Ian said:
Hi DMB, your mail was simply two statements, so not sure what your purpose was
... or whether it related to anyone else's point(s)? They're true enough.
dmb says:
The two quotes (from the Buddha and the Dali Lama) lend support, I think, to my
ongoing campaign against drivel and incoherence. I think we could pull quotes
from Pirsig that say the same thing.
The Buddha said: "Just as the wise accept gold after testing it by heating,
cutting and rubbing it, so are my words to be accepted after examining them,
but not out of respect for me."
Ian commented on the first one:
yes, but even the Buddha, handling a gold "object" of value (beyond its gold
content) would take care not to destroy that value, when heating , rubbing,
cutting, etc. ("We murder to dissect" - with Aristotle's analytic knife, said
Wordsworth,)
dmb says:
Um, I think the point is just that we should accept ideas only after they are
tested and examined, as opposed to accepting them on the basis of authority or
out of respect for tradition. It is an endorsement of empiricism and
intellectual scrutiny. To describe this analytical test as destruction or
murder is to turn the Buddha's statement on it's head. It construes empirical
and intellectual standards as a dangerous enemy. And what does gold as an
"object" have to do with anything? If I tell you not to take any wooden
nickels, are you going to take that as an endorsement of subject-object
metaphysics?
The Dali Lama said: "A general stance of Buddhism is that it is inappropriate
to hold a view that is logically inconsistent. This is taboo. But even more
taboo than holding a view that is logically inconsistent is holding a view that
goes against direct experience."
Ian commented on this second one:
- yes, but the point is that logical consistency is about relations involving
the "objects" chosen. Choose the wrong objects - or even objects at all - and
direct experienced reality may not look so logical expressed in those objective
terms. Logical consistency has its limitations.
dmb says:
What's with the introduction of objects again? Why does logic have to be about
objects? I'm fairly certain that you do not get his meaning, which closely
reflects some of the MOQ's main points, I think. Please notice for example that
logical inconsistency is not just a matter of being incorrect, although that's
true too, it's also a moral issue. Logical inconsistency is "taboo", he says.
(That's a very strong word, often used to reference the most shocking
transgressions like cannibalism and incest.) But EVEN MORE taboo, he says, is
going against direct experience. In terms of the MOQ, he's saying that
intellectual quality is highly moral but DQ (direct experience) trumps
intellectual quality. They're both saying that rationality is highly moral but
empirical reality is the gold standard above all.
I think the basic overall idea here is that drivel is a certain kind of evil.
Incoherence is very uncool, anti-intellectualism is not a brave stance or an
enlightened view. It's not wise to hate intellectuals, academic institutions,
or the empirical sciences. I think these attitudes are "inappropriate", to put
it mildly, and I hoped that supportive quotes from the Buddha and the Dali Lama
would make that clear to everyone - especially Marsha. She seems to think that
Buddha and Pirsig want us to hate logic, words and everything intellectual, as
if thinking straight were some kind of crime.
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