[MD] Static Self

[Ham Priday]

Hi Gav, Marsha --

[Gav, on the Static Self]:
> The individual is borne of the intellectual level - it is an idea.
> The idea of oneself as an autonomous agent evolves from and
> opposes the purely social (bicameral?) level of consciousness....
> which operates by the control of the collective via a deity, king etc.

See, Marsha?  The MoQuist says "the individual is borne of the intellectual 
level".  That means DQ is the essence of the self.  He also believes 
consciousness (at some level) is controlled by the collective -- I assume he 
means "collective intellect".  This epistemology totally denies the subject 
of awareness and the possibility of an autonomous self.  No wonder you are 
confused!

If the individual is only an "idea", whose idea is it?  Who but the 
individual self KNOWS that it is aware?  Does DQ know?  Does the 
"intellectual level" know?  If neither knows, "idea" is a meaningless word, 
and there is no self.  At least I know that I do not exist by "control of 
the collective".  I am my own agent, thank you, and so are you.  If it 
weren't for Pirsig's Quality thesis, this would be self-evident.  Obviously, 
the author has found it necessary to dismiss selfness as the conscious locus 
of experiential reality.  And, since he attributes reality to experience, 
one is left to wonder who or what it is that experiences.

[Ham, previously]:
> Does a collection of patterns KNOW?
> Does a bunch of concepts THINK?

[Marsha]:
> A collection of patterns might be conceptual patterns of
> the social or intellectual kind.  Thinking is an experience
> dependent on a cause of some sort, either via the senses
> or a previous thought.

Yes, it might be, but causal explanations like this invoke the fallacy of 
infinite regression and lead nowhere.  Rather than ponder what "causes" 
thinking, or trying to define thinking as experience, I submit that it is 
more important to realize that the Thinker is the Self.  The notion of 
thoughts existing somewhere without a thinker is absurd; yet if you take the 
MoQ and its Intellectual level literally (as I do), it seems to lead toward 
that conclusion.

Arthur Smith's essay on the Mind/Body debate may be enlightening in this 
regard.  In his Abstract, Dr. Smith writes:

"Human experience is both dualistic and monistic. It is monistic in that 
everything is experience, but dualistic in that it involves both knower and 
known. Since Socrates, an axiom of Western philosophy has been that rational 
discussion begins with defining what that subject matter is. We could say 
that consciousness (or at least ordinary human consciousness) is experience 
as a knower-self (noesis) that experiences known-others (noema). Both are 
essential aspects of experience. Without the noesis, consciousness would be 
unconscious. Without the noema it would be conscious of nothing, i.e., also 
unconscious. Thus human experience is noetically dualistic in its 
distinction of knower and known, but ontologically monistic in being all 
experience.

"In that sense, empirical science itself, even when it studies distant 
galaxies, is part of the 'science of consciousness,' because it can study 
only phenomena in consciousness.   However, not everyone would call this a 
"science of consciousness."  Some want a science of the knower without 
reference to the known, and this is where it gets tricky. As soon as we make 
consciousness an object of study, it becomes the known, and the people 
studying it, the knowers, and an infinite regress of self-reference ensues. 
"
     --www.arthursmithphd.com/writings.htm

In other words, the knowing-self (noesis) is the locus of all experience 
(noema).  And if experience is "the cutting edge of reality", as Pirsig 
says, having a subject to experience (and perhaps thereby dilineate) 
otherness as a differentiated reality is consistent with his theory of a 
quality source.  Since everything in existence is
individuated and relational, it seems logical that knowing (noesis or 
being-aware) would also be divided into individual agents.  (You'll have to 
tell my why Pirsig avoids the logic of this epistemology.)

Am I getting anywhere with you, Marsha?

--Ham