[MD] Arlo's Rant and 3rd levels

[MarshaV]

Greetings,

I've been considering the self a result of 
perceptions, and ego (becoming) the results of 
time.  Does any body see this as distinct?


Marsha


At 12:14 AM 5/18/2009, you wrote:
>[WillBlake] I don't believe I am arguing against 
>Pirsig, but supporting his heirarchy. [Arlo] 
>Pirsig is quite clear that mental patterns 
>emerge from social patterns, and he considers 
>concepts such as "self" to be a mental pattern. 
>I still don't see how your proposal is 
>"inorganic-biological-intellectual" with 
>"social" providing some filler or interference. 
>[WillBlake] Arlo is talking about the peripheral 
>mind, that behavior above ground, and claiming 
>that the subconscious thinking is also societal, 
>control by  language. [Arlo] Controlled and 
>enabled. I am merely talking about what Pirsig 
>wrote. "Mind" comes from society, not directly 
>from the biological level. When he wrote "our 
>intellectual description of nature is always 
>culturally derived" he was very clear. 
>[WillBlake] This cannot be true, it is the other 
>way around. [Arlo] Maybe, but that is not the 
>MOQ. [WillBlake] A society has a completely 
>different consciousness which we are not privy 
>to, in the same way each individual nerve is not 
>privy to our thoughts. [Arlo] Pirsig calls this 
>the "collective consciousness". I don't know 
>about a society have a consciousness, Pirsig 
>seems to think it does not. But then he talks 
>about the Giant having a will of its own, so I 
>don't know. But the very fact that our thoughts 
>derive from the assimilation of this collective 
>points to a structurating relationship, an 
>unavoidable restriction alongside the very thing 
>that enables it. [WillBlake] If all we are are 
>our thoughts, what are we when we are listening 
>to music without thought? [Arlo] I don't think 
>you answered my question. If we are more than 
>our thoughts, then what else are we? Are you 
>suggesting a "soul"? Or something like that? 
>When we are listening to music, we are very much 
>our thoughts. Music is a symbolic language, one 
>which relies on familiarity with the structure 
>and syntax of the notes, just as spoken language 
>relies on this for understanding its words. 
>Music is a semiotic event. It is not outside 
>culture, it is the language of culture. You can, 
>as Pirsig recommends, break out of the "self", 
>and enter the moment of pure DQ (through 
>meditation, flow, etc.), but this is a 
>dissolution of the very thing (the "self") you 
>are arguing is the core of those moments. Wait, 
>you do answer this here. Sorry. [WillBlake] We 
>are the sum total of our awareness thoughts... 
>[Arlo] Symbolically encoded experiences, 
>sure.... "thoughts". [WillBlake] our 
>subconscious thoughts... [Arlo] "Thoughts". 
>[Arlo] our interaction with the environment.... 
>[Arlo] Not sure what this means. Our 
>interactions with the environment are, as social 
>beings, mediated by language. Do you mean the 
>moment of Quality perception? Or is this in 
>reference to our biology, which you mention 
>next... [WillBlake] the beating of our hearts, 
>the intelligence of our immune system... [Arlo] 
>This is the hardware in which "we" reside. Yes, 
>our unique biology mediates the encoding of our 
>experiences (we "see", and so are able to encode 
>experiences with "visual" icons, e.g.) 
>[WillBlake] the thoughtless passions, emotions, 
>feelings that arise to form thoughts. [Arlo] 
>Thoughtless? Heavens no! Our "passions" (outside 
>of our innate biological reflexes) are fully 
>informed by the cultural language we assimilate. 
>"Love" and "hate" and "pain" and "heroism" and 
>"pride" are all concepts informed by the 
>stories, myths, music, drama, poetry and a 
>countless repertoire of encoded experiences that 
>make up the collective consciousness. Before 
>"language", you would feel "love" only as a cat 
>or dog. As a social being, "love" is so much 
>more, and you feel it only after you assimilate 
>the language to describe it. [WillBlake] The 
>problem with the notion that society dictates 
>thought is that individuals arise (especially 
>in politics), that argue they have a social 
>solution to correct our inner selves. [Arlo] 
>Society does not "dicate" what you think. You 
>are a unique organism with corresponding unique 
>experience. "Culture" gives you the means to 
>encode that experience, and as such both enables 
>and constrains the results of that process. 
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The self is a thought-flow of ever-changing, 
interrelated and interconnected, inorganic, 
biological, social and intellectual, static 
patterns of value responding to Dynamic Quality.

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