[MD] [Bulk] Re: Keep on Truckin'

[MarshaV]

On May 11, 2011, at 12:19 PM, Arlo Bensinger wrote:

> [Marsha]
> You are correct, and I am a very conventional woman.  Yes, some of this conventional chit-chat is good.
> 
> [Arlo]
> I think language gives us a lot more than "conventional chit chat". Supermarkets, farming, poetry, global travel, plumbing, heating, motorcycles, games, books, etc etc. I can't imagine what life for me would be like in a world with no language (well, I don't have to imagine it, I can simply look back at the pre-language feral lives of the first proto-human primates).

>Marsha<
All goodness???   


> But again, the point is not to glorify nor condemn "language" (or any structure), but to see that they are always mutually enabling and constraining, and as these structures co-evolve with agency, the range of potential to act is increased.

*Marsha* 
Statically increased, as Dan reminded us:  "To the extent that one's behavior is controlled by static patterns of quality it is without choice.  But to the extent that one follows Dynamic Quality, which is undefinable, one's behavior is free." [LILA}


> [Marsha]
> But this is a list devoted to metaphysics - the nature of reality - so bottom line:  there is no-thingness to know and no-self to know it...
> 
> [Arlo]
> By the same token we can dismiss the MOQ. All one ever has to say is "no-thingness to know and no-self to know it" and then not even that, why speak at all? No, while Buddhistic meditation and pre-intellectual awareness are greatly valuable, so are the empirical, pragmatic aspects to day-to-day life.

!Marsha! 
The MoQ is goodness.  I don't have a television, so you'll have to tell me about all the "greatly valuable" and pragmatic everyday happenings.  I heard recently that the U.S. is involved in another undeclared war.  -  OMG, please don't me about the wonders of this democratic, capitalistic good-life.  Such bs, cultural glasses!  


> And in this pragmatic sense, a "self" is valuable, even if it isn't an existential reality, as an experiential reality. My motorcycle might not be an existential reality, but the experiential reality of it, and the pragmatic value it brings, makes it more real to me than the ephemeral bemoaning of everything being, in effect, nothing.

%Marsha%
You must have trouble with language, it's not "nothing." it's "empty," empty of independent existence: no-thing, not a thing-in-itself.  


> [Marsha]
> And that, Sweet Arlo, is beyond words.
> 
> [Arlo]
> One can only move beyond words, once one has words.  Unless you think a frog, for example, is beyond words, rather than devoid words.  Can you see the difference?

:Marsha: 
I'm not sure I do see what you are getting on about, but I know of a toad who needs to turn into a prince.  -  What is your point?  We have static patterns of value.  Duh...  In the form of language, patterns have lead us astray...   Bo and Platt leave and everybody forgets that SOM has a major flaw.  Have you lost sight of our language being all about the a subject and a verb acting on a direct or indirect object?  


> Do you think a Buddhist monk meditating and trying to move beyond language has the same experience as a frog, with no language, would have? If this is so, why wouldn't lobotomizing lead to the state you are after? Just think, you'd be in a permanent state of "no words", and isn't that the "freedom" you seek?

+Marsha+ 
I have not spoken of becoming brain dead, just not elevating language when it is much of the problem.  


> Or do you deprive yourself of that state of bliss because you like "conventional chit chat"?

^Marsha^
Sometimes. 


 
___