Hi David,
On Jul 28, 2013, at 6:26 AM, David Harding <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Marsha:
>> To put it another way, this is your thought. It's not a fearsome thought,
>> but just your thought, your projection. It's a thought that arose, and then
>> it ceased; there's nothing in it. It is a condition of your mind, not my
>> psychological problem.
>>
>> Thoughts arise, thoughts cease; there is nothing in them, nothing in any
>> thought. It is just movement of the mind. One doesn't need to make it
>> personal by grasping it, attaching to it, believing it.
>
> A thought by its nature is static quality. Static quality is nothing but the
> attachment of a fixed static thing. Zen denies the importance of this static
> quality - the small self - and calls it an illusion.
I have read that there are seventeen major schools of Buddhism, Zen Buddhism
being one of the seventeen. I bet within those seventeen major schools there
are many different ways of experiencing and expressing Buddhism, so I am not
sure of your point. I suppose a self can hold fixed a pattern from the time
they are twelve-years-old until they die. That would be one understanding of
'fixed'.
> Calling a thought nothing but a 'condition of your mind'
No, it's not calling a thought nothing but a 'condition of the mind', it is
seeing, experiencing, witnessing, and understanding a thought as a 'condition
of the mind' that value. Imho. Didn't RMP's MoQ blossom from the first-hand
experience of Dynamic Quality?
> and continually refusing to engage in any sort of dialectical discussion
Nonsense!
> shows that you don't want to be trapped by intellectual patterns like Zen.
Sometimes I have nothing to discuss.
> That's fine.
It is fine. Thanks.
> But can you not see how this is against the MOQ which differs from Zen in
> that the still values static patterns and the trail of evolution they create?
I value static patterns, and I am not sure that Zen does not value static
quality. Doesn't Buddhism warn against a 'negative grasping' based on
ignorance and greed, not necessarily the value and its evolutionary trail. I
doubt that Zen Buddhism is trying to transform humans into comatose zombies.
>> Marsha again:
>> This is there for you to see, if you will only look. If a metaphysics is a
>> theory about reality, you might want to take a look. As both the Buddha and
>> RMP say, see for yourself. Or do you suppose namedropping 'Heidegger' in a
>> sentence makes you a philosopher?
>
> A metaphysics is a static quality thing which describes that which cannot
> ever be described.
You have a definition of metaphysics that seems rather limited. I understand
metaphysics to be the exploration of 'what we can know and how we can know it?'
> "Since a metaphysics is essentially a kind of dialectical definition and
> since Quality is essentially outside definition, this means that a
> 'Metaphysics of Quality' is essentially a contradiction in terms, a logical
> absurdity."
And?
A paradox: a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd
but in reality expresses a possible truth.
Niels Bohr writes "The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement.
But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth." I
think he has it right.
> If we are to ever discuss metaphysics we have to 'pretend' that these static
> qualities existed before we ever encountered them.
I don't 'have to' accept static patterns as other than hypotheticals. If you
want to pretend, pretend away! Who's stopping you? There might be good
reasons in science to pretend? Isn't that what David Morey is going on about?
> This was the whole point of Paul Turners two contexts. In the second context
> static quality exists before we encounter it. In context one (which is
> exclusively what you're interested in) static quality does not exist before
> we encounter it.
I agree that Paul Turner has offered an interesting perspective.
I have already conceded that patterns, within the MoQ, are morally categorized
into a four-level, evolutionary, hierarchical structure: intellectual, social,
biological, inorganic, and that static quality exists in stable patterns
relative to other patterns. What particular pattern do you think I should be
discussing. Do you want me to pretend that ' American Pragmatism' existed
prior to human consciousness and then discuss the proof? Why don't you and dmb
discuss that?
> Dmb is naturally trying to talk to you from context two because in order to
> have an intellectual discussion we must assume that static quality exists
> before we encounter it - you're clearly refusing to make this assumption -
> can you not see how this can be contrued by dmb as being 'anti-intellectual'?
Dmb and his thoughts and posts are not a subject that I care to discuss with
you.
Thanks,
Marsha
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