[MD] The tetra lemma

[MarshaV]

DMB,

The 'essence of a thing' is like 'the nature of a thing'.  Emptiness is the 
technical term for the lack of independent existence, inherent existence, or 
essence in things.

You've asked some pretty interesting questions whose explanation comes from 
another culture.  I'm sure Paul did some extensive reading to uncover the 
meaning of this philosophy.  And some of this discussion would be trying to 
talk about something beyond normal definition using a lot of Sanskrit words. 
Not easy.  Hear are two articles that might help.  One is about particle 
physics.  The other comparing Whitehead and Buddhism.  Give them a try.

http://www.integralscience.org/whiteheadbuddhism.html

http://www.serve.com/tito/sci/gizard.html


Marsha



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "david buchanan" <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2008 4:11 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] The tetra lemma


>
> Ron said:
> Lets back up and start fresh, First let me point you to what Paul Turner 
> wrote about the tetralemma http://robertpirsig.org/Tetralemma.htm
>
> dmb says:
> Thanks. I hadn't looked at that in at least a couple years. I asked Paul 
> Turner to explain it back then and was totally perplexed. At one point he 
> gave up and so I never did figure out what was going on. I'm not sure if 
> it was you or Paul who said, "traditionally logic is predicated on truth 
> in 'be-ing'". I have no idea what that means. What is "truth in be-ing" 
> and how is logic predicated on it? Paul says, "the positive tetralemma 
> would be used to express the reality of subjects, objects, and so on and 
> their strictly static existence whilst acknowledging their lack of 
> individual essence entailed by their dependence on Dynamic Quality" . Here 
> again, the point seem to be in defeating an idea that I just can't wrap my 
> heard around. I remember asking Paul repeatedly, what the heck is an 
> essence? In both cases, when I go on a web search to investigate "truth in 
> being" or "essences" I mostly find a lot of theology and other kinds of 
> God talk. I keep getting the feeling that this t
> etralemma is meant to defeat an entirely fake problem. I mean, it seems to 
> be aimed at a problem that I find completely meaningless.
>
> I've asked anybody who might plausibly know, teachers, fellow students, 
> MOQers. What do you mean by "essence"? So far none of the answers have 
> made a lick of sense to me. Even the simple word "being" has me baffled. 
> If it means "existence", then we are talking about a category that literal 
> includes everything that is. That strikes me a useless category. In that 
> sense, "being" means nothing in particular and everything in general. I 
> think Pirsig says something like, "a thing that cannot be distinguished 
> from anything else has no value and does not exist." When we add these 
> things together and start talking about the essence of being, I just roll 
> my eyes and wonder how this nonsense ever got started. This has been going 
> on for years now, so don't feel like you've failed to explain it properly. 
> Clearly, its my problem.
>
> Ron said:
> The way Paul describes the function sounds very much like being aware of 
> the abstract/concrete distinction in language. In other words the negative 
> tetralemma prevents one from making intellections based on concrete 
> predication. Which is what keeps screwin with the MoQ. people tend to 
> conceptualize DQ/SQ and Quality in terms of concrete entities.
>
> dmb says:
> What is an intellection? What is a concrete predication? And why do we 
> want to prevent people from making intellections based on concrete 
> predicatons? And how does that relate to the abstract/concrete 
> distinction? I get the general idea that DQ is not a thing, that Quality 
> is not a solid, liquid or a gas, but the idea seems to be much fancier 
> than that.
>
>
>
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