[MD] reifying carrots

[MarshaV]

Hi dmb,


On May 9, 2012, at 6:09 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:

> 
> 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:
I agreed with you that "ALL static (patterned) value is secondary."  Dynamic Quality is primary.  In what phrase or sentence in the above statement have I implied that static (patterned) value is not secondary?  Can you explain this or are we to accept it as true because you think/assume it.


> 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:
Yes, to the quote:

"An example of sammuti-sacca [conventional (relative) truth, or static quality] is the concept of self. Pirsig follows the Buddha’s teachings about the ‘self’ which doesn’t recognise that it has any real existence and that only ‘nothingness’ (i.e. Dynamic Quality) is thought to be real. According to Rahula, the Buddha taught that a clinging to the self as real is the primary cause of dukkha (which is usually translated as ‘suffering’).  Having said this, Rahula (1959, p.55) makes it very clear that it’s not incorrect to ‘use such expressions in our daily life as ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘being’, ‘individual’, etc’ as long as it is remembered that the self (like anything else conceptualised) is just a useful convention."
(McWatt, MoQ Textbook)

Marsha:
I wrote "Here it [the quote] states that static quality, using the concept of self as an example, is useful fiction.".  There is no using the "the MOQ criticism of the Cartesian self against the MOQ self.".  None.   None at all.  The quote is merely pointing to agreement between RMP and the Buddha's teaching.

What do you mean by "MOQ self"?  Is there any meaning behind this expression that you can explain?  Can you present the proper use of this "MOQ self" and have it become an intelligible expression of an idea? 


> 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).

Marsha:
Sorry, but you are incorrect.  I have the MoQ being ontologically indeterminate, in that Dynamic Quality, as the fundamental nature of reality, is indivisible, undefinable and unknowable.  I have the four levels as extremely useful conventional/static "truths".  But having said that, these levels and their usefulness are more epistemological, and they are conventionally, as presented by RMP, associated with evolution: How what we know is structured.  Are you wanting to ignore the evolutionary aspect of the MoQ?  On my part it matters little, for I see the MoQ as presenting Reality as value(unpatterned experience/patterned experience).  Beyond that is the ability to see from many different perspectives.

Just to be clear I take ontology to be addressing 'what is it that is fundamentally real.'   As stated in the quote above, Dynamic Quality is thought to be real.



Marsha









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