[MD] self: agent of action & thinker of thoughts

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Marsha]
RMP has called an autonomous self is an illusion..

[Arlo]
Right, Marsha, he qualified by "autonomous", right? What he is saying is 
that there are no existential existants, there are only patterns of 
value. This includes the "self", just as it includes objects. I think 
you could reword this, and Pirsig would agree, "the autonomous rock is 
an illusion".

What is the "illusion" here is the primacy of subjects and objects, no?

What sense does it make to say, within a MOQ, that one pattern of value 
is an "illusion"? What would this even mean? If all patterns are 
patterns of value, how can one be an "illusion" and another be "real"? 
What I am saying is that "real" and "illusion" only mean anything from 
within the S/O context.

[Marsha]
And in Lila's Child he states that the MoQ "denies any existence of a 
“self” that is independent of inorganic, biological, social or 
intellectual patterns. There is no “self” that contains these patterns."

[Arlo]
Right, well this is just restating his hierarchy; everything is a 
pattern of value (of or within these four levels) except DQ. So there is 
no "self" that is apart from that. Right. So the "self" is a pattern of 
value. That was what I said in my first reply.

And, just as the human body (a biological pattern) is not independent of 
the carbon atoms (inorganic patterns) from which it forms, the "self" 
pattern also is not independent of the levels from which it forms.

[Marsha]
At least that is how I understand it. I'm not sure how far apart are our 
views.

[Arlo]
I guess where they diverge is over the idea of "illusion", no? While I 
agree the "autonomous self" is an "illusion", I think the "self" pattern 
of value is neither real nor illusory but experientially valuable, and 
as such I ask instead when/how such concepts are pragmatically useful 
and in what context.

This is, I argue, just like asking if "Cartesian" coordinates are an 
"illusion" and "Polar" coordinates "real". Ask, instead, which one 
provides real empirical value in the context its being drawn upon.

I think I used this example before, but here it is again. Asking whether 
or not my motorcycle is "real" in some existential sense, or just an 
illusion (in contrast to being an existential existant), is to stay 
stuck in the world of SOM. What I ask is how the stability of that 
pattern of value improves my empirical activity. This was the point, I 
believe, Pirsig made about the atomic bombs. What good does it do to say 
that the bombs that exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki were "illusions"?