[MD] ego vs self

[MarshaV]

Ham,

You're so funny...  Awareness - yes, inherently existing self - no.    


Marsha
 
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org
[mailto:moq_discuss-bounces at lists.moqtalk.org] On Behalf Of Ham Priday
Sent: Monday, September 07, 2009 2:20 PM
To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MD] ego vs self


Marsha asks:

> Ron,
>
> Is your position that the self is patterned experience?

Ron responds:

> More or less ...
>
> I'd like to interject that my own position is that even though
> the self does not exist as an entity and that it is an illusion
> or invention, that it still holds contextual value, it's useful and
> if it has value it has a kind of realness in context which as we
> have established, is about as "real" as any experience.
>
> The self as entity, does not exist inherently.
> The self as experience does, it is value.
> It is Quality.
> Quality "is".

See, this is the kind of nonsense that passes as philosophy.  A philosopher 
wants to "overcome" the nuisance of duality, so he comes up with an abstract

term ("pattern") which is supposed to make everything "unreal" except 
Quality.  Not only does his thesis do away with subjects and objects, it 
eliminates the possibility of realized Quality which is the only value there

is!

Marsha plays this game well.  She accepts without question the premise that 
existents are "patterns" and finds mystical quotes and poems that seem to 
support the concept.

Ron tries to make the concept logical without raising any controversial 
questions.  The most he can say about the self is that "it's useful and 
...has a kind of realness in context which ...is about as "real" as any 
experience.  Now, there's a compromising definition if I've ever heard one!

Folks, if you can't believe in your own "self", then nothing is real -- not 
consciousness, not experience, not the universe, not evolution, and 
certainly not Quality.  Even Pirsig concedes that "experience is the cutting

edge of reality."  And experience is the objective content of the conscious 
self.  I ask you, can it be anything else?  C'mon people!  How long are we 
going to delude ourselves with this myth?

Your world, your existential reality, begins and ends with your self.  You 
are the cognizant locus of all that you experience.  That locus is primary 
to everything you know or feel -- including value.  Does the word "pattern" 
add any meaning to this self-evident truth?  And by what logic does it make 
the self synonomous with Quality?

For the sake of clarity, consider this logic.  Everything known or 
apprehended by the self is either an object/event (existent) or an essent 
(something which cannot be defined as an existent).  Awareness, Value, 
Sensibility, Experience, Intellect, Judgment, Emotion, Ego and Libido are 
all 'essents' identified with Selfness.  They constitute the "subjective" 
contingency (not-other) of existence.  Everything else is Otherness.  OK?

Now, by this logic, existence is an Other/Not-other dichotomy, which is to 
say, the differential manifestation (creation) of a primary Source about 
which we have no empirical knowledge.  It would seem to me that the aim of 
Philosophy (and/or Metaphysics) is to reveal or intuit the nature of that 
Source.

Are we, or are we not, in agreement with this objective?

Essentially yours,
Ham

Moq_Discuss mailing list
Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
Archives:
http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/