5.5 NAGARJUNA
"In addition to the Dynamic Quality viewpoint of the MoQ corresponding
to what Nagarjuna terms sunyata (ie; the indeterminate or the world
of the Buddhas), the static quality viewpoint of the MoQ also corresponds
to _sunyavada_ (ie,the conditioned component or world of _maya_)
of Nagarjuna. _Sunyavada_ includes all conceptions of reality including
metaphysical views, ideals, religious beliefs, hopes and ambitions; in other
words,using MoQ terminology, static quality patterns
(McWatt, Anthony, 'AN INTRODUCTION TO ROBERT PIRSIG’S METAPHYSICS OF
QUALITY')
On Sep 11, 2011, at 12:24 PM, MarshaV wrote:
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> "Now, Dharma is one of the most difficult words to translate into English
> because it's usually translated as meaning "law", but that's only half of
> Dharma. The other half of Dharma is "duty to oneself", or "duty to a
> perfect self". If you, through enlightenment, become a perfect self, then
> all you'll ever do is Dharma, but if you're living in the world of illusion,
> then you better follow the law and not just do as you damn please."
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> (RMP, The MoQ & Art from dvd ‘The MOQ at Oxford’)
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> On Sep 11, 2011, at 12:10 PM, david buchanan wrote:
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>> Arlo said to Dan:
>> ...Your phrasing "static quality illusions" seems to point to the fact that
>> SQ=Illusion, and I was responding to that. I do maintain, however, that
>> "illusions" do not exist within a MOQ, illusions are what emerge from the
>> SOM that a MOQ seeks to overcome. ... "S's" and "O's" do not "exist". That
>> is the trap of SOM the MOQ argues against. ... the "illusion" I am referring
>> to is the "existential" reality of said "thing"... I get that, there are no
>> primary objects (or subjects) that precede direct experience. And on that
>> level to call the primacy of objects an "illusion" makes absolute sense to
>> me. But experientially? Wasn't this Pirsig's point in ZMM? How can anyone
>> say the bombs were "illusions"?
>> ... I'd say that seeing "free will" as some existential "out there" thing
>> that floats around and controls experience is certainly an illusion. But the
>> concept of "free will" is an intellectual pattern of value, a way we explain
>> and make sense of our experience. Of course, I have said I don't think it
>> is the best way we can explain this, I personally think agency/structuration
>> is a better metaphor than free will/determinism. But my argument is that
>> "free will" is only an illusion when it is offered as some existential
>> "object" that exists independent of experience. But as a mediating
>> intellectual pattern of value, it can have high or low value based on its
>> success in not only describing experience but giving YOU the tools you want
>> to navigate the stream of experience.
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>> dmb says:
>> I think you're right on both major points here and those points are well
>> said too. In fact, I was trying to make your first point recently in the
>> "algebra of illusion" post. The algebraic equation works against claims
>> about what things "really" are beyond their appearances but the MOQ doesn't
>> make any such claims. It begins by rejecting claims as to what things
>> "really" are. It says that your idea of the earth and sky and everything
>> else is just that, an idea. It says don't reify that idea, don't believe
>> that your idea is how things "really" are. So if you plug the MOQ's
>> assertions into the equation, it's like using a double negative. You'd end
>> up reversing yourself, because the MOQ and that equation are both meant to
>> work against the claims of Platonists, essentialists, realists and the like.
>> It would be a matter of being opposed to essentialism AND opposed to the
>> opponents of essentialism at the same time. The MOQ doesn't ask if an idea
>> corresponds with reality as it really
>> is. It simply asks if an idea works AS an idea. Ideas have to work in
>> experience and so they agree with reality as it's experienced in that
>> broader sense, but this is not correspondence to an objective reality of
>> things. Truth is not matching your ideas to the way things "really" are so
>> much as it is a good marriage between your thinking and your living, a good
>> fit between the conceptual tool and the empirical flux.
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>> I've been trying to make your second point to Steve for quite a while now.
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>> What's the simplest way to make that point? The MOQ does not reject ALL
>> conceptions of free will. The MOQ has its own particular sort of free will,
>> its own version of what it takes for one's behavior to be free and its own
>> particular sort of determining factors. (I also agree that agency and
>> structuration is a good way to think of these two elements - or simply
>> freedom and restraint.) I think it's pretty obvious that we can totally
>> reject the concept of free will as the capacity OF the autonomous self, OF
>> the Cartesian self, OF the rational self or OF the Christian soul, without
>> also rejecting the MOQ's radically empirical version. We can reject free
>> will AS the property of these various metaphysical entities without
>> rejecting the general concept of free will. It's the metaphysical additions
>> to and explanations of free will that we're rejecting, not the freedom
>> itself. In the MOQ, this freedom is not predicated on any pre-existing
>> metaphysical posits. It's an empirical, exper
>> iential fact, one that richly deserves serious consideration because we're
>> talking about human life and human freedom, after all.
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>> If we reject any kind agency, all versions of free will as illusions then we
>> are very likely to end up in the determinist's camp, wherein free will and
>> morality are both considered to be illusions. This would be almost directly
>> opposed to the MOQ, wherein morality and freedom are paramount, wherein
>> freedom is the goal of evolution and protecting the ongoing process of
>> evolution is what we mean by morality. As you may have noticed, I think this
>> point is a pretty big one. It's so central to the MOQ, I think, that it
>> wouldn't be too much of an exaggeration to say it's a tragic mistake to miss
>> this point. Everybody's battle involves these two elements; sq and DQ are
>> the quality of order and the quality of freedom. You ARE those two elements.
>> Evolution and growth is the dance of those two elements.
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