[MD] The hard question.

[david buchanan]

dmb said to Marsha:
...The criticism is, quite simply, that your words and ideas are contradictory and incoherent.  The problem, which you never address and do not seem to grasp regardless of how carefully it's explained, is that your statements are nonsense. The issue is that you've confused and conflated the MOQ's core concepts. Unless and until you address the substance of this often-repeated criticism, I'll remain convinced that you don't know what you're talking about.


Marsha replied:
Yours is a much too general complaint; it is simply an unsubstantiated, ad hominem accusation.  You rarely unpack a complaint in any detail; and while you complain often, you rarely make a specific case for the complaint.  There is usually no substance to your "often-repeated complaints", and this post is a perfect example of accusation without substance; there are no examples included.   An exception is my use of 'ever-changing' with regards to static patterns, where your complaint is that it doesn't conform to the definition found in the dictionary or the insightful complaint that my explanation is a "1000% longer than it needs to be". ....

dmb says:
Do you see what you did there? You denied that there was any specific complaint and then you named the specific complaint. Leaving your blatant dishonesty aside, yes, your description of static patterns as ever-changing is the most obvious problem. That description is contradictory in a way that confuses and conflates the MOQ's central distinction. Static pattens of quality are CONTRASTED with ever-changing experience, which is otherwise known as Dynamic Quality. This is the MOQ's first and most important distinction and your descriptions undo that distinction. Your description equates terms that should contrasted. And you keep quoting passages that you view as supporting this nonsense. It doesn't. You're misreading the MOQ and Buddhism. Look....

Marsha said:
... As Hagen 202 (1997, p.30) notes, one of the most fundamental truths noted by the Buddha is that all aspects of our experience are in constant flux and change. According to the Buddha, when a person ignores this truth they subject themselves to dukkha."  ...Please note in the above quote "all aspects of our experience are in constant flux and change".    -  And my explanation accommodates the use of the word 'static' by specifying "processes ... that pragmatically tend to persist and change within a stable, predictable pattern".

dmb says:
Pirsig also says that experience is constantly in flux. That's what James says too. But you are saying this about static patterns, which are supposed to be contrasted and opposed to the immediate flux of life.  

"Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions".  

Pirsig quotes William James on this point at the end of chapter 29:

" 'There must always be a discrepancy between concepts and reality, because the former are static and discontinuous while the latter is dynamic and flowing.' Here James had chosen exactly the same words Phaedrus had used for the basic subdivision of the Metaphysics of Quality."


That is why your description of "Static patterns of value" as "ever-changing" is a contradiction. Your incoherent salad of words goes on to also say static patterns "tend to persist and change".  Persist AND change? At best, that is very badly stated. Again, simply because those terms are contradictory. It's like saying static patterns "tend to cool and heat". This is not even a philosophical point. This complaint is simply about thinking and talking badly. Very badly. 


Stability and change are not exotic, fancy concepts. How can anyone confuse one with the other? What would you think if you watched somebody confuse such simple words for so long? You'd likely doubt their ability to think their way out of paper bag. 

Anybody want to place bets on whether or not Marsha can grasp the distinction between static and Dynamic? I could get rich betting on this.