[MD] Idealistic static value patterns

[mail at tuukkavirtaperko.net]

Marsha,

this is a _very_ interesting article. Use of the word "relational"  
isn't necessarily a problem. It is far enough from "relative" and  
"relativistic", and it didn't occur to me "relational" is proper  
English.

Some other things in the article are troublesome.

Page 3:
"There is no entity that has intrinsic existence."

I think he's overdoing it, and I'm not sure whether all Buddhists  
would agree with him. That statement doesn't make sense, because the  
notion of intrinsic existence doesn't make sense.

When Nagarjuna goes through a bunch of entities that could be thought  
to have intrinsic existence, Priest does not report him to conclude  
that there is no thing that has intrinsic existence. That is Priest's  
own well-meaning but exagerrating interpretation.

What would it mean to state that nothing has intrinsic existence? That  
it is, by definition, an empty set? But nothing in the notion of an  
"empty set" warrants a connection to the concept of intrinsic existence.

It could also mean Priest is a proponent of extreme solipsism, or an  
antirealist, or something like that. But that would put him into an  
extremely weak position, because he would have difficulties  
explaining, why he wrote that paper it nobody can read it, or if it  
exists only to him. Does he construct complicated assumptions of the  
existence of other people while, at all times, dutifully reminding  
himself that they are only assumptions which are not true? Probably not.

You know, I don't attack other philosophical theories in fear that  
they are wrong, unless they have a contradiction, which is not that  
usual. But Priest makes a rather unjust attack here. At social level I  
believe he is gaining as much acceptance among those who already agree  
with him or are undecided, than he is gaining resistance among those  
who already disagree with him or again, are undecided. He  
misrepresents both his opponents and allies.

I should note that Priest apparently has found rather important  
Western people to say rather silly or at least very interesting  
things, which is a merit in itself.

Priest's theory explains relationality with the equivalence function.  
I don't think that is very good, because it simplifies the theory to  
the point where it has quite little resemblance to anything.

Priest does not seem to solve the symbol grounding problem or give any  
attention to it. That's not very good, because it makes his theory  
vulnerable to be dismissed as a mere formalism.

On page 7 Priest tries to solve the "co-domain problem" by assuming  
every point to be in the domain of some Ri. This is dubious and  
resembles the mistake Langan makes in the CTMU. But on the other hand,  
it's not strictly a mistake, if Priest's mathematical model is not a  
Wheeler-style reality theory. But then again, if Priest's theory is  
not a Wheeler-style theory, it becomes more and more difficult to  
answer how it would have a lot to do with reality.

Another problem is that Priest's assumption seems to deny the  
existence of Dynamic Quality. As a related problem, the theory also  
does not seem to account for how new points enter existence.

Priest seems to believe that if an object exists, it already has  
relations to existing objects, and if it doesn't, it can't acquire  
them. I don't think that describes a reality where unexpected things  
can happen.

I should compliment Priest for not writing a paper that is  
unnecessarily long and uses obfuscating language and dull cliches and  
tiresome manners of speech. Even rather prestigious writers aren't  
always much when it comes to that.

"If we are taking emptiness seriously, there will be no such points."

This is obviously a weak point in Priest's theory, because that's just  
empty rhetoric. But he does not try to conceal that weakness, so I  
respect him.

Bottom line is, however, that it is completely unnecessary to claim  
that everything has only relational existence. Rather, it should be  
claimed that the notion of inherent existence is not intelligible  
while the notion of relational existence is, and apparently no viable  
alternatives have been _yet_ presented, and maybe never will.

For how could someone state that something, of which she does not know  
what it is, does not exist? What would that mean? That would be as  
pointless as to try to solve the equation x + y = 7.

The theory does not even get to the point of being cyclical, because  
Xn never emerges from itself. To be sure, the theory does not feature  
emergence, only subsethood, and it Xn were its own subset, every set  
in the cycle would apparently be the same set. This would be in line  
with Priest's way of using the equivalence relation, but explain very  
little about reality.

Just for the sake of repetition, I would like to remind that providing  
at least some answer to the symbol grounding problem is important.

Ultimately, the theory does not recurse in very interesting ways. I'd  
like it to have a lot more recursion, because reasonable  
implementations of recursion remove arbitrariness from a theory while  
adding features.

Priest seems to have a strong background in mathematics and a weaker  
background in metaphysics. My merits are the opposite. Therefore I  
would perhaps be interested of working with him if he were interested.

I hope I did not make mistakes in this review! I have checked it only once.

-Tuukka




Quoting MarshaV <valkyr at att.net>:

>
>
> Tuukka,
>
> Although, Priest wimps out by using the term 'relational', you might  
>  find this interesting.  It's a mathematical model:
>
>
> "1. Introduction
>
> The view that everything is empty (sunya) is a central metaphysical   
> plank of Mahayana Buddhism.  It has often been the focus of   
> objections.  Perhaps the most important of these is to the effect   
> that it entails a nihilism:  nothing exists.  The objection, in   
> turn, is denied by Mahayana theorists, such as Nagarjuna.  One of   
> the things that makes the debate hard is that the precise import of   
> the view that everything is empty is unclear.  The point of this   
> paper is to revisit and resolve the debate.  I will do this by   
> giving a precise mathematical characterisation of emptiness, showing  
>  that emptiness, whatever it is, has a precise structure, and is not  
>  therefore, to be identified with the void.  Thus the debate will be  
>  resolved in favour of the Mahayana. "
>
>       (Priest, Graham, 'The Structure of Emptiness')
>
>
>
>
> http://www.hmn.bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/pasta/priest/priest_040826.pdf
>
>
> ---
>
>
>
> Marsha
>
>
>
> ___
>
>
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