Marsha said to dmb: From much I've read, reification represents the conventional way of thinking, and since I accept ''reification' from the expanded Buddhist understanding I think I will just ignore your posts. This is another of your fly-speck attempts to discredit the person rather than address the issue. Would you like me to post more quotes explaining 'reification' from the Buddhist point-of-view? Call me a delusional fanatic if you like. Your ad hominem nonsense doesn't mean much to me. It's a low-grade form of rhetoric.
dmb says: Yea, go ahead a post your "evidence" again. And I will show you once again that the quotes do NOT support the "expanded Buddhist understanding". Last time, your own evidence said concepts MAY be reified. Common sense, conventional thinking is not philosophical. It's practical and the average guy does not doubt the existence of the traffic light. That kind of common sense realism or natural essentialism is NOT a problem. Realistic conceptualizations work quite unproblematically on the conventional level. Reification becomes a problem when conventional notions are asked to do philosophical work, when ordinary thoughts and things become metaphysical or ontological categories. Pirsig's attack on Plato's fixed and eternal forms and his attack on Aristotle's substance are proper attacks on reification, for example. The way he and James both insist that subjects and objects are concepts rather than the starting points of reality, for example, is an attack on reification. Your incoherent attack on reification is just a foolish. You're oblivious to the problem where it actually exists and instead use the term to condemn any and all concepts. Like I said, if you were able to comprehend the meaning of the term you'd reject Bo's position in a very big way. He has reified the MOQ and yet you follow him even while you blather on incoherently about reification. You know, the cool thing about Buddhism is that it is more like psychology than religion. William James thought one particular Buddhist guest speaker at Harvard was a better psychologist than himself, and told him so after the talk. There are Buddhist scholars who say that the Buddha was a pragmatist and a radical empiricist and who say James's work is compatible with Japanese Zen Buddhism. My point? Zen and the Art doesn't need any Buddhist expansion or correction, least of all from non-Buddhist, non-scholar like you, because it's already there. Again, I'll remind you that you repeatedly cited an enthusiastic William James fan to dispute William James. The quotes you post as evidence for your notion of reification do not support that notion at all. What I don't get is WHY you need to believe that the intellect cannot escape SOM or reification. It's pretty clear that you have some kind of deep emotional commitment to the belief that intellect is something to killed rather than cultivated. But why do you NEED to believe that? Is like a sour grapes thing? You're tired of being told that you have the wrong idea and that your laboring under a misconception and so rather than do the work it takes to think things through you simply decided that ideas and conceptions themselves are inherently bad. You've adopted a virulent form of anti-intellectualism in order to protect your self-esteem, to get off the hook and otherwise evade the issues. That's why nobody can ever have anything like a real conversation with you. If I present the evidence, you say it doesn't explain anything or dismiss it as authoritarian rather than authoritative. (Man, is that dumb!) If I explain, you ask for evidence. If I use logic, you don't see the point. Considering the context, that behavior is wildly inappropriate. Words and ideas are our common currency, the medium of exchange, not the root of all evil. You're betting that cash is no good and yet cash is all you have to bet. It's simply incoherent. Nobody thinks you're going to be persuaded by this or any other argument. I'm not really talking to you because there is no talking to you. Ask anyone who's ever tried. So what happened, eh? Did tragedy follow some kind of intellectual hubris? Somebody got hurt and you blame thinking itself? A smart person broke your heart? What? Why do you NEED to believe the intellect is inherently stuck on a metaphysics and can't escape reification? Why do you NEED to hold thinking in such contempt? And, considering this attitude, why would you join a philosophical discussion group in the first place? Isn't that a bit like a neo-nazi skinhead joining the NAACP? > On May 28, 2011, at 9:39 AM, david buchanan wrote: > > > > > John said to Marsha: > > ...when you originally flip-flopped on your support for Bo, the reason you > > gave was chiefly that he'd been loyal for so long. Then came the > > intellectual justification for your emotional reaction. Now I don't > > criticize that process, in fact, I think it's honestly the only way we do > > things. We always rationalize what we really want emotionally. Which is > > why I don't think the 4th level can rightly be termed "intellectual". > > > > > > Marsha replied: > > I might have defended Bo because of his loyalty to the MD, but that was not > > the reason I came to believe Bo is correct. I was backed into a corner, he > > backed me into a corner, and I was struck wordless. I realized that > > conceptualization reifies. I didn't know the word then, but I clearly > > understood the process. Only later did I stumble across the word 'reify' > > and after reading it a number of times I recognized it as the process from > > which I couldn’t escape... > > > > > > dmb says: > > There is an recent article in Mother Jones about "the science of > > self-delsusion". While emotion is a crucial component of the overall > > cognitive process, various studies show that people with deep emotional > > attachments to a belief or point of view will ignore and/or attack anything > > that threatens to undermine that belief. Such a person will dismiss > > evidence, deny facts, deny logic and generally do whatever it takes to > > protect the delusion that comforts them. Usually, this type of > > self-deception is found among political ideologues and religious believers. > > > > And in some case we even find folks who are willing to defy dictionaries > > and encyclopedia articles. > > > > If reification is an error wherein abstract concepts are mistaken for > > actual, concrete realities, AND Bo's position says that the MOQ is reality, > > then he has committed that error in a very big way. If Marsha actually had > > a realization as to the meaning of "reification" she would not be defending > > Bo. She would be using him as an example of what can go wrong when concepts > > are reified. > > > > And if there is no self-delusion at work in maintaining the view assertion > > that the intellectual level is equal to subject-object metaphysics, then > > how would we explain the fact that they are clinging to that view despite > > the author's explicit statements to the contrary? Evidence doesn't get much > > clearer or more authoritative than that. What could be more rigid and > > static than a point of view that will not bend in the face of such clear > > and obvious evidence? > > > > What's more fun and satisfying than talking to a delusional fanatic? Almost > > anything. > > > > > > > > Moq_Discuss mailing list > > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > > Archives: > > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > > http://moq.org/md/archives.html > > > > ___ > > > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
