From: ant.mcwatt@ntlworld.com
Date: Mon Jan 19 2004 - 00:04:45 GMT
Dear Scott,
Thanks for expanding on the query about Pirsig “…in general seeing the intellect as covering up DQ.”
Ant said (January 2nd 2004):
It maybe not be obvious in Pirsig's work but I don't think he overlooks that nirvana = samsara because the bottom line, in the MOQ, is that all static patterns are essentially manifestations of Dynamic Quality. I have mentioned this in previous posts and also briefly allude to this in Section 5.5. of my PhD textbook where I discuss the relationship between Nagarjuna and Pirsig.
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Scott said (January 6th 2004):
Yes, the static patterns manifest DQ, but my objection is that Pirsig takes this in a nominalistic way, as evidenced by his considering DQ as "pre-intellectual", and in general seeing the intellect as covering up DQ. This (in my opinion) bias is seen in your statement from the PhD Text (section 5.7):
"A theme prevalent in Nishida's 'concrete logic' (as well as the MOQ and much of Buddhist thought), is the recognition of the 'self' as just a useful abstraction."
I think this is Pirsig's position but it is not Nishida's (though there may be some difference between early and late Nishida, I'm not sure). Whenever I read "just an abstraction" I shriek "Nominalism!", which I consider the root of SOM in its diseased form. I ask: who is abstracting, what is the abstraction being abstracted from, and how can it happen without transcending space and time -- in short, "an abstraction" is the same mystery as "the self".
Why I think this is not Nishida's position is that he sees the self as a contradictory identity, that the self is, yet is not, and the self is not, and yet is. (From Robert Carter's "The Nothingness Beyond God: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Nishida Kitaro", p. 69}:
"' At the base of the world,' writes Nishida 'there are neither the many nor the one; it is a world of absolute unity, of opposites, where the many and the one deny each other.' The present is the temporal place, or basho where the self-contradictory past and future mutually interact. as well, 'this contradictory identity,' in any and all of its forms, 'is the very place where we find our self.'"
The self exists in the tension between the many and the one, or to put it in MOQ terms, in the tension between DQ and SQ. But Pirsig denies this, calling it a static pattern of value. Because I accept the Nishidan view and not Pirsig's, I reject the MOQ position that the intellect is a fourth level of SQ. Instead it should be seen as the conscious arena of DQ/SQ tension within the human being. After all, it is by means of the intellect that we analyze, critique and *evaluate* all other static patterns, and thus create new ones.
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The above is an interesting point for debate which I think can be approached in a number of ways. As the issues involved are not that straight forward, I have therefore made extensive use of quotes in order not to confuse matters even further.
Firstly, please note that the section on Nishida and the self that you quote from my Textbook was taken from just the Dynamic perspective of the self. If you put it in its full context, you will note that I also state in footnote 189 of the Textbook:
“This is not to say that the belief in a distinct self is completely erroneous; just that a belief in a completely separate and static self is wrong. This line of thinking returns to the problem of the ‘one in the many’ and ‘the many in the one’ and is really more subtle than it appears initially. The difficulty in understanding their relationship is analogous to the relationship between God the Father, God the Son and the Holy Spirit as illustrated in the Athanasian Creed. All three are one yet still remain three distinct entities.”
In other words, from the static sense, the self is as real as tables, motorbikes and the screen you are looking at now. Though, as you are obviously aware, the Dynamic sense is important because it reminds us that all things which are taken as static patterns aren’t real in the sense of being independent, unchanging entities. They arise from and dissipate into the unconditioned (i.e. what Pirsig terms Dynamic Quality). As such (and, as you note) the self is a “contradictory identity”.
So does Pirsig realise this?
I think the answer is yes as he not only didn’t question what I put in footnote 189 (when he checked the Textbook for inaccuracies) but also from what he states in “Lila’s Child” in Annotation 77 (page 236), Annotation 130 (page 401), Annotation 29 (page 60), his notes about Annotation 29 (pages 506 & 507) and from what he sent me below:
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“The answer is that this apparent contradiction is an important part of the Buddhist tradition, to which the MOQ is a bridge. In Buddhism, the world can be described in terms of ‘The First Principle’, sometimes called ‘Formlessness’ or ‘nothingness’ or ‘freedom’ which parallels the treatment of Quality in ZMM. The world can also be described in terms of ‘The Second Principle’ of ‘Form’ or ‘order’ which parallels the treatment of quality in LILA.”
“In Buddhism, form and formlessness, freedom and order, co-exist. A Buddhist monk’s education starts in the world of form and proceeds to an understanding of formlessness, (180 degrees enlightenment) and then returns with this new knowledge into the world of form (360 degrees enlightenment).”
(Pirsig to Anthony McWatt, January 12th 1999)
i.e. “One should not be seeking to "arrive back" at DQ, but to Know DQ in all SQ… to something more profound, though I don't think anything breaks but the ego.”
(From Scott to David Morey, January 13th 2004)
“So the answer to the question, ‘Can freedom and order exist within the same philosophic system without contradiction’, is, ‘Yes’, and this seems to me to be a powerful argument for the quality of these systems of thought.”
(Pirsig to Anthony McWatt, January 12th 1999)
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“The MOQ, like Hinduism and Buddhism, sees the “individual” as a composite of static patterns which disappear upon enlightenment.”
(Pirsig to Anthony McWatt, May 6th 1998)
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“In Zen Buddhism ‘Big-Self’ and ‘small-self’ are fundamental teaching concepts. The small-self, the static patterns of ego, is attracted by the ‘perfume’ of the ‘Big-Self’ which it senses is around but cannot find or even identify. (There is a Hindu parable in which a small fish says, ‘Mother, I have searched everywhere, but I cannot find this thing they call water’). Through suppression of the small-self by meditation or fasting or vision quests or other disciplines the Big-Self can be revealed in a moment sometimes called 180 degrees enlightenment. Then a long discipline is undertaken by which the Big-Self takes over and dissolves the small-self into a 360 degrees enlightenment or full Buddhahood.”
(Pirsig to Anthony McWatt, January 15th 1994)
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Ant:
The fish and water analogy is also illustrated by an old Taoist master that visited John Blofeld, an English translator who lived in China during the 1930s:
“The Tao is to be found in inner stillness. It reveals itself as One – timeless, formless, all pervading. In it all creatures and objects have their being. The same may be said of your goldfish and the water in which they swim, but the likeness is only superficial. One could take a fish out of the water and put it back; but the separateness of creatures and objects either from one another or from the Tao is illusory. Apart from the totality, which is the Tao, they have no being. The Tao and the myriad objects are not two! Unlike water which rises from the lake as vapour and flows back to it in streams, the Tao’s creations do not rise from it, nor do they return to it, they and the Tao having never at any time been apart. They are the Tao. This faculty of being one and many simultaneously is a mystery that can be apprehended but not explained.”
(Quoted from John Blofeld, “The Secret & Sublime: Taoist Mysteries & Magic”, p.183, George Allen & Unwin, 1973)
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Scott said (January 6th 2004):
“Whenever I read "just an abstraction" I shriek "Nominalism!", which I consider the root of SOM in its diseased form. I ask: who is abstracting, what is the abstraction being abstracted from, and how can it happen without transcending space and time -- in short, "an abstraction" is the same mystery as "the self".”
Ant:
From noting what Pirsig states below:
“Experience in a SOM is an action of the object upon the subject. In the MOQ, experience is pure Quality which gives rise to the creation of intellectual patterns which in turn produce a division between subjects and objects.”
“Among these patterns is the intellectual pattern that says ‘there is an external world of things out there which are independent of intellectual patterns’.”
“That is one of the highest quality intellectual patterns there is.”
(Pirsig to Anthony McWatt, August 25th 1998)
Ant:
And then looking at Annotations 67 (page 201) and Annotation 130 (page 60) in “Lila’s Child”, I think Pirsig would answer Scott’s questions on the following lines:
Scott: Who is abstracting?,
Ant answers: No one is abstracting. Intellectual patterns (which may create a notion of a self later on) are doing the abstracting.
Scott: What is the abstraction being abstracted from?,
Ant: Dynamic Quality
Scott: And, how can it happen without transcending space and time?
Ant: Space and time are just further static patterns (that are also abstracted from Dynamic Quality).
This is suggested by the quote (at page 69) from Robert Carter's book:
“The present is the temporal place, or basho where the self-contradictory past and future mutually interact as well. 'This contradictory identity,' in any and all of its forms, 'is the very place where we find our self.'”
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How does this all sound Scott? At least, I hope a lobotomy or a stove sitting session won’t seem too urgent after reading through it all. However, as I’m still not too clear about why nominalism should be considered “the root of SOM in its diseased form”, an expansion of this point would certainly be helpful.
Best wishes,
Anthony.
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