Hello David,
On Aug 16, 2012, at 9:02 AM, David Harding <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Marsha, > >>> So you do not find the truths of philosophy 'valid'? Why is it so >>> important, heaven forbid, that the word truth is qualified by the words >>> conventional or provisional? >> >> Well, it certainly is not in the words 'conventional' and 'provisional'; >> it's the realization that our experiencing is co-dependent (relative), >> impermanent and ever-changing - fleeting. > > Okayy.. So truth changes how as a result of this? I have nothing to say about 'truth'. The idea of truth does not interest me. I'll repeat: the idea of truth does not interest me. I prefer to think of knowledge as static patterns of value. >>>> The Ultimate Truth, which might be what interests me, is best approached >>>> by discovering what is false; not this, not that; or so this is how I have >>>> come to understand and experience it. >>> >>> So other truths apart from the 'Ultimate Truth' does not interest you? >> >> The word 'truth' does not interest me. I like the idea of 'patterns' so >> much more. > > Why do you dislike the word 'truth' so much? Are there truths which > you do not like? Is there something in your past which you do not want > to face and so are avoiding it philosophically by claiming that > 'truth' does not exist? I have not said I dislike the word 'truth'. I know of nothing that I am avoiding. I can only repeat that the idea of truth does not interest me. > A truth is an intellectual pattern. Some are > good some are bad but truth is very important. It is a matter of life > and death. Some truths save lives. Like the truth that you should put > your seatbelt on when you go driving... The idea of 'truth' is an intellectual pattern. You might like to classify patterns as truths, but I do not. Maybe 'conventional (relative) truth' or 'provincial truth', but not 'truth'. I do like 'hypothetical'. Even my little dog Bebe I consider hypothetical. >>> So if I were to take your viewpoint. And take that objects of knowledge >>> and static patterns are as you say - 'hypothetical'. Would it help the >>> victims families of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima to tell them not to >>> worry, the bombs were only 'hypothetical'? >> >> No, it wouldn't help the victims of the bombs dropped by the U.S.A. onto >> Japan. > > Claiming that it is true that these things did happen, on the other > hand, does help the victims. It means that they can begin to accept > that it is true that these things have happened and move on.. > Pretending that they were hypothetical is delusional and doesn't help. I think experience as process is more complex and interdependent then a simple truth can represent. Unless you were there, aren't you projecting what helps the victims of the bombing of Hiroshima? Within the MoQ, it would be biological patterns that would move the victims to survive. I think. >>> That makes me sick to the stomach. What shrewd, uncaring, new age mumbo >>> jumbo. >> >> Your being "sick" and name calling doesn't help much either; it may be just >> adding more pollution. I find holding patterns as hypothetical may be a >> good way to honor all life as continuous. > > But life isn't continuous Marsha. That's my point. One day you and I > and everyone else who is alive is going to die. That's true and not > 'hypothetical'. What I might think about death IS hypothetical. >>> There are facts of life Marsha. And no, they're not hypothetical. One of >>> those facts of life, is that you and I and everyone on this planet is going >>> to die. This isn't some joke. It's very sad and something very real when >>> someone's time comes before it should. This is why there is more to life >>> than just your 'Ultimate Truth'. There are important things and truths in >>> life which people are concerned with which aren't the 'Ultimate Truth'. A >>> way of determining those truths is by dialectically questioning someone, >>> and forcing them to explain - on demand. >> >> There is value/experience; understanding that is more useful than some >> cliche. And I do not dictate what everyone else should be doing or >> thinking. There are times in our lives when family and community may be >> more important, but I think compassion is a gift of the Ultimate Truth, even >> we only experience it as fleeting. > > Everything is a 'gift' of the ultimate truth. Saying that is like > saying the sun will rise tomorrow. So what? We are alive and there are > facts of life which are true. We cannot wish those facts of life away > just by pretending they are 'incomplete' or 'co-dependent'. This comment goes somewhere far beyond my statement, imho. >>>>> Yeah good, valuable, moral, right - they're all the same thing to me… >>>> >>>> Maybe a serial killer would agree with you. >>> >>> I hardly see how what I wrote would be something a serial killer would say. >>> If you could explain yourself with some reasoning so that I can >>> intellectually understand where you are coming from then maybe I can >>> respond in more detail so that we can get to the truth of the matter. >> >> I am not sure there is a rational way to present an explanation. > > Being that I value intellect and metaphysics I think you can explain > everything except Dynamic Quality. But even DQ we have given it a > name and called it as such.. Okay, this is what you think? >> Think back to your presenting a family tragedy and the bombing of Hiroshima. >> On what level can they be "good, valuable, moral, right"? > > The bombing of Japan had a certain rightness to it to those who > ordered the bombings. While we disagree about our descriptions of > what is right, it is our descriptions which differ and not the > rightness itself. Hypothetically, of course. You were not there, and you were not someone who ordered the bombing either. Were you? >> Such a paradox was why Phædrus left the University in India, was it not? > > No it wasn't and this points to what appears to be your misreading on > ZMM. The whole point of why Phædrus left India was that they were > claiming what you are claiming now. That the bombs were 'illusory'.. How real is such an event to you? Will your knowledge of those bombs ever be direct, complete and certain, or is you knowledge an imaginative construct? Isn't your knowledge of this event nothing but an abstracted feeling of horror mixed with a confused sense of patriotic justification constructed from a bit of film and commentary seen on the television? How much more is your truth of that bombing? The story of Phædrus's experience was told of a young man. Is there anything to prove an older, wiser Phædrus doesn't have a deeper, wiser understanding of what those professors were trying to get him to understand? > "But one day in the classroom, the professor of philosophy was blindly > expounding on the illusory nature of the world for what seemed like > the fiftieth time and Phaedrus raised his hand and asked coldly if it > was believed that the atomic bombs that had been dropped on Hiroshima > and Nagasaki were illusory. The professor smiled and said yes. That > was the end of the exchange. > > Within the traditions of Indian philosophy that answer may have been > correct, but for Phaedrus and for anyone else who reads newspapers > regularly and is concerned with such things as mass destruction of > human beings that answer was hopelessly inadequate. He left the > classroom, left India and gave up." Phædrus told of an event that took place very early in his story. I bet much of his understanding changed in many ways from that point-in-time. >> It is a most difficult challenge to understanding, and I believe the path to >> opening one's heart. I did try to bring up the Buddhist conception of the >> Two-Truths, but those too are just words. And I only make others angry if I >> say the fundamental nature of static quality is Dynamic Quality. It sounds >> insane to say it is suffering and, at the same time, it is good, valuable, >> moral and right. But that's the way it is, or seems to be to me. > > Yes static quality is suffering and good, valuable, moral and right. > Static quality does come from Dynamic Quality. But it is not Dynamic > Quality. They are two very different Qualities. One is interested in > particulars, while the other is no thing at all. The statement is 'The fundamental nature of static quality is Dynamic Quality', and I am interested in the fundamental nature of static patterns being Dynamic Quality. To put it another way, I am interested in a pattern being no thing at all. As knowledge, does a static pattern really represent a particular experience? Or does a pattern represent a generalized accumulation of repetitive, artificially isolated experiences, that are somewhat similar and which consciousness interactively reconstructs into particulars? (And to those who would like to label me anti-intellectual, to my mind this makes them all the more wondrous.) Marsha 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
