[MD] is-ness

[Heather Perella]

Ham:
> I didn't say that reading poetry and living a romantic
> life is "anti-philosophy".  Nor did I say that analogy
> and metaphor are not useful in making philosophical points.  You've just
> demonstrated how words and phrases can be taken out of context and 
> misconstrued, which is exactly why I 
> stress the consistent use of defined terms to explain a
> theory.
> Bo and DMB are currently debating over whether "an
> intellectual model of 
> reality" must be included in reality itself.  They are
> talking past each 
> other because "intellect" means something
> different to each of them.  It has 
> not been properly defined by MoQ's author who dislikes
> definitions. 
> Inconsistent use of terms leads to misconception and
> confusion.  This is 
> particularly troublesome in metaphysics which is
> fundamental to all 
> philosophy.


SA:  I see how you jump from here to the next comment you give.  So, I'll wait til your next comment to make one of my own.



> SA previously said:
> > See Ham, that's what you fail to understand. 
> Poetry can be thoughtful
> > and very well reasoned.  It can be philosophical, ever
> more so at times
> > due to it's ability to have the reader jump to
> conclusions on their own,
> > which is the whole point of any good philosophy in my
> belief, for a
> > philosophy that encourages anybody or helps anybody
> think on their
> > own and to realize life on their own encourages people
> to realize true
> > philosophy is lived, not just thought about.  A
> philosophy that comes
> > closest to living out reality is a philosophy that is
> closest to reality.
> > Ham, you seem to want to make reality, instead of
> finding out what IS reality.

Ham: 
> Of course poetry can be "philosophical"; much of
> it suggests or expresses 
> ideas from a philosophical viewpoint.  It may even inspire
> the reader to "jump to conclusions on their own", and
> that's the problem.  Each of us on 
> reading the same poem will conjure up a different idea of
> what the author 
> meant.  What is valuable in creative writing is a detriment
> to metaphysical writing for this reason.

SA:  I'm all for defining, but I'm recognizing that reality is evolving (you've heard that many times before).  Another way to put this evolving reality is 'process', reality is a process.  Another way is reality changes.  You've heard all these before.  This is at the heart of quietness.  You can't grap it, thought wise or physically.  Reality is a gentle flower, try to hard to define it, and as in Mice and Men you may squeeze the rabbit too hard and kill it.  Reality is far too encompassing for people to encapsulate, if we could, we would be building reality in what, a labatory, but how could that engineered reality be reality, when the labatory itself is immersed in a much larger reality, namely the building, the planet, the universe.  We can define concepts.  We can agree on concepts due to any logical impeccability the mapped concepts may entail, but these concepts are not reality, you know this.  This is why people come up with different
 perspectives of what reality is.  It is the core of any democratic concept.  It is this freedom to come up with concepts, to agree with concepts, and to understand these concepts are not the totality of reality that is at the core of free-thinking.  I mean, think of what you said above, "It may even inspire the reader to "jump to conclusions on their own".  What's wrong with this?  When I read what you wrote here, what instantly comes to my mind is this is a statement that dislikes free-thinking, democracy, and creativity.  I see where your coming from on the effort to define concepts or we would be chasing our tails, and yes, that happens in this forum often, but that chasing of tails is due to what we value, how we want to define what we value, and then a cultivating of these values into a worldview is a result.  I'm all for definition, thus why intellectual patterns, or for that matter what is important about knowing what the woods are all about and
 identifying trees, flowers, and the best deer trails, but I also realize what 'learning' means.  We keep learning.  Why?  It's a process.  Reality changes, and we try to understand reality.  Everything in the woods changes, and in the northern climate the changes are very apparent, seasons, etc...  Summer is summer, but each summer is a different summer.  Different events happen all the time.  Quietness is something at the core of what I experience to understand life.  And on the surface, quiet seems to be what is not-changing.  For it would seem form, the woods, are what change, and quiet stands by in the midst of all this, seemingly unchanged, but it is this very quiet that I can experience that releases what I know now into what I am to realize in the coming autumn season.  Quiet is stable, but my premise stands on quiet woods.  The woods are quiet.  They are inseparable.  It is a non-duality premise, and that's where I come from in stating and
 living "quiet woods".  One comes with the other.  This quiet is significant for quiet is also death.  Quiet is pervasive.
     So, how does ones thinking allow for democratic views, views/perspectives that are differing, but not too chaotic to disavow not only cultures, but people from understanding each other and their lives, their philosophy - thus, we all need coherent patterns, patterns that are understandable enough to agree with creativity, with generative properties.  Thus, the patterns need to moral, spiritually generative.  Leaning one way or the other, too much death, too much living (all birth, no death) would not harmonize with this earth.  Philosophy, to me, needs to recognize reality, even the aspects of reality that we don't know, thus, philosophy needs to not only know its' limits, but learn, a philosophy that learns, keeps up with change is good and sustaining.  Philosophy is something that is able to show up everywhere, in the totality of reality, even, as said, the aspects of reality that are unknown, thus, philosophy recognizes that which is unknown. 
 With this recognition comes good guidance, for if a philosophy is perceptive to unknowns, and we intellectualize such a philosophy, then we know not only what we know but notice that something lurks that we don't know, too.  For the universe involves unknowns and that is part of reality.
     That's where I'm coming from.  So, how do you go from not wanting, not valuing people to be able to "jump to conclusions on their own" and yet espouse freedom at the same time?


 
> Ron said it best:
> > Supplying meaning is always a tricky business, so to
> be sure,
> > you had better make sense.  The difficulty with
> supplying meaning
> > prescriptively lies in the individuality of each
> persons experience.

Ham: 
> Misunderstood philosophical concepts are a curse on the
> author's work  I 
> don't want my readers to misunderstand the meaning of
> concepts like Essence, 
> is-ness, awareness, value, and transcendence.  If they do,
> they'll either 
> disregard what I've said, or spend years hashing it
> out, as with Pirsig's 
> MoQ.  At the same time, I don't want to instruct others
> on how to live their 
> lives.  As you say, people should be encouraged "to
> realize true philosophy 
> is lived, not just thought about."  I thoroughly
> agree, and Essentialism, 
> when properly understood, gives one the perspective to do
> that.  But it has 
> to be understood first.

SA:  And with that, I totality understand you, but also, and I'm not Pirsig, leaving a hole in the definition of these values (intellect, social, etc...) is also pointing out that the structures will remain, but how we define these structures (intellect, social, etc...) will change.  Notice how some people value the definition of intellect one way and others another way, in a value-ladened world, a ever-changing world, meanings last as long as life holds to these meanings.  An ape meant one thing, until gorilla's evolved, and thus, the meaning of ape changed.  Sometimes this pigeon-holing or what is defined, is a popular definition, sometimes a more argued out rational one, sometimes an intellect that holds quiet valuable so as to keep up with the ever-changing moments, thus, to continually be open to learning recognizing that what we define now might not be the whole meaning of what we are trying to understanding, especially when it comes to reality,
 which changes constantly.
     That's where I'm coming from.

woods,
SA