dmb,
On Feb 15, 2013, at 11:45 AM, david buchanan <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> Marsha said to dmb:
>
>
> You want to fault me for quoting RMP: his language, his concept, his words.
> When you present a quote it is evidence of your deep understanding and high
> intellectual competency, and when I present a quote it is my contradiction,
> in-coherence and anti-intellectualism. Right. I still deny that concepts
> and language are a "contemptible prison".
>
>
> Pirsig said:
> "... The definition is a cage... You set limits on what a word is. You set
> limits on what your experience is. And those limits, which you set in order
> that you can manipulate these words, are also a cage for that word. It can't
> go beyond it one way or another."
>
>
>
> dmb says:
>
> The problem is not quoting Pirsig but MISREADING quotes from Pirsig. The
> other problem is simply contradicting yourself from one moment to the next
> and using contradictory terms in your sentences. Given the context of this
> discussion, wherein the criticism centers on your excessively negative
> attitude toward words and concepts, I can only conclude that the "cage" quote
> is being used to push back against this criticism.
You are quite mistaken. I never accepted that the topic of this discussion as
you are stating it, and I have repeatedly advised you that I do not find your
point-of-view significant. It is one opinion among many. Your suggestion that
I am misreading RMP is not the same as RMP's suggestion that I am misreading
him. What you have concluded is wrong. I merely thought to add some RMP's
comments on the subject:
"... The definition is a cage... You set limits on what a word is. You set
limits on what your experience is. And those limits, which you set in order
that you can manipulate these words, are also a cage for that word. It can't
go beyond it one way or another."
(RMP, 'The MOQ at Oxford', Part 4: The Church of Reason)
> dmb:
> It doesn't. Quite the opposite. To say that definitions set limits like a
> cage is not some deep mystical insight and in fact this meaning can be seen
> in the Latin root words. from Latin definitio(n-), from the verb definire
> ‘set bounds to’ (see define ).
I never implied that it was a deep, mystical insight. It is, though, RMP's
insight.
> dmb:
> Even further, these limits and boundaries are what enable us the have
> language at all.
I am no expert on language, but I might guess it is a little more complicated
than your statement suggests.
> dmb:
> Those limits are nothing less than the difference between one meaning and
> another.
See previous comment.
> dmb:
> The use of contradictory terms is a violation of those limits and a destroyer
> of intelligible meaning.
I have never been a strict either/or type of thinker, and tend to want to
consider static patterns within context.
> dmb:
> The term "static", for example, cannot rightly be substituted or equated to
> "ever-changing". Those are two completely different cages and you'd have to
> break one or the other to make that work, which is why it does NOT work.
> Neither does "liquid ice" or "clean filth". Contradictory phrases and
> sentences have no intellectual value. How is this even debatable!?
Nobody has suggested such a substitution. Concerning my definition of self:
- 'The “self” is a flow of ever-changing, conditionally co-dependent and
impermanent static patterns value in the infinite field of Dynamic Quality.' -
I have pointed out many times, it is not anti-intellectual or a contradiction
to understand that patterns may maintain a static, stable identity at the same
time as they and their context are undergoing constant change. Think of the
Ship of Theseus, or a parade (Hume) where everyone drops out but is replaced so
that the parade is maintained, or the body with its cells constantly being
replaced... Above all (the MoQ being in agreement with Radical Empiricism)
this definition agrees with my experience.
> dmb offers a Wittgenstein quote:
> "Propositions show what they say: tautologies and contradictions show that
> they say nothing." Ludwig Wittgenstein
Oh, you find Wittgenstein quotes meaningful? Here is one for you.
"A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of
jokes."
(Wittgenstein, Ludwig)
Your repetitious whining makes me laugh.
Marsha
.
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