[MD] Ever redefining self

[Ham Priday]

Hi SA [Peter mentioned]--


 I apologize for this delayed reply to your last two posts, but have been
busy putting out fires in other quarters.

> Peter mention of spandrels shocked me into a
> moment today.  ... This view of spandrels, 'I', and
> self-awareness all blurred together.  This airy space
> in our nervous system (tied with all else we are
> supporting such an outcome known as a human being)
> in which we notice an 'I' is a self-awareness of 'I'.
> [snip]
> Ham, notice I mentioned airy space up top here.
> By airy space, I am trying to describe an 'I' that is
> self-aware, yet, our (moq.org) continual redefining of
> what self is, what 'I' is, what this 'I' is, is an act
> of defining the self.  What is self?  Now, using airy
> space might be similar to what you, Ham, mention as
> nothingness.  This would be the dynamic quality of
> quality.  Dynamic quality has an empty bottom.  No
> matter how much we may try to fill the contents of
> anything, it will have this bottomless pit aspect
> where no matter how much we try we can never come to a
> base or principle that we can point at and say that's
> the essential 'thing' of 'it' as to what 'it' is in
> isolation from everything else.

Yes, I've noted a lot of airy space in your ramblings ;-)

Seriously, I think this effort by you and others to reconcile all of our
diverging perspectives into a "philosophy of everything" is doomed to fail.
The best we can do is to articulate our own perspectives, without trying to
force-fit them into some other author's scheme of things.  None of us is
able to grasp the whole picture, but occasionally someone's idea or concept
can lead to a moment of clarity -- a kind of epiphany, as it were -- that we
may each in our own way incorporate into our particular worldview, thereby
helping to comprehend the mystery of existence.  At least this is what I
have been striving to do.

The concept of "spandrels", like the tretrallema (sp?), is not one of those
insights for me.  One phrase that bothered me in your first paragraph was
"in which we notice an 'I'".  We cannot help noticing it because we ARE it.
Proprietary awareness isn't something we have to set about to look for; it's
the foundation of all experience.  No knowledge becomes ours in any other
way than as awareness.  That's my first point.  And as simple and
self-evident as it is to me, it's the very point that the MoQ dismisses as a
"myth" or worse.  They're telling me I don't need this "fantasy" of
selfness, that it's nothing but a convergence (emergence?) of biological,
sociological, and intellectual quality, that I should give up such primitive
notions and join the "collective reality".  I can't buy this ontology.  It
opposes everything I believe in -- including my life-experience as a human
being.

Now the 'nothingness' that I'm talking about is the apparent non-existence
of the 'I' or self.  As I see it, experiential reality is a dichotomy
between two "essents": subjective awareness and objective beingness.  We
have no trouble identifying "beingness"; we all agree on its diverse
components, physical attributes, laws of behavior, arrangement in space, and
evolution in time.  We consider them universal facts.  On the other hand, we
can't measure, quantify, or objectively observe awareness, so we pretend it
isn't important, relevant, or even "real".

Yet, beingness is only the "appearance of otherness" to the conscious self.
There is no "being" that is not being-aware.  In other words, the value of
being is its capacity to become the self's awareness.  And, conversely, the
value of awareness is its capacity to make being-aware.  (IMO it's why we're
all here.)  There is no value in either essent by itself; value is
essential -- it represents the primary unity of the Whole of which
appearance is but a passing phase called existence.

Does that ontological scenario hold any meaning for you?  If so, perhaps
I've ignited a small spark in your thinking that clarifies a few things.  If
not, no offense; I'll simply try to express it in another way at a later
time, in the hope that it may eventually take seed and flourish.  What I
will not do is play the game of 'Pirsig Says', parse his statements, or
rework my philosophy so that Essentialism will be seen as compatible with
the MoQ.  And, should this approach be deemed inappropriate or demeaning to
this forum, I shall fold my tent and quietly steal away, as the Arabs were
once thought to do.

Good to hear from you, SA.

Essentially,
Ham