Hi Marsha, > Recognizing a mirage for what it is is not "relativism, a nihilism and an > >> anti-intellectualism." Chasing after some half-baked definition of > truth > >> is clinging to the last shreds of one's need for certainty. Who needs > it? > >> > > > > The first problem with referring to static quality as a "mirage" is that > by > > its very definition it immediately elevates the appearance-reality > > distinction to the top of the hierarchy and drops static quality into the > > "appearance" category. > > The use of the term 'mirage' is of course an analogy and doesn't elevate > anything. Perhaps you give the appearance-reality problem too much > credence. >
Perhaps I do but a mirage is defined as something which appears to be one thing but is really something else, right? So you are saying that static quality is like something which appears to be one thing but is really something else. So I have to ask - in what respect does it appear to be something while being really something else. And as far as that analogy goes, what is it that it appears to be and what is it really? > > Either Dynamic Quality or something else must then > > take its place in the "reality" category and we just join the long list > of > > philosophers who have had a stab at assigning this or that to these > > supposedly fundamental categories. > > You sound like there is a rejecting of static patterns in my statement, > and there is not. > OK, if that's the case, then good. > > I really see the MOQ as an attempt to > > avoid that while still remaining a viable philosophy. > > Viable? What would be your standard for viability? > It's difficult to be very precise and exhaustive about, Marsha, but I'm thinking something like - providing explanations of sufficient clarity, credibility, applicability, precision, elegance etc. (in other words, intellectual quality) to support widespread acceptance and use. First of all in academic communities and eventually into wider society. Are you genuinely interested in my answer, though, or just setting me up for a trap? I feel like if we were in a room you would hit me with a stick to "snap me out of it!" > The second problem is that by dismissing one element of its key > explanatory > > relationship as an illusion it makes the MOQ (particularly what I call > > context (2)) a bit of a waste of time. > > There is no dismissal, no rejection. There is full embracing static > patterns. > OK, I think saying that static patterns are mirages, or even just "like mirages," doesn't immediately lend itself in support of that. However, in a philosophy forum I believe you have the right to use words outside of their common understanding as long as you carefully explain your "unusual" use, which you are trying to do, with quotes below in support. > However, recognising static quality (the mythos) for what it is is the > > value of context (1). I just wouldn't call it a mirage, for the reasons > > above if nothing else. Also, it just strikes me as a bit "Dummies Guide > to > > Buddhism" which is odd given that I'm sure you've read some Nagarjuna? > > The "Dummies Guide" reference is cute. - I've read a number of different > texts by Nagarjuna, and there should be nothing odd about my accepting a > static pattern as a mirage. I'm sure you probably read Jay Garfield's > translation/interpretation of the MMK. While he's not the Buddha or > Nagarjuna, he might illuminate the use of mirage: > I'm glad you saw the humour there but I've stopped laughing and now I feel like the Dummie because Nagarjuna is indeed translated as using "mirage" in MMK. I do like Jay Garfield. I've only read a couple of essays and his analysis of the MMK. I haven't read the book you quote from below. > "Among the many similes for conventional truth that litter Madhyamaka > texts, the most fruitful is that of the mirage. Conventional truth is > false, Candrakirti tells us, because it is deceptive. Candrakirti spells > this out in terms of a mirage. A mirage appears to be water, but is in fact > empty of water—it is deceptive, and in that sense, a false appearance. On > the other hand, a mirage is not nothing: it is a real mirage, just not real > water. > > "The analogy must be spelled out with care to avoid the extreme of > nihilism. A mirage appears to be water, but is only a mirage; the > inexperienced highway traveler mistakes it for water, and for him it is > deceptive, a false appearance of water; the experienced traveler sees it > for what it is—a real mirage, empty of water. Just so, conventional > phenomena appear to ordinary, deluded beings to be inherently existent, > whereas in fact they are merely conventionally real, empty of that inherent > existence; to the åryas, on the other hand, they appear to be merely > conventionally true, hence to be empty. For us, they are deceptive, false > appearances; for them, they are simply real conventional truths. > > "We can update the analogy to make the point more plainly. Imagine three > travelers along a hot desert highway. Alice is an experienced desert > traveler; Bill is a neophyte; Charlie is wearing polarizing sunglasses. > Bill points to a mirage up ahead and warns against a puddle on the road; > Alice sees the mirage as a mirage and assures him that there is no danger. > Charlie sees nothing at all, and wonders what they are talking about. If > the mirage were entirely false—if there were no truth about it at all, > Charlie would be the most authoritative of the three (and Buddhas would > know nothing of the real world). But that is wrong. Just as Bill is > deceived in believing that there is water on the road, Charlie is incapable > of seeing the mirage at all, and so fails to know what Alice knows—that > there is a real mirage on the road, which appears to some to be water, but > which is not. There is a truth about the mirage, despite the fact that it > is deceptive, and Alice is authoritative with respect to it precisely > because she sees it as it is, not as it appears to the uninitiated." > > (Garfield, Jay L., 'MOONSHADOWS: Taking Conventional Truth > Seriously', pp. 29-30) > I'd need to read this a few times to try out different interpretations with respect to the MOQ. My initial reading is that Alice is seen as authoritative because she sees "static patterns" as "real illusions." I don't know, the language just seems so unnecessarily tricksy. How would you translate that last paragraph into MOQ terms? > I advocate a middle way between the extremes of such things as the > > "illusion" and "certainty" you dichotomise above and the two contexts I > > discern in the MOQ offer a practical way to implement the middle way > > philosophically. > > I am not interested in truth, so there is no dichotomization. You suggested that the alternative to your mirage analogy was clinging to certainty but now seem to say that.....well, I don't know actually, that you didn't mean it? Should I ignore anything you say because you have no interest in whether it is true (by any definition) or not? I'm being genuine here. You will know from your reading that Pirsig translates true as "having high intellectual quality" so are you not interested in whether your words are of high intellectual quality? If not, are you interested in whether your words have any quality, i.e., whether they even make sense? I'm sure you are, I'm just trying to get a feel for how to talk to you without getting hit by a stick. Anyway, I enjoyed reading your paper and will read it again, I'm sure. I > know it represents a lot of care and work. > Thanks. Paul 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
