[MD] Language Games (was Theatre and Definitions)

[David M]

Matt

It is hard to know what to say. I agree with DMB that DQ is
simply a matter of experience, it is the most obvious aspect
of experience, it dominates it so much that it cannot be differentiated
from the whole. When we differentiate anything within experience
it is SQ, DQ is what is left behind and obscured by all differentiation.
DQ is Nothingness, the flux, movement, what everything appears out
of and returns to. Try this Heidegger essay for size:

http://www.stanford.edu/dept/relstud/faculty/sheehan/pdf/01-hd-wm.pdf

He who pursues learning will increase every day;
He who pursues Tao will decrease wvery day.

DM



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Matt Kundert" <pirsigaffliction at hotmail.com>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Monday, April 10, 2006 1:05 AM
Subject: Re: [MD] Language Games (was Theatre and Definitions)


> DMB,
>
> Firstly, thank you for your carefully considered response.  I hope my
> response will be as equally careful and considered.
>
> There actually isn't much to my response because I'm just not sure what's
> going on.  I think I just don't see what picture it is you're offering.
> I'm
> confused by the the distinction between "how things really are" and "how
> things hang together" being okay, but irrelevant, that "Pirsig is
> rejecting
> Plato's move in order to restore DQ as Brahman, not just to reject
> anything
> like Platonic forms."  I can understand having different motivations, but
> a
> thorough rejection of Platonism would still look the same, wouldn't it?
> That, whatever the reconstruction plan afterwards, we still need to avoid
> the same things.
>
> It is along those lines that my mind travels.  Western?  Surely.  Those
> are
> the only eyes I have.  We can't just trade our own for somebody else's
> without reasons (or causes), that would be irrational.  That's why I need
> to
> know what the intuition/postulation distinction is for, how it functions,
> where it comes from, that kind of thing.    Prima facie, it looks like a
> typical Western distinction.  But that's why I'm asking what its doing, to
> make sure it stays away from all the Western things that are bad.  If it
> is
> intended to replace Western purposes with Eastern ones (replacement being
> what's involved if the Eastern stuff you have in mind has nothing to do
> with
> Western stuff), the Western mind certainly will be confused because it
> doesn't have Eastern purposes.  The trouble is: what are these purposes
> and
> why should I have them?
>
> Take another example of a prima facie red flag: Northrop says, "the
> mystical
> and the ineffable is not off in some far distant speculative heaven, but
> in
> immediately apprehended fact directly before our eyes."  Immediately
> apprehended fact?  My Western mind has been taught to treat such a thing
> as
> dirty, tainted with Platonism.  So what is it for?  What is the concept
> doing, what purpose is it serving that allows it to steer clear of the
> Western purposes that Plato gave us, and therefore steer clear of
> Platonism's taint?  (How about that for an image?)
>
> The question is: can I steer completely free of Platonism and still not
> believe in Brahman?  If the answer is yes (which is what it sounds like
> currently, given the irrelevancy of the two), then I need to know why I
> need
> to believe in Brahman.
>
> The thing I don't think you get to say, because to do so would be to steer
> towards Platonism, is that I have to believe in Brahman, I have to use a
> distinction between intuition/postulation, because to not do so would be
> to
> get something wrong about reality.  That they are facts that are being
> neglected by Westerners like myself.  People who've rejected Platonism
> wouldn't say something like that.  Whenever I have these types of
> conversations, I feel everybody veer towards that response, that I'm not
> adequately describing reality because I'm leaving something out.  I keep
> throwing up my hands and warning them away, and they say all my hand
> waving
> is for naught, but then they either leave me without Eastern purposes
> (giving me no reason to desire the picture they're offering) or they step
> in
> it, and say that I'm missing something, blind to something.  The only
> response I have to that is: 1) you can't say that I'm blind to reality
> without becoming a Platonist and 2) I am missing something, but it isn't
> reality, only Eastern purposes.
>
> Why should I become a Buddhist?
>
> Matt
>
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