[MD] The other side of reified

[MarshaV]

On the distortion of reification, Alan Wallace writes:

   "In Buddhist mental training, great emphasis is placed from the outset on distinguishing between the fantasizing mind and verifying cognition.  Indeed the tendency of the human mind to assume the existence of things that are in fact nonentities is considered to lie at the root of a broad range of unnecessary conflicts and miseries.  The most basic expression of this mental distortion is the reification of oneself as an intrinsically existent personal identity. Having reified oneself, it is inevitable that one reifies others in the same way, and this sets up absolute demarcations between self and other.  One naturally also reifies one's natural environment as intrinsically existent, and therefore as absolutely other. 

   "The centrists view acknowledges the obvious truth that one person is different from another and that they are different from their inanimate environment.  But such distinctions are of a conventional, not an absolute, nature.  This does not mean that such demarcations are arbitrary.  Rather, the centrists view asserts that they exist in dependence upon conceptual designation.  Every sentient being and every inanimate object thus exists as a dependently related event..."  

      (Wallace, B. Alan, 'Choosing Reality, : A Buddhist View of Physics and the Mind', 2003, p.142)




On Jun 1, 2011, at 2:37 PM, david buchanan wrote:

> 
> 
> Please note the statement  "James seems to have fallen into the trap of reifying his own concept of a field of consciousness" 
> 
> dmb says:
> I'm pretty sure Wallace is wrong on that point. When James first came out against the atomistic theories (In his Psychology book) he said that rivers and streams are the best METAPHORS for consciousness. He also likened it to the flights and perches of birds, to a line of flame burning across an open field, just to name a few. I don't even think it's fair to say that a "field" was his favorite, let alone an exclusive, reified conception. He was quite explicit about these terms being only analogies. 
> 
> James held that continuities and disjunctions are both felt and known in experience and never denied one to the exclusion of the other, so I'd disagree on that point too.
> 
> But I seriously doubt that you have any idea what James, Wallace or I am even talking about here. 
> 
> 
>> 
>>    "The asymmetry in James's view of mind and matter may be due in part to his advocacy of a "field theory" of consciousness, in contrast to an "atomistic theory," which he vigorously rejects.  I would argue, however, that the nature of consciousness does not intrinsically conform either to a field theory or an atomistic theory.  Rather, different kinds of conscious events become apparent when inspected from the perspective of each of these different conceptual frameworks.  Using James's field theory, one may ascertain an individual, discrete continuum of awareness; and using the atomic theory one may discern within the stream of consciousness discrete moments of awareness and individual, constituent mental factors of those moments.  Thus, while certain features of consciousness may be perceived only within the conceptual framework of a field theory, others may be observed only in terms of an atomistic theory.  This complementarity is reminiscent of the relation between particle and field theories of mass/energy in modern physics.  The crucial point here is that neither conceptual framework is inherent in the nature of pure experience.  James seems to have fallen into the trap of reifying his own concept of a field of consciousness, and this may have prevented him from determining, even to his own satisfaction, the way in which consciousness does and does not exist.
>> 
>>       (Wallace, B. Alan, 'The Taboo of Subjectivity: Towards a New Science of Consciousness') 
>> 
>> 
> 



 
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