[MD] MD Re: Quality, subjectivity and the 4th level

[Michael Hamilton]

Hi DMB,

This old message came through the cranky old mailing list a second
time. I'm sorry for not replying to it the first time, but in truth, I
didn't have anything very valuable to say. But now, I think I might. I
also have a query about the Pirsig quote you gave. So, belatedly...

> Michael Hamilton asked:
> I'm asking a very personal question to everyone who rejects SOL. Have you
> seriously shed your subjectivity, in your day-to-day life? Or do you still
> experience your thinking as the product of an islanded subject (albeit an
> islanded subject with a million and one outside influences)? 'Cos I do.
>
> dmb replies:
> Are you suggesting that a person has to shed subjectivity in order to reject
> SOL? I think a person might have to "shed" subjectivity in a certain sense
> in order to become enlightened, but rejecting the idea that intellect is
> intrinsically tied up with SOM only an act of intellectual discrimination or
> discernment. And even those enlightened ones are still going to have
> experience, they're still going to need some kind of ego consciousness to
> function in life. I mean, your question seems to confuse the mystical state
> of consciousness with intellectual beliefs and it seems to assume that the
> end of subjectivity means the end of one's experience. Hold that thought...
>
> Mike continued:
> Thanks to the likes of Pirsig, we can dream up metaphysics in which the
> subject/object divide is not fundamental. We can spend as long as we like
> thinking about a time and a place in which the subject/object divide never
> existed. But we're still thinking as subjects, and any attempt to wipe
> subjectivity from one's life entirely would be a regression, not a
> progression. I'm all in favour of dissolving one's subjectivity every so
> often, in fact I think it should be done regularly, in some way or another.
> But to dissolve subjectivity forever would be to eradicate one of DQ's most
> wonderful creations, I think.
>
> dmb says:
> Dream up a metaphysics and think about a time and a place where the
> subject-object divide never existed? The first thing I would point out is
> that the MOQ does not make subjects and objects disagppear, they just lose
> their status as the primary ontological categories. We still have a self and
> the self still has experience, but the self is concieved quite differently.
> The subjective self is said to be the static self, the little self. This is
> the common sense, everyday self. But then there is the Big Self, the one
> that creates the little self.

Mike:
Here's my take on SOL, as I stated it to Ian: 'the intellect always
divides [Quality] into "me", the doubter, and "it", the pattern of SQ
that is subject to doubt.' And I'll add something like 'We can
transcend intellect by suspending disbelief'.

I tentatively translate this into Buddhist as: 'the Big Self, in
intellectual mode, always divides [Tao?] into "small self" and
"other". We can return to Big Self through the realisation of 'Thou
art that'.

This seems to tally nicely with your comments on Big Self below.

> Also I would point out that Pirsig is not
> dreaming up a metaphysical system with some hypothetical entity, the MOQ
> echoes the perennial philosophy and so in some sense it is very ancient, and
> that time and place where the subject-object divide does not exist isn't
> just some place in the distanct past.  This is from ZAMM, the beginning of
> chapter 25.
>
> "Phaedrus felt that at the moment of pure Quality perception, or not even
> perception, at the moment of pure Quality, there is no subject and there is
> no object. There is only a sense of Quality that produces a later awareness
> of subjects and objects. At the moment of pure Quality, subject and object
> are identical. This is the TAT TVAM ASI (Thou art that) truth of the
> Upanishads, but its also reflected in modern street argot. 'Getting with
> it,' 'digging it,' 'grooving on it', are all slang reflections of this
> identity. It is this identity that is the basis of craftsmanship in all the
> technical arts. And this is the identity that moden, dualistically conceived
> technology lacks. The creator of it feels no particular sense of identity
> with it. The owner of it feels no particular sense of indentity with it. The
> user of it feels no particular sense of indentity with it. Hence, by
> Phaedrus' definition, it has no Quality."
>
> dmb resumes:
> Despite the idea that SOM and technological alienation are a huge
> hinderance, people still have this experience, this sense of identity that
> dissovles the subject-object divide is still common enough to have slang
> labels for it. Despite our inherited cultural blindspot, it survives in the
> undercurrents, in the counter culture and in esoterica. You don't have to be
> a bohemian artist or a hippie tripper to understand what these slang terms
> refer to, but it certainly helps.
>
> Mike recapped:
> Scott's been insisting that the thinking intellect is both static and
> dynamic - that thinking can be a synonym of Quality. Bo, meanwhile, insists
> on a sharp divide between "intellect" and "intelligence", where "intellect"
> should only be used to describe the peculiar brand of intelligence or
> thinking that has arisen with the subject/object divide. Gav made the
> interesting suggestion that intelligence, under Bo's dichotomy, could be the
> synonym for Quality.
>
> dmb says:
> My guess is that we're trying to get at the difference between two forms of
> consciousness, the little self and the Big self, both of which can have
> experiences. It is said that the experience of the Big self can not be
> expressed intellectually while the experience of the little self can be
> expressed intellectually and is itself and intellectual construct. I suppose
> we could say that both are forms of intelligence in some sense of the word,
> but that also seems confusing. Its more like the Big self knows
> no-thing-ness directly and the little self knows things abstractly.
>
> Mike asked:
> Now I'd like to ask a question to the majority on this list who accept
> Pirsig's thesis that the subject/object divide is not fundamental to
> reality: do you ever experience your thinking to be anything other than a
> purely subjective activity? ...My suggestion is that, in replying "no" to
> this question, I place myself in the 4th static level, and distinguish
> myself from the type of intelligence that preceded intellect. My suggestion
> is that the subject/object divide is fundamental to what we are. My
> suggestion is that, at the 4th level, Quality manifests itself as separate
> intelligences who feel that they are separate.
>
> dmb says:
> The basic idea behind "Thou art that" can be expressed in terms of an
> indentity between subject and object. Again, in slang terms, the best pool
> player in my college used to joke that the trick was to "be the ball". Don't
> keep your eye on the ball, but BE the ball.  I gotta say, he always won. In
> any case, the idea is usually expressed in more grandiose terms so Thou art
> that" is expanded beyond the materials in question, whether its a craftsman
> or an athlete, so that it means something like "you are the world" or "you
> are God".  It is said that this ultimate identity is our true identity and
> that the little self, when seen as the essential self or real self, is the
> illusion to be overcome. Overcoming that illusion is what it means to be
> enlightened. As I understand it, SOM and Western materialism have, in
> effect, enshrined the illusion as the ultimate realtiy.
>
> Finally, Mike said:
> I retract any claim that social- or mythological-level human beings did not
> distinguish between self or other. My claim now is that they differed from
> us in their mode of thinking, in their intelligence. The
> difference is that they did not entirely feel it to be "their" thinking,
> "their" intelligence, at all. As Barfield contends, they felt it to be a
> participation - not something that springs from inside some shadowy realm
> inside their heads, but something more like an all-pervading Nous (mind)
> that they could tap into. Or even gods talking to them. It's impossible to
> generalise about all 3rd-level consciousness, as it must have varied quite a
> lot. But I think we can be very specific about what distinguishes our
> 4th-level consciousness. In a word: subjectivity.
>
> Finally, dmb replies:
> Here I just point out that subjectivity, according to Pirsig, comes from the
> myths, legends and  grammar of our pre-historic ancestors and quote the
> passage that spells it out. Interesting that Western religions assert a very
> distinct separation between god and man as well as man and nature, while in
> the East, with the doctrine of "Thou art that", says the opposite.
>
> "The mythos-over-logos argument states that our rationality is shaped by
> these legends, (the Greek myths, the Old testament, the Vedic Hymns and the
> early legends of all cultures which have contributed) that our knowledge
> today is in relation to these legends as a tree is in relation to the little
> shrub it once was .....there's no difference in kind or even difference in
> identity, only a difference in size.
> Thus, in cultures whose ancestry includes ancient Greece, one invariably
> finds a strong subject/object differentiation because the grammar of the old
> Greek mythos presumed a sharp natural divison of subjects and predicates. In
> cultures such as the Chinese, where subject-predicate relationships are not
> rigidly defined by grammar, one finds a corresponding absence of rigid
> subject-object philosophy.

Mike:
I've never seen a clear explanation-for-dummies-like-me of how the
subject/predicate relationship relates to the subject/object
relationship. My only knowledge about these two comes from Barfield,
who says, a la Plato, that subject/predicate relationship is a
participatory one, the kind that Plato built a whole philosophy out
of. Once original participation was lost (i.e. once SOM took over),
some logicians began to feel uneasy about predication, as distinct
from an statement of identity. I'll try to expand on this if you like.
The point, though, is that predication can occur prior to S/O, and
that they are very different animals.

Regards,
Mike