moving in the void does not satisfy our pre-philosophical
    experience, and neither does saying "it's all in your mind".

    The MOQ starts to deal with this in a different way, by introducing Quality
    as "prior" to the division into subject and object, but then fails when it
    in turn subsumes subject under object, though this is disguised by the DQ/SQ
    terminology. The DQ/SQ distinction is a good one, until it is misapplied to
    human thinking. Since Pirsig places thinking -- not just thoughts -- under
    SQ, he is effectively repeating the mistake made by materialists. What I
    propose instead is to say that thinking (as opposed to thoughts) and
    perception (as opposed to what is perceived) be treated as variations on
    DQ/SQ, not just as SQ. One avoids dualism by treating DQ/SQ as a polarity,
    not as two independent realms. With the MOQ and with materialism there is no
    accounting for the sense of self. With the concept of polarity. the sense of
    self is recognized as a pole of a polarity, that is, as absolutely dependent
    on its opposite (the sense of non-self), and so one avoids its (the self's)
    reification (and the reification of non-self).

    - Scott

    ----- Original Message -----
    From: "David MOREY" <us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk>
    To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
    Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 12:35 PM
    Subject: Re: MD Self-consciousness

    > Scott
    >
    > Your Problem? I am trying to work out which
    > of your assumptions are making you think there
    > is something primordial about the distinction
    > this is me, that is not. Are you saying this distinction
    > occurs as soon as one becomes two at the birth of the cosmos?
    >
    > regards
    > DM
    >
    >
    >
    >
    > ----- Original Message -----
    > From: "Scott R" <jse885@spinn.net>
    > To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
    > Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 2:12 AM
    > Subject: Re: MD Self-consciousness
    >
    >
    > > David,
    > >
    > > > Perhaps your problem is that perception is entirely
    > > > a form of visual language and therefore has all the qualities
    > > > of using universal/particular net/item in net schema that
    > > > is also true of linguistic language.
    > >
    > > Since I (following Barfield and Georg Kuhlewind) have been expounding
    this
    > > idea (actually, all perception, not just visual), I don't know why you
    are
    > > calling it "my problem".
    > >
    > > > Also there is a very big question
    > > > with regard to the development of this visual language, from
    > > > the society of dynamic quanta called the Body Nietzsche would
    > > > suggest, which is not a material form either for Nietzsche.
    > > > Kicking something is a feeling of course, it is odd, says Nietzsche,
    > > > to derive a theory of causality via the nature of our nervous system.
    > >
    > > I don't understand this, in particular, how it is relevant to what I've
    > been
    > > talking about.
    > >
    > > - Scott
    > >
    > >
    > >
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