[MD] theories of truth

[David Harding]

Marsha,

It is precisely *because* you're such a mystic that the intellectual question makes no sense to you.  It's like asking a Victorian whose only interested in social values what the biological value of the human body is.  They didn't have the slightest idea. They wouldn't understand the question. 

It is precisely *because* you're such a mystic that you don't like either/or type logic or reasoning.

It is precisely *because* you're such a mystic that you prerfer the wisdom of the East.

All that said - if you use logic you cannot help but create either/or type divisions..  

Example: Either you're an intellectual who likes James - or you're not an intellectual.. (Marsha's logic).

We cannot distinguish between two things without said logic.  The ability to create a division between two things is a beautiful thing. But also Mystically degenerate. 

"To the intellect the process of defining Quality has a compulsive quality of its own. It produces a certain excitement even though it leaves a hangover afterward, like too many cigarettes, or a party that has lasted too long. Or Lila last night. It isn't anything of lasting beauty; no joy forever. What would you call it? Degeneracy, he guessed. Writing a metaphysics is, in the strictest mystic sense, a degenerate activity. But the answer to all this, he thought, was that a ruthless, doctrinaire avoidance of degeneracy is a degeneracy of another sort. That's the degeneracy fanatics are made of. Purity, identified, ceases to be purity. Objections to pollution are a form of pollution."

Intellectually and mystically degenerately yours,

David.

> David,
> 
> On May 23, 2013, at 6:48 AM, David Harding <davidjharding at gmail.com> wrote:
> David Harding:
> And so I conclude - Marsha is a mystic and has no interest in intellectual quality or questions about whether something exists before we think about it.
> 
> Marsha:
> So, David, EITHER I discuss with you 'whether something exists before we think about it' <a statement that makes no sense to me> to entitle myself as 'intellectual' OR I get labeled a mystic (an obvious charlatan)?   That is your line of thinking?   You're another Flatlander?  Either/or?  Yes/no?  True/false?  0/1?  A or not-A?  You're another Aristotelian?  Ah-choo!  Ah-choo!  Ah-choo!  
> 
> Goodness, it is no wonder I prefer the wisdom of the East:  "the Tao is the groundless and boundless; it is the flowing, dynamic, yet unmoved amidst infinite change."
> 
> If you want to discuss 'whether something exists before we think about it', present your views on the topic.  If I have something to contribute maybe I will, or maybe I'll remain silent.  But at the moment the topic makes no sense to me.   
> 
> 'If this is, that comes to be; from the arising of this, that arises; if this is not, that does not come to be; from the stopping of this, that is stopped'.
>       - Buddha
> 
> It's not what 'James says', but so what?     
> 
> Marsha