[MD] Static Self

[david buchanan]

Ham and Platt:

Platt said:
Of all the arrogant statements, this takes the proverbial cake , , ,  as if the entire intellectual level resides in academia. If I've learned one thing from Pirsig it's that academia is the last place to look if you want to find an original thought.

dmb replies:
There are valid reasons to criticize the academic world, but rejecting Ayn Rand is not one of them. One is unlikely to find mystics there, for example. Of course I'm not equating academia and the intellectual level but its pretty darn obvious that intellectual quality matters there and the chances are good that you'll find some serious intellectuals there. Just as the social level has its immune system, when we add them up the judgments made by people in this world produce the same effect. They amount to a defense of intellectual values and intellectual quality. Its not perfect, of course, and there's always a danger that good things will be kept out. But for the most part, it does a good job of keeping out a whole bunch of non-sense. Pirsig certainly has a point about philosophological thinking, but we hear the same sort of "academia is too stuffy for my ideas" complaint from UFOlogists, New Agers and all kinds of crackpots so raising the point just isn't enough. Anyway, if there is a reason why Ayn Rand shouldn't be laughed at, shouldn't be kept out I'd like to know what it is. 

Besides, Platt, you're being extremely disingenuous in citing Pirsig to refute this. You know as well as I do that Pirsig has criticized Ayn Rand on this very point. He said anyone who takes her view of the individual has a lot of splainin' to do because it is at odds with science and the MOQ.  I was lucky and found a series of quotes that Ant put together for Ham nearly a year ago and that's one of them. Apparently you were unmoved and unpersuaded by it. How do you spell "incorrigible"? Anyway, this is what Ant McWatt said to Ham the last time this topic came up:

The latter quote of Pirsig’s used by Platt here (Note 130) has been severely 
edited and the two other annotations Pirsig made about the “individual” in 
“Lila’s Child” omitted altogether.  As such, Pirsig’s understanding of the 
individual has been distorted by Platt so in the following, as a 
“corrective”, I have quoted Note 130 in full as well as these two other 
annotations:

[130] “The word ‘I’ like the word ‘self’ is one of the trickiest words in 
any metaphysics. Sometimes it is an object, a human body; sometimes it is a 
subject, a human mind. I believe there are number of philosophic systems, 
notably Ayn Rand’s ‘Objectivism,’ that call the ‘I’ or ‘individual’ the 
central reality. Buddhists say it is an illusion. So do scientists. The MOQ 
says it is a collection of static patterns capable of apprehending Dynamic 
Quality. I think that if you identify the ‘I’ with the intellect and nothing 
else you are taking an unusual position that may need some defending.”

Critically (and this is what Platt tends to ignore), in Note 77 of Lila’s 
Child, we see that Pirsig confirms that his view of the self concurs with 
the one held by Buddhism:

“It’s important to remember that both science and Eastern religions regard 
‘the individual’ as an empty concept. It is literally a figure of speech. If 
you start assigning a concrete reality to it, you will find yourself in a 
philosophic quandary.”

Finally, in the section of “Lila’s Child” titled “Questions and Answers” 
(where Dan clarifies a number of issues with Pirsig including the 
individual), note Pirsig’s answer here:

“The Buddhists would say [the individual] it is certainly central to a 
concept of reality but it is not central to or even a part of reality 
itself. Enlightenment involves getting rid of the concept of ‘I’ (small 
self) and seeing the reality in which the small self is absent (big self).”

This analogy is explained further by Pirsig in the following quote:

“The Sioux concept of self and higher self is one I hadn’t heard of.  At 
first sight it seems like a striking confirmation of the universality of 
mystic understanding.  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 
McWatt, January 14th 1994)

Just so you know,
dmb

Today's post was sponsored by the letter "I".








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