[MD] subject / object logic

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Platt]
Why cite the reference unless the implication was to support your 
view that "self" is imaginary, the topic of discussion?

[Arlo]
Because I found it interesting, as I said when I offered the link. 
What this one article, and what I think all of us who adhere to the 
"self" is "illusory" offers is a look into the difference between 
this illusion as pragmatic, and this illusion as "non-existent". No 
one, lest of all me, would propose the "self" does not exist, rather 
I propose the "self" is an illusion of experience, but a "real 
illusion" (to use an oxymoron) that structures activity.

[Platt]
Whether I "smugly sit back and feel good" is irrelevant to the 
discussion. Your character attack simply reflects the tactics of 
moveon.org. So it comes as no surprise.

[Arlo]
I'd say "character attack" is much a right-wing strategy as a 
left-wing one in the modern political arena, but I do recognize that 
both Hannity and O'Reilly have really stepped up their use of the 
phrase "tactics of moveon.org" in recent weeks (anyone here with the 
mindset to do it can listen to hear how often these pundits use the 
phrase), so hearing you parrot this here is no big surprise.

My point was that rather than take a topic for conversation, you 
dismissed the entirety of the article by finding one point of 
contention and then using it to ""prove" that anatta is a "low 
quality" idea. In fact, all I did was point out something I found 
superficially interesting, admitting that I had no real substantive 
knowledge on the idea, but seeing how it relates to the topic at 
hand, I though the information would enrich some.

[Platt]
I've already commented on this passage where the self is acknowledged as real.

[Arlo]
The "self"is "real" only in terms of its pragmatic application to the 
world of activity.That is the theme echoed throughout ZMM and LILA, a 
theme derived from the Buddhist core to the philosophy.