[MD] Intellectual Level

[MarshaV]

Greetings,   

My interpretation of the Intellectual Level is based on reification (see below). The fourth level  is comprised of static patterns of value such as theology, mathematics, science and philosophy. The way that these patterns function is as reified concepts and the rules for their rational analysis and manipulation.  Reification decontextualizes.  Intellectual patterns process from a subject/object conceptual framework creating false boundaries that give the illusion of independence as a “thing” or an “object of analysis.”  The fourth level is a formalized subject/object level (SOM), where the paramount demand is for rational, objective knowledge, which is free from the taint of any subjectivity like emotions, inclinations, fears and compulsions in order to pursue, study and research in an unbiased and rational manner.   





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Why Reification: 

From a review of the book ‘Buddhism and Science: Breaking New Ground’ .

How do we deal with the complexity of experience? Well, we 'seek and find, or project, a simplifying pattern to approximate every complex field ... by lumping (ignoring some distinctions as negligible) and by splitting (ignoring some relations as negligible). Both ... create discreet entities useful for manipulating, predicting and controlling ... [but] may impose ad hoc boundaries on what are actually densely interconnected systems and then grant autonomous existence to the segments' (p. 108). Even the contents of our own consciousness have to be dealt with in this way, resulting in our array of fragmented self-concepts, and we just put up with the anomalies that arise. Buddhism, he explains, agrees that discovering entities is conventionally indispensable, but attachment and aggression arise through reifying them, which violates the principle that all things are interdependent, and all entities are conditional approximations."

 

http://www.westernbuddhistreview.com/vol4/buddhism_and_science.html    


 
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