[MD] reifying carrots

[david buchanan]

Marsha asked me to please note this Pirsig quote: 
"‘Static quality’ refers to anything that can be conceptualised and is a synonym for the conditioned in Buddhist philosophy."

Marsha commented on the quote:
Please notice again that this statement is not confined to addressing only _intellectual_ static patterns.

dmb says:
Ironically, you are reifying static patterns, treating them as if they were concrete realities upon which intellect depends. They're not. Inorganic, biological and social static patterns are conceptualizations too, not primary realities.    

Marsha said:
Here it states that static quality, using the concept of self as an example, is just useful convention.

dmb says:
Yes, the MOQ says that the "self" is just a useful concept and not a primary reality, not an independently existing entity. The problem, for the millionth time, nobody is claiming that the MOQ's conception of the self is independent. You're using the MOQ criticism of the Cartesian self against the MOQ's self. You're treating the cure with the same medicine that the disease is getting. It's like making a healthy person undergo chemo-therapy, which would be criminal malpractice. 



Marsha said:
Your explanation doesn't work for me.  I hope I've shown you why.  Intellectual patterns were the last to evolve.  Yet RMP has said that static (patterned) quality , like the Buddhist's conventional reality, represents everything that can be conceptualized.   The intellectual level didn't evolve first.

dmb says:
Again, you are treating the MOQ levels as if they were ontological categories rather than conceptual categories. You are doing the very thing you preach against (so incoherently).


There is much, much more to untangle but I can see that you have no idea what you're talking about. No matter how simply and clearly it's laid out for you, you just don't get it. It's probably never going to happen and I'm a fool for trying.

Good luck,