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

[Ham Priday]

Dear Marsha --



On Fri, 8/19/2011 at 5:30 AM,  "MarshaV" <valkyr at att.net> quoted Miri 
Albahari on How We Construe [that] "The Self Lacks Reality":

Among the author's conclusions were the following:

"1.  In reality, [a self] is not ontologically separate from the thoughts 
(etc.), but is the content of an idea that is created, at least in part, by 
our thoughts, perceptions and so forth.  Thus the self does not precede or 
create the thoughts (etc.); rather our thoughts (etc.) go towards creating 
the idea of it."

"2.  We take our thoughts (etc.) to be owned --- perspectivally and 
personally --- by a self, when in reality they are not owned by such a self. 
The idea that we, the self, own our thoughts and perceptions (etc.) is 
caused at least in part by the edifice of thought and perceptions (etc.) 
that comprises the sense of self, rather than by a thought-independent 
owner, the self."

"3.  In reality, there is no such self, but only a flux of thought and 
perception along with mental faculties such as memory and imagination.  The 
Buddhist account also includes witnessing, which is construed as unbroken 
and invariable, a source of the apparent unity.  But importantly, there is 
no room in this picture, whether painted by East or West, for an entity 
described as 'the self' that serves to unify the thoughts.  If there is a 
genuine principle of unity, then this principle is not grounded in the 
self-entity."

In your postscript you asked me to please not mention "witnessing" which, of 
course is what the conscious self does.

Despite your persistence in quoting this person, I'm not persuaded by her 
arguments.  To me, this is speculative rhetoric contrived to refute the 
propriety of awareness which (we all know first-hand) is "our own" in order 
to conform to a dogma that is accepted on faith.  After reading her 
premises, I find myself  returning to the heading and asking: How, indeed, 
do we construe that the Self lacks Reality?  In short, it's the conclusion 
itself that is "construed".

Previously you quoted another section of this work addressing what you cited 
as "the crux of the issue" in which Ms. Albahari made the case for what 
"purports to exist".  In that excerpt she says:

" ...awareness, if it exists, must exist as _completely unconstructed_ by 
the content of any perspectivally ownable objects such as thoughts, emotions 
or perceptions."

My response to this is that "perspectivally ownable thoughts, emotions or 
perceptions" are by definition the constructive agent we identify as the 
Self.  The implication throughout Albahari's analysis is that the Self 
cannot be "real" because it is ideological
rather than objective (e.g., physical).  Yet, who can deny the reality of 
her own thoughts and feelings?  By what justification are things and events 
in process "more real" than the individual entity who experiences them?

Pirsig himself maintained that conscious experience is "the cutting edge of 
reality", which strongly suggests to me that reality wouldn't exist were it 
not for this cutting edge.  I see no less validity for the locus of 
awareness known as the subjective self than for the objective phenomena that 
comprise its contents.  This is why I regard existence as a dichotomy in 
which the contingencies of selfness and otherness, subjectivity and 
objectivity, are co-dependent and equally essential realities.

The bottom line is that I am more impressed with your determination to deny 
the self  than with the evidence you've offered to support that notion. 
What I fail to understand is what your self has done to you that you refuse 
to acknowledge it.

But thanks for at least acknowledging the philosophical significance of this 
issue.

Best regards,
Ham