[MD] The hard question.

[MarshaV]

dmb,


On May 26, 2012, at 11:28 AM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:

> 
> 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.

Marsha:
My comment that your post (the immediate post I was responding to) lacks detail is true. I pulled up the specifics from your general complaints, which also lack detail.  I do not consider your complaint about diverging from the exact dictionary definition a legitimate complaint, unless of course, you are complaining from the point-of- view of a linguistic philosopher.  


> dmb:
> Leaving your blatant dishonesty aside, yes, your description of static patterns as ever-changing is the most obvious problem.

Marsha:
A problem for you.

> Dmb:
> That description is contradictory in a way that confuses and conflates the MOQ's central distinction.

Marsha:
A problem for you.  There is no contradiction in the overall paragraph.

> dmb:
> Static pattens of quality are CONTRASTED with ever-changing experience, which is otherwise known as Dynamic Quality.

Marsha:
Seems to me the quote stated ALL experience.  Are you suggesting that static (patterned) value is not experience?  I get the feeling that you consider static patterns equivalent to Plato's forms, while I see them as events/process etc. 


> dmb:
> 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.

Marsha:
My description does not conflate the terms.  My explanation carefully explains how patterns hold together: are "processes ... that pragmatically tend to persist and change within a stable, predictable pattern".  


> dmb:
> 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".

Marsha:
HOW an I misreading the MoQ and Buddhism?  Please explain.  Again the quote states ALL experience.   Static (patterned) value is all about change.  Value is experience, yes?


> 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.  

Marsha:
It's a rhetorical opposition.  <<<The fundamental nature of static quality is Dynamic Quality.>>>


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

Marsha:
Direct experience?  Does that mean direct perceptual experience, sans words & language, or does that mean direct experience, sans all static (patterned) value?   I do not take static (patterned) value to be concepts (words & language) alone.  I cannot understand what you are presenting in presenting this quote?  


> 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."

Marsha:
I do not disagree with the James quote, but it seems clumsy. I have no idea of James's meaning of discontinuous. Does he mean the millisecond that a thought arises, transitions and perishes, or something else?  That certainly constitutes one form of ever-changing. But, I have no idea what exactly is his meaning.  I do agree that James has chosen the same words: static & dynamic.  


> dmb:
> That is why your description of "Static patterns of value" as "ever-changing" is a contradiction.

Marsha: 
But there is no contradiction within the paragraph.



> dmb:
> 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. 

Marsha:
Persist through repetition, and change because that is the nature of all experience as stated in he quote.  No contradiction there.  


> dmb:
> Stability and change are not exotic, fancy concepts.

Marsha:
Nor are they necessarily black and white terms.


> dmb:
>  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. 

Marsha:
Your insults bother me not at all.  I suppose that is the blarney defense.  


> dmb:
> 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.

Marsha:
You really are a black&white, either/or type of thinker.  


Marsha