[MD] Awareness and consciousness in the MOQ

[david buchanan]

Andre said to Marsha:
... Who says anything about this 'self' being 'autonomous', 'some independent primary reality', 'concrete reality',? It is an assumption you seem to claim that I am making. This I deny.  ... I simply asked you: WHO 'found' all those patterns and TO WHOM do they arise?



dmb says:
Yes, you've hit upon one of the central errors. Buddhism and the MOQ both reject what we in the West would call the soul, the substantial Cartesian self or the transcendental ego. Buddhism and the MOQ both posit a very different conception of the self, a conception wherein the good is central. But Marsha uses the quotes that reject this Cartesian self against the MOQ's moral self, against any self. What happens to values and growth, ethics and morality, responsibility and duty if there is no self at all? It all evaporates into black, empty space. 
This is a worldview in which the most sensible thing to do is curl up in the fetal position and rock and back and forth while muttering, "it's only a dream. it's not real. it's only a dream, oh god, please make the world go away."
This is neither virtue nor wisdom. It's just  a ridiculous misunderstanding and a criminal waste of time.