Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Dmb, AGAIN: Where did I state that concepts are necessary to act in the world? 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Greetings John, You are correct. Alan Wallace's thinking, as reflected in his writing, is elegant. And yes, it is crucial to understand that pure experience is free from any 'conceptual framework.' That is the key, and I hope my stating not this, not that echos my agreement with that statement. I do try to make it clear that my definitions and statements are propositions and not absolute. Many Western Buddhist scholars seem to write with a great clarity that suggests caring for both the ideas being presented and all potential readers. I'll mention a few: Alan Wallace, Jay Garfield, David Loy, Jan Westerhoff. There are others too. It is a joy to read their books. Marsha On Jun 7, 2011, at 2:44 PM, John Carl wrote: That was a good one, Marsha. Shows the value in wading through my old unreadthreads when we get a stormy day like today and I'm off work. I like the way this guy thinks and expresses himself, but you know that. Here he makes explicit a criticism of James that I've never formulated so rigorously myself, but recognize as a problem I've had with him from day one in an intuitive way and a reaction against him. Specifically what caught my attention was what the author himself labels crucial that neither conceptual framework is inherent in the nature of pure experience. This is key! Thanks for bringing it. John On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 11:34 AM, MarshaV val...@att.net wrote: dmb Please note the statement James seems to have fallen into the trap of reifying his own concept of a field of consciousness : The asymmetry in James's view of mind and matter may be due in part to his advocacy of a field theory of consciousness, in contrast to an atomistic theory, which he vigorously rejects. I would argue, however, that the nature of consciousness does not intrinsically conform either to a field theory or an atomistic theory. Rather, different kinds of conscious events become apparent when inspected from the perspective of each of these different conceptual frameworks. Using James's field theory, one may ascertain an individual, discrete continuum of awareness; and using the atomic theory one may discern within the stream of consciousness discrete moments of awareness and individual, constituent mental factors of those moments. Thus, while certain features of consciousness may be perceived only within the conceptual framework of a field theory, others may be observed only in terms of an atomistic theory. This complementarity is reminiscent of the relation between part icle and field theories of mass/energy in modern physics. The crucial point here is that neither conceptual framework is inherent in the nature of pure experience. James seems to have fallen into the trap of reifying his own concept of a field of consciousness, and this may have prevented him from determining, even to his own satisfaction, the way in which consciousness does and does not exist. (Wallace, B. Alan, 'The Taboo of Subjectivity: Towards a New Science of Consciousness') 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 ___ 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Hello again Mark, If you were suggesting that 'gravitation' refers to a particular static pattern of value, what exactly comprises (every last bit of it) that pattern? Can such a question be answered? If yes, what is the answer? If no, why not? You might understand why, at the moment, I best the answer: opposite-from-non-gravitation. And sometimes I like to think of a pattern as a cloud of probability. Marsha On Jun 7, 2011, at 4:37 AM, MarshaV wrote: Mark, You ask a strange question. 'Gravitation' is a word; It may be the name of a cat, dog or horse, or a conceptual theory. At the very least it participates in a linguistic process. Marsha On Jun 6, 2011, at 7:31 PM, 118 wrote: Hi Marsha, Is gravitation a process? Mark On Jun 6, 2011, at 1:58 AM, MarshaV val...@att.net wrote: Here is my (conventional/static) definition of static patterns of value: Static patterns of value are processes: impermanent, interdependent, ever-changing. (Not objects. Not subjects. Not things-in-themselves.) Overlapping, interconnected, ever-changing processes that pragmatically tend to persist and change within a stable, predictable pattern. Here's my (conventional/static) definition of reification: Reification means treating any functioning phenomenon as if it were a real, permanent 'thing', rather than an impermanent process. Reification represents how the common man, and many scientists, academics and even philosophers conceptualize. It evolved as a tool to facilitate some kind of betterness. But it is flawed and of course the MoQ and help rectify the flaw. I have suggested that reification is either a part of the conceptualization process, or that there is a interdependency between conceptualization and reification. But, of course, you are correct Mary. Both 'conceptualization' and 'reification' are static patterns of value, conventional (relative) truths. 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Mark, You ask a strange question. 'Gravitation' is a word; It may be the name of a cat, dog or horse, or a conceptual theory. At the very least it participates in a linguistic process. Marsha On Jun 6, 2011, at 7:31 PM, 118 wrote: Hi Marsha, Is gravitation a process? Mark On Jun 6, 2011, at 1:58 AM, MarshaV val...@att.net wrote: On Jun 5, 2011, at 11:25 PM, Mary wrote: [dmb] You can't say that reification is interdependent with the conceptualization process or simply conceptualization reifies AND also say that concepts are necessary to act in the world. [Mary] Why not? The human brain is nothing more than the product of the evolution of Pirsig's static patterns of value. Static patterns of value interact with one another in static ways. It would be a leap to expect the static brain to function in a non-static way, would it not? Conceptualization is no doubt a high quality STATIC pattern of value. It is a useful and necessary tool for interacting with other static patterns. It does not follow that it would be necessary for it to develop transcendence. If it were even a tendency of the human mind to flexibly transcend the static, then DQ would not be undefined. Capisce? HI Mary, Here is my (conventional/static) definition of static patterns of value: Static patterns of value are processes: impermanent, interdependent, ever-changing. (Not objects. Not subjects. Not things-in-themselves.) Overlapping, interconnected, ever-changing processes that pragmatically tend to persist and change within a stable, predictable pattern. Here's my (conventional/static) definition of reification: Reification means treating any functioning phenomenon as if it were a real, permanent 'thing', rather than an impermanent process. Reification represents how the common man, and many scientists, academics and even philosophers conceptualize. It evolved as a tool to facilitate some kind of betterness. But it is flawed and of course the MoQ and help rectify the flaw. I have suggested that reification is either a part of the conceptualization process, or that there is a interdependency between conceptualization and reification. But, of course, you are correct Mary. Both 'conceptualization' and 'reification' are static patterns of value, conventional (relative) truths. 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 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 ___ 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
dmb said: You can't say that reification is interdependent with the conceptualization process or simply conceptualization reifies AND also say that concepts are necessary to act in the world. Mary replied: Why not? dmb says: Like I already said, you can't make both assertions because they are mutually exclusive claims. To say that reification is interdependent with the conceptualization process means that concepts depend on reification, that concepts need to be reified, that forming an idea necessarily entails the conceptual error known as reification. That's like saying the man depends on cancer when in fact getting rid of it is just about all he wants to do. His life depends on NOT having cancer. And this is the point of identifying reification as such, to cure it, to cut it out and restore health to the man. That's what's necessary to act in the world, a healthy concept, free of the cancer of reification. The first claim condemns the conceptualization process as inescapably wrong and inherently misleading. The second claim says concepts are necessary. If you don't understand why it is incoherent to make both claims, then I really don't know what to tell you. Mary said: The human brain is nothing more than the product of the evolution of Pirsig's static patterns of value. Static patterns of value interact with one another in static ways. It would be a leap to expect the static brain to function in a non-static way, would it not? Conceptualization is no doubt a high quality STATIC pattern of value. It is a useful and necessary tool for interacting with other static patterns. It does not follow that it would be necessary for it to develop transcendence. If it were even a tendency of the human mind to flexibly transcend the static, then DQ would not be undefined. Capisce? dmb says: No, I can't make any sense of that. I don't see how evolution or transcendence has any relevance to my objection. I don't think concepts are supposed to transcend the static, whatever that means. The problem is making contradictory claims. It's a simple logic problem. You can't say something is always bad (conceptualization reifies) and also say that same thing is the highest species of static good (necessary to act in the world). IF you want to avoid contradicting yourself and and otherwise present a coherent idea on the topic, then you just can't say both things. 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Dmb, Where did I state that concepts are necessary to act in the world? Marsha On Jun 7, 2011, at 11:48 AM, david buchanan wrote: dmb said: You can't say that reification is interdependent with the conceptualization process or simply conceptualization reifies AND also say that concepts are necessary to act in the world. Mary replied: Why not? dmb says: Like I already said, you can't make both assertions because they are mutually exclusive claims. To say that reification is interdependent with the conceptualization process means that concepts depend on reification, that concepts need to be reified, that forming an idea necessarily entails the conceptual error known as reification. That's like saying the man depends on cancer when in fact getting rid of it is just about all he wants to do. His life depends on NOT having cancer. And this is the point of identifying reification as such, to cure it, to cut it out and restore health to the man. That's what's necessary to act in the world, a healthy concept, free of the cancer of reification. The first claim condemns the conceptualization process as inescapably wrong and inherently misleading. The second claim says concepts are necessary. If you don't understand why it is incoherent to make both claims, then I really don't know what to tell you. Mary said: The human brain is nothing more than the product of the evolution of Pirsig's static patterns of value. Static patterns of value interact with one another in static ways. It would be a leap to expect the static brain to function in a non-static way, would it not? Conceptualization is no doubt a high quality STATIC pattern of value. It is a useful and necessary tool for interacting with other static patterns. It does not follow that it would be necessary for it to develop transcendence. If it were even a tendency of the human mind to flexibly transcend the static, then DQ would not be undefined. Capisce? dmb says: No, I can't make any sense of that. I don't see how evolution or transcendence has any relevance to my objection. I don't think concepts are supposed to transcend the static, whatever that means. The problem is making contradictory claims. It's a simple logic problem. You can't say something is always bad (conceptualization reifies) and also say that same thing is the highest species of static good (necessary to act in the world). IF you want to avoid contradicting yourself and and otherwise present a coherent idea on the topic, then you just can't say both things. 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 ___ 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
On Jun 7, 2011, at 2:04 PM, david buchanan wrote: Marsha wrote: Static patterns of value are processes: impermanent, interdependent, ever-changing. (Not objects. Not subjects. Not things-in-themselves.) Overlapping, interconnected, ever-changing processes that pragmatically tend to persist and change within a stable, predictable pattern. ...Dmb has challenged this definition by removing two words (static and ever-changing) from their context (reifying them) and pitting them against each other. As if two words pulled from a definition can in any way represent the whole definition. Besides, one can easily understand 'ever-changing' as the 'evolution' process, which makes it very consistent within MoQ. dmb says: Removing the terms from their context? Apparently you don't know what context means. Marsha: Here's the explanation I find useful for context: The reason there is a difference between individual evaluations of quality is that although Dynamic Quality is a constant, these static patterns are different for everyone because each person has a different static pattern of life history. Both the Dynamic Quality and the static patterns influence his final judgment. That is why there is some uniformity among individual value judgments but not complete uniformity. (RMP, SODV) Pirsig says that static patterns do not change all by themselves and without Dynamic Quality they would simply die of old age. He says static pattern are the force of order, the value of stability without which nothing could last. Your definition, especially the ever-changing part, simply contradicts the meaning of the term. Marsha: He agrees that static quality is like maya in the sense 'that it is illusory to believe that people and the objects of their world are permanent, independent and unchanging.'You are living a som illusion of the MoQ. Let's say we have some big, coherent set of ideas, a whole metaphysical system based around Water and it begins with a distinction between solid water and flowing water. We can say that they are different even though they are both water. They're different because the chunks of ice have a definite shape and location whereas a stream of liquid water has no particular shape and is constantly in motion. We can say they are different because the solid form is for skating and skiing and chilling our cocktails while the latter is for boating, swimming and drinking. By analogy, your definition of solid would lead you to take a swan-dive into an iceberg or a skating rink. To define static patterns as ever-changing is like defining solid as freely flowing and fluid. Sure, ice melts. Glaciers flow in their own icy way and nobody thinks icebergs are permanent or eternal. But that doesn't mean that ice can be defined as a liquid. That's just not what the word means. Terms like fr ozen and ice specifically refer to that which is not in a liquid state, derive their meaning by virtue of what they are not as well as what they are. That's why we call it a distinction in the first place. By analogy, you've defined solid ice as warm and wet. That's not deep or wise, sister. That's just profoundly confused nonsense. It's like you're trying to be as wrong as possible on purpose. Marsha: Let's say your irrelevant romantic blathering is nonsense. You're defining static as ever-changing, which is the exact opposite of what the word means. The most basic dictionary definition explicitly says the term described that which is lacking in change or not able to change. Go ahead. Continue to use the english language with this level of precision. Let us know how that works out for you. Marsha: Have you found the words 'static' or 'dynamic' within a dictionary definition of 'quality.'Btw, have you looked up the words 'natural' and 'inborn' as Wallace used them for the process of 'reification.' ___ 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Dmb, AGAIN: Where did I state that concepts are necessary to act in the world? Marsha On Jun 7, 2011, at 1:02 PM, MarshaV wrote: Dmb, Where did I state that concepts are necessary to act in the world? Marsha On Jun 7, 2011, at 11:48 AM, david buchanan wrote: dmb said: You can't say that reification is interdependent with the conceptualization process or simply conceptualization reifies AND also say that concepts are necessary to act in the world. Mary replied: Why not? dmb says: Like I already said, you can't make both assertions because they are mutually exclusive claims. To say that reification is interdependent with the conceptualization process means that concepts depend on reification, that concepts need to be reified, that forming an idea necessarily entails the conceptual error known as reification. That's like saying the man depends on cancer when in fact getting rid of it is just about all he wants to do. His life depends on NOT having cancer. And this is the point of identifying reification as such, to cure it, to cut it out and restore health to the man. That's what's necessary to act in the world, a healthy concept, free of the cancer of reification. The first claim condemns the conceptualization process as inescapably wrong and inherently misleading. The second claim says concepts are necessary. If you don't understand why it is incoherent to make both claims, then I really don't know what to tell you. Mary said: The human brain is nothing more than the product of the evolution of Pirsig's static patterns of value. Static patterns of value interact with one another in static ways. It would be a leap to expect the static brain to function in a non-static way, would it not? Conceptualization is no doubt a high quality STATIC pattern of value. It is a useful and necessary tool for interacting with other static patterns. It does not follow that it would be necessary for it to develop transcendence. If it were even a tendency of the human mind to flexibly transcend the static, then DQ would not be undefined. Capisce? dmb says: No, I can't make any sense of that. I don't see how evolution or transcendence has any relevance to my objection. I don't think concepts are supposed to transcend the static, whatever that means. The problem is making contradictory claims. It's a simple logic problem. You can't say something is always bad (conceptualization reifies) and also say that same thing is the highest species of static good (necessary to act in the world). IF you want to avoid contradicting yourself and and otherwise present a coherent idea on the topic, then you just can't say both things. ___ 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
That was a good one, Marsha. Shows the value in wading through my old unreadthreads when we get a stormy day like today and I'm off work. I like the way this guy thinks and expresses himself, but you know that. Here he makes explicit a criticism of James that I've never formulated so rigorously myself, but recognize as a problem I've had with him from day one in an intuitive way and a reaction against him. Specifically what caught my attention was what the author himself labels crucial that neither conceptual framework is inherent in the nature of pure experience. This is key! Thanks for bringing it. John On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 11:34 AM, MarshaV val...@att.net wrote: dmb Please note the statement James seems to have fallen into the trap of reifying his own concept of a field of consciousness : The asymmetry in James's view of mind and matter may be due in part to his advocacy of a field theory of consciousness, in contrast to an atomistic theory, which he vigorously rejects. I would argue, however, that the nature of consciousness does not intrinsically conform either to a field theory or an atomistic theory. Rather, different kinds of conscious events become apparent when inspected from the perspective of each of these different conceptual frameworks. Using James's field theory, one may ascertain an individual, discrete continuum of awareness; and using the atomic theory one may discern within the stream of consciousness discrete moments of awareness and individual, constituent mental factors of those moments. Thus, while certain features of consciousness may be perceived only within the conceptual framework of a field theory, others may be observed only in terms of an atomistic theory. This complementarity is reminiscent of the relation between part icle and field theories of mass/energy in modern physics. The crucial point here is that neither conceptual framework is inherent in the nature of pure experience. James seems to have fallen into the trap of reifying his own concept of a field of consciousness, and this may have prevented him from determining, even to his own satisfaction, the way in which consciousness does and does not exist. (Wallace, B. Alan, 'The Taboo of Subjectivity: Towards a New Science of Consciousness') 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
:-) On Jun 7, 2011, at 2:44 PM, John Carl wrote: That was a good one, Marsha. Shows the value in wading through my old unreadthreads when we get a stormy day like today and I'm off work. I like the way this guy thinks and expresses himself, but you know that. Here he makes explicit a criticism of James that I've never formulated so rigorously myself, but recognize as a problem I've had with him from day one in an intuitive way and a reaction against him. Specifically what caught my attention was what the author himself labels crucial that neither conceptual framework is inherent in the nature of pure experience. This is key! Thanks for bringing it. John On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 11:34 AM, MarshaV val...@att.net wrote: dmb Please note the statement James seems to have fallen into the trap of reifying his own concept of a field of consciousness : The asymmetry in James's view of mind and matter may be due in part to his advocacy of a field theory of consciousness, in contrast to an atomistic theory, which he vigorously rejects. I would argue, however, that the nature of consciousness does not intrinsically conform either to a field theory or an atomistic theory. Rather, different kinds of conscious events become apparent when inspected from the perspective of each of these different conceptual frameworks. Using James's field theory, one may ascertain an individual, discrete continuum of awareness; and using the atomic theory one may discern within the stream of consciousness discrete moments of awareness and individual, constituent mental factors of those moments. Thus, while certain features of consciousness may be perceived only within the conceptual framework of a field theory, others may be observed only in terms of an atomistic theory. This complementarity is reminiscent of the relation between part icle and field theories of mass/energy in modern physics. The crucial point here is that neither conceptual framework is inherent in the nature of pure experience. James seems to have fallen into the trap of reifying his own concept of a field of consciousness, and this may have prevented him from determining, even to his own satisfaction, the way in which consciousness does and does not exist. (Wallace, B. Alan, 'The Taboo of Subjectivity: Towards a New Science of Consciousness') 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 ___ 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Marsha asked Dmb, AGAIN: Where did I state that concepts are necessary to act in the world? dmb says: You wouldn't have to ask if Mary hadn't taken that line out of context. You could ask her. You can look it up in archives. Or better yet, you could keep track of your own thoughts and words. Good luck. 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Dmb, AGAIN: Where did I state that concepts are necessary to act in the world? Marsha On Jun 2, 2011, at 3:24 PM, david buchanan wrote: Marsha said: I asked you the other day to post what you thought was my understanding of 'reification.' Of course you didn't. So I'll ask you again, please explain my understanding of 'reification.'' Explain my understanding in its entirety. dmb says: I just dished up your thoughts on reification and explained the objections. You understanding in its entirety is incoherent. It is a series of contradictions, of mutually exclusive claims. You can't say that reification is interdependent with the conceptualization process or simply conceptualization reifies AND also say that concepts are necessary to act in the world. You can't say reification is inescapable AND also say it is a tendency that may occur. Those are contradictory claims. Reification is a conceptual error, one we want to correct because of the vital importance and value of concepts or concepts themselves are inescapably doomed to reify experience and we ought to kill the intellect because its a prison. These are wildly opposed claims and you want to say them both at the same time. That's what I mean by calling saying your view is incoherent. For the millionth time. 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
On Jun 5, 2011, at 11:25 PM, Mary wrote: [dmb] You can't say that reification is interdependent with the conceptualization process or simply conceptualization reifies AND also say that concepts are necessary to act in the world. [Mary] Why not? The human brain is nothing more than the product of the evolution of Pirsig's static patterns of value. Static patterns of value interact with one another in static ways. It would be a leap to expect the static brain to function in a non-static way, would it not? Conceptualization is no doubt a high quality STATIC pattern of value. It is a useful and necessary tool for interacting with other static patterns. It does not follow that it would be necessary for it to develop transcendence. If it were even a tendency of the human mind to flexibly transcend the static, then DQ would not be undefined. Capisce? HI Mary, Here is my (conventional/static) definition of static patterns of value: Static patterns of value are processes: impermanent, interdependent, ever-changing. (Not objects. Not subjects. Not things-in-themselves.) Overlapping, interconnected, ever-changing processes that pragmatically tend to persist and change within a stable, predictable pattern. Here's my (conventional/static) definition of reification: Reification means treating any functioning phenomenon as if it were a real, permanent 'thing', rather than an impermanent process. Reification represents how the common man, and many scientists, academics and even philosophers conceptualize. It evolved as a tool to facilitate some kind of betterness. But it is flawed and of course the MoQ and help rectify the flaw. I have suggested that reification is either a part of the conceptualization process, or that there is a interdependency between conceptualization and reification. But, of course, you are correct Mary. Both 'conceptualization' and 'reification' are static patterns of value, conventional (relative) truths. 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Hi Mary, On Jun 6, 2011, at 4:58 AM, MarshaV wrote: Here is my (conventional/static) definition of static patterns of value: Static patterns of value are processes: impermanent, interdependent, ever-changing. (Not objects. Not subjects. Not things-in-themselves.) Overlapping, interconnected, ever-changing processes that pragmatically tend to persist and change within a stable, predictable pattern. Dmb has challenged this definition by removing two words (static and ever-changing) from their context (reifying them) and pitting them against each other. As if two words pulled from a definition can in any way represent the whole definition. Besides, one can easily understand 'ever-changing' as the 'evolution' process, which makes it very consistent within MoQ. 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Hi Marsha, Is gravitation a process? Mark On Jun 6, 2011, at 1:58 AM, MarshaV val...@att.net wrote: On Jun 5, 2011, at 11:25 PM, Mary wrote: [dmb] You can't say that reification is interdependent with the conceptualization process or simply conceptualization reifies AND also say that concepts are necessary to act in the world. [Mary] Why not? The human brain is nothing more than the product of the evolution of Pirsig's static patterns of value. Static patterns of value interact with one another in static ways. It would be a leap to expect the static brain to function in a non-static way, would it not? Conceptualization is no doubt a high quality STATIC pattern of value. It is a useful and necessary tool for interacting with other static patterns. It does not follow that it would be necessary for it to develop transcendence. If it were even a tendency of the human mind to flexibly transcend the static, then DQ would not be undefined. Capisce? HI Mary, Here is my (conventional/static) definition of static patterns of value: Static patterns of value are processes: impermanent, interdependent, ever-changing. (Not objects. Not subjects. Not things-in-themselves.) Overlapping, interconnected, ever-changing processes that pragmatically tend to persist and change within a stable, predictable pattern. Here's my (conventional/static) definition of reification: Reification means treating any functioning phenomenon as if it were a real, permanent 'thing', rather than an impermanent process. Reification represents how the common man, and many scientists, academics and even philosophers conceptualize. It evolved as a tool to facilitate some kind of betterness. But it is flawed and of course the MoQ and help rectify the flaw. I have suggested that reification is either a part of the conceptualization process, or that there is a interdependency between conceptualization and reification. But, of course, you are correct Mary. Both 'conceptualization' and 'reification' are static patterns of value, conventional (relative) truths. 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 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
On Jun 6, 2011, at 7:31 PM, 118 wrote: Hi Marsha, Is gravitation a process? Mark Mark, It is not an object. a subject, or thing-in-itself. Why? 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Hi Joe, I am not sure what words you are referring to. The word mysticism has many meanings, and I do not consider it to be meaningless. One can look it up on the internet. I am using this word as direct experience. I think this is the same way the W. James uses it. Pirsig may be using it as the pre-intellectual, a term which I do not believe is appropriate. When I state that much of our daily life is mystical, I mean that much of it is experienced directly. We experience it indirectly through the words of others. As such, words become vicarious and not direct experience. Mystical can be equated to DQ as opposed to sq, and much of our experience is through DQ, not through static representations. These representations are used to communicate experience. Mathematics is used to represent. As such, referring to your use of evolution, it can be used to represent it. Such representation is considered as defining the manifestation of levels. My background is in biological physics, and I use math as a tool for investigation and representation. I hope this clears up my thoughts on the subject. Cheers, Mark On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 1:12 PM, Joseph Maurer jh...@comcast.net wrote: On 6/2/11 8:48 PM, 118 ununocti...@gmail.com wrote: snip In my opinion, Pirsig has no idea what is meant by mysticism. James has a much better idea since he spoke with many mystics while researching The Varieties. But even then, James must speak of such a thing as a third person. For even if he was a mystic (which I believe he was), it is not something one can write about in a book, except indirectly. Pirsig, in his naivete on the whole subject, compares it to being on peyote, which could not be farther from the truth. While peyote is a tool, it does not create the mystical experience. So, any time I read the word mystic being used in some fantastic capacity, I can only smile. Much of our daily life is mystical. It only becomes not-so, when we communicate about it. snip Hi Mark, IMHO you are throwing words around which have a meaning as though they didn't mean anything. Your background seems to be mathematics which cannot define evolution. Evolution is DQ, defined reality is SQ. Joe 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 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
On 6/5/11 6:50 AM, 118 ununocti...@gmail.com wrote: On 6/2/11 8:48 PM, 118 ununocti...@gmail.com wrote: snip In my opinion, Pirsig has no idea what is meant by mysticism. James has a much better idea since he spoke with many mystics while researching The Varieties. But even then, James must speak of such a thing as a third person. For even if he was a mystic (which I believe he was), it is not something one can write about in a book, except indirectly. Pirsig, in his naivete on the whole subject, compares it to being on peyote, which could not be farther from the truth. While peyote is a tool, it does not create the mystical experience. So, any time I read the word mystic being used in some fantastic capacity, I can only smile. Much of our daily life is mystical. It only becomes not-so, when we communicate about it. snip Hi Mark, Pirsig proposes a DQ/SQ basis of metaphysics. And then you write he has no idea what is meant by mysticism. You must be defining mysticism in the light of SOM metaphysics, as a mathematical language and only initiates who have studied Mathematics long and hard can experience it. James has a much better idea? Mystics?? For even if he was a mystic (which I believe he was), it is not something one can write about in a book, except indirectly. ? Etc.,etc, etc. You use words in a strange way. Joe 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
[dmb] You can't say that reification is interdependent with the conceptualization process or simply conceptualization reifies AND also say that concepts are necessary to act in the world. [Mary] Why not? The human brain is nothing more than the product of the evolution of Pirsig's static patterns of value. Static patterns of value interact with one another in static ways. It would be a leap to expect the static brain to function in a non-static way, would it not? Conceptualization is no doubt a high quality STATIC pattern of value. It is a useful and necessary tool for interacting with other static patterns. It does not follow that it would be necessary for it to develop transcendence. If it were even a tendency of the human mind to flexibly transcend the static, then DQ would not be undefined. Capisce? 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Hello Joe, I suppose within the MoQ's evolutionary, hierarchical level structure giving birth may seem simply a biological pattern. While I admire such a structure for its intellectual ingeniousness, I have always preferred the net-of-jewels (Indra's Net) perspective, where everything contains everything else. Marsha On Jun 3, 2011, at 4:35 PM, Joseph Maurer wrote: On 6/3/11 8:20 AM, david buchanan dmbucha...@hotmail.com wrote: Thanks, Jan-Anders. The truth is I lost patience with Marsha a long time ago and now I fully expect her to miss, evade or confuse every point, every time. In fact, my responses to Marsha aren't even written for her because that would only be a futile effort. But I hope other MOQers get something out of it and I'm glad it looks like patience. Hi DMB When you go through the experience of knowing that you can deliver a living baby out of your own body, I will begin to respect your opinion about MarshaV. Joe - Jan-Anders said to Marsha: I don't think you're funny. Your dispute with dmb is very interesting as I can find examples of this in many places and situations. The ability to master the tools which can bridge over this valley of misunderstanding is very useful and I'd really would like to know what buttons to press to solve it. I can sense a shimmer of seductive scent in Wallaces way of describing what he call the reality. It is opening a world of unresponsibility which I don't buy. The fact that QUALITY is yet undefined doesn't mean that it has no value. I buy things that I like. I care for values. I like David's patience with you. Please take care Jan-Anders ___ 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Hi Marsha, You have addressed me with Hello, and I feel I must respond. I have told you the story of my diminishment in fertilizing an egg for new life. I have no idea of the ramifications of such diminishment. I can only say I feel empty. Joe On 6/4/11 1:35 AM, MarshaV val...@att.net wrote: Hello Joe, I suppose within the MoQ's evolutionary, hierarchical level structure giving birth may seem simply a biological pattern. While I admire such a structure for its intellectual ingeniousness, I have always preferred the net-of-jewels (Indra's Net) perspective, where everything contains everything else. Marsha On Jun 3, 2011, at 4:35 PM, Joseph Maurer wrote: On 6/3/11 8:20 AM, david buchanan dmbucha...@hotmail.com wrote: Thanks, Jan-Anders. The truth is I lost patience with Marsha a long time ago and now I fully expect her to miss, evade or confuse every point, every time. In fact, my responses to Marsha aren't even written for her because that would only be a futile effort. But I hope other MOQers get something out of it and I'm glad it looks like patience. Hi DMB When you go through the experience of knowing that you can deliver a living baby out of your own body, I will begin to respect your opinion about MarshaV. Joe - Jan-Anders said to Marsha: I don't think you're funny. Your dispute with dmb is very interesting as I can find examples of this in many places and situations. The ability to master the tools which can bridge over this valley of misunderstanding is very useful and I'd really would like to know what buttons to press to solve it. I can sense a shimmer of seductive scent in Wallaces way of describing what he call the reality. It is opening a world of unresponsibility which I don't buy. The fact that QUALITY is yet undefined doesn't mean that it has no value. I buy things that I like. I care for values. I like David's patience with you. Please take care Jan-Anders ___ 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 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Joe said to DMB: When you go through the experience of knowing that you can deliver a living baby out of your own body, I will begin to respect your opinion about Marsha. dmb says: With friends like you, Joe, Marsha doesn't need any enemies. She's not so far gone as to take comfort in your crazy logic. I hope. A person has to have a baby to criticize Marsha's assertions about reification? How is that even relevant, let alone crucial? 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Marsha is a man he cannot deliver babies unless they are someone else's Markolina, the two breasted nymph Mark On Jun 4, 2011, at 4:29 PM, david buchanan dmbucha...@hotmail.com wrote: Joe said to DMB: When you go through the experience of knowing that you can deliver a living baby out of your own body, I will begin to respect your opinion about Marsha. dmb says: With friends like you, Joe, Marsha doesn't need any enemies. She's not so far gone as to take comfort in your crazy logic. I hope. A person has to have a baby to criticize Marsha's assertions about reification? How is that even relevant, let alone crucial? 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 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
On 6/4/11 4:29 PM, david buchanan dmbucha...@hotmail.com wrote: Hi DMB and All, David, I read your posts and I don't know what you are talking about. With friends like you., I have no idea what you are writing about. I guess in a DQ/SQ metaphysics you prefer to talk DQ and let me hope I experience the same DQ as you. My impression is that ain't going to happen, and I admit I am the poorer for it. Joe. Joe said to DMB: When you go through the experience of knowing that you can deliver a living baby out of your own body, I will begin to respect your opinion about Marsha. dmb says: With friends like you, Joe, Marsha doesn't need any enemies. She's not so far gone as to take comfort in your crazy logic. I hope. A person has to have a baby to criticize Marsha's assertions about reification? How is that even relevant, let alone crucial? 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 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Hi Markolina, Yes, all in good fun. No harm, no foul. Cheers, Marsha On Jun 4, 2011, at 7:55 PM, 118 wrote: Marsha is a man he cannot deliver babies unless they are someone else's Markolina, the two breasted nymph Mark On Jun 4, 2011, at 4:29 PM, david buchanan dmbucha...@hotmail.com wrote: Joe said to DMB: When you go through the experience of knowing that you can deliver a living baby out of your own body, I will begin to respect your opinion about Marsha. dmb says: With friends like you, Joe, Marsha doesn't need any enemies. She's not so far gone as to take comfort in your crazy logic. I hope. A person has to have a baby to criticize Marsha's assertions about reification? How is that even relevant, let alone crucial? 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 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 ___ 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
On Jun 2, 2011, at 3:24 PM, david buchanan wrote: dmb says: I just dished up your thoughts on reification and explained the objections. You understanding in its entirety is incoherent. It is a series of contradictions, of mutually exclusive claims. You can't say that reification is interdependent with the conceptualization process or simply conceptualization reifies AND also say that concepts are necessary to act in the world. Marsha: I didn't use the word IS, that is your misrepresenting my statement. I suggested that reification was either a part of the conceptualization process, or that there was a interdependency between conceptualization and reification. dmb: You can't say reification is inescapable AND also say it is a tendency that may occur. Marsha: It was Wallace that used the word 'tendency,' but to quote him properly he stated 'natural tendency.' Look up the word 'natural.'And I did not use the word 'inescapable.' I did use the word 'escape' when I was describing to John a personal experience. dmb: Those are contradictory claims. Marsha: So far, it is your exaggeration and misrepresentation that comprise any contradiction. dmb: Reification is a conceptual error, one we want to correct because of the vital importance and value of concepts or concepts themselves are inescapably doomed to reify experience and we ought to kill the intellect because its a prison. Marsha: This is one wild sentence that doesn't make sense to me. --- I can assure you that I never stated that 'one should kill the intellect because it is a prison.' I defy you to find where I made such a statement. Again, you have combined two statements out-ofo-context to misrepresent what I've said. dmb: These are wildly opposed claims and you want to say them both at the same time. That's what I mean by calling saying your view is incoherent. For the millionth time. Marsha: And this statement is why I don't care much about your opinion on yourself or your opinion of James. I find you intellectual integrity very low-grade. ___ 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Mark said, I would agree with you. Radical empiricism is anything but metaphysics. In fact it is the antithesis of metaphysics. This is why it is termed radical, not because it is a new kind of empiricism, but because it is empiricism taken to its maximum definition. So, when Ron or dmb speak of your metaphysics being abstract, I would say, well, of course, that's why it is called metaphysics and not science. But any metaphysics has to be born from actual data. We cannot conceive of anything but what we experience. Ron: Dave and I are speaking about as you are, why metaphysics should be based on experience and not a rationalization like nothingness. Not his metaphysics or metaphysics in general. Mark: For one thing, we don't directly experience Quality independent of intellectual abstractions. Quality is an assessment of the aesthetic or moral value of a phenomenon relative to other phenomena experienced or observed. That involves memory recall, intellectual judgment, and sufficient experience with the type of phenomenon in question to make such an assessment. (And please don't quote me the hot stove analogy again. Getting one's ass burned is not experiencing Quality--high or low, positive or negative--it's feeling pain.) Ron: What is pain but a value judgement on the cellular level. Any reaction to stimuli is a value judgement. What is a value judgement but quality? ... Ands lets keep this civil , I'm in the mood to be a dick today. 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Thanks, Jan-Anders. The truth is I lost patience with Marsha a long time ago and now I fully expect her to miss, evade or confuse every point, every time. In fact, my responses to Marsha aren't even written for her because that would only be a futile effort. But I hope other MOQers get something out of it and I'm glad it looks like patience. - Jan-Anders said to Marsha: I don't think you're funny. Your dispute with dmb is very interesting as I can find examples of this in many places and situations. The ability to master the tools which can bridge over this valley of misunderstanding is very useful and I'd really would like to know what buttons to press to solve it. I can sense a shimmer of seductive scent in Wallaces way of describing what he call the reality. It is opening a world of unresponsibility which I don't buy. The fact that QUALITY is yet undefined doesn't mean that it has no value. I buy things that I like. I care for values. I like David's patience with you. Please take care Jan-Anders 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Dmb, I hope MoQ'ers also recognize your extensive use of argumentum ad populum, argumentum ad verecundiam and the much overused, your favorite: argumentum ad hominem. And personally I find your whining criticism goes to the point of argumentum ad nauseam. Marsha Thanks, Jan-Anders. The truth is I lost patience with Marsha a long time ago and now I fully expect her to miss, evade or confuse every point, every time. In fact, my responses to Marsha aren't even written for her because that would only be a futile effort. But I hope other MOQers get something out of it and I'm glad it looks like patience. - Jan-Anders said to Marsha: I don't think you're funny. Your dispute with dmb is very interesting as I can find examples of this in many places and situations. The ability to master the tools which can bridge over this valley of misunderstanding is very useful and I'd really would like to know what buttons to press to solve it. I can sense a shimmer of seductive scent in Wallaces way of describing what he call the reality. It is opening a world of unresponsibility which I don't buy. The fact that QUALITY is yet undefined doesn't mean that it has no value. I buy things that I like. I care for values. I like David's patience with you. Please take care Jan-Anders ___ 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Ham said: James is hailed for his pragmatism which stemmed largely from his practice in psychology. The pragmatists of the last two centuries have been scientists (objectivists). Their goal is to explore the physical world for empirical knowledge and principles that can be applied to solving problems and inventing new things. They have no professional interest in aesthetics, morality, human values, or a transcendent reality. Indeed, such subjective concepts are only distractions to the experimental method. dmb says: None of that is true. Pragmatism as such was invented about a hundred ago, partly as a reaction against positivistic science. Pragmatism is a kind of Humanism and James presented as a moderator between two great rival schools of philosophy, the rationalists and the empiricists, both of which he found lacking for various reasons. James more or less single-handedly invented the psychology of religion and his Varieties of Religious Experience is almost entirely comprise of descriptions of so-called subject experience. I mean, Ham, you have just made a series of profoundly ignorant statements, none of which are even close to being correct. Ham said: ...I think the category that best fits him is pragmatic idealist, for he is more interested in anthropology and societal development than in metaphysics. His ontological paradigm is an evolutionary hierarchy of Quality levels that govern the universe, including mankind (when individuals are fortunate enough to latch onto the higher levels.) There is no Creator in this existential scheme (Quality is utimately self-created), no teleology except for the 'betterness toward which the universe automatically moves, and no need for a free agent, since the universe is assumed to be inherently moral. In short, this empirical reality which you tout as the guide to future experience is no more than interacting patterns of quality carried along in the stream of evolution. dmb says: There is no free agent because the universe automatically moves? No, Ham. You're still not getting it. Man is the measure of all things, Man is a participant in the creation of all things. We invented the universe and the gods, the earth and sky. These are concepts we've carved out of experience, in response to experience. Those concepts either agree with experience or they don't. And if they don't, then you've got to get a new set of concepts. Ideas are mutable and secondary. Oh, never mind. You don't really care, do you? 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
On 6/2/11 8:48 PM, 118 ununocti...@gmail.com wrote: snip In my opinion, Pirsig has no idea what is meant by mysticism. James has a much better idea since he spoke with many mystics while researching The Varieties. But even then, James must speak of such a thing as a third person. For even if he was a mystic (which I believe he was), it is not something one can write about in a book, except indirectly. Pirsig, in his naivete on the whole subject, compares it to being on peyote, which could not be farther from the truth. While peyote is a tool, it does not create the mystical experience. So, any time I read the word mystic being used in some fantastic capacity, I can only smile. Much of our daily life is mystical. It only becomes not-so, when we communicate about it. snip Hi Mark, IMHO you are throwing words around which have a meaning as though they didn't mean anything. Your background seems to be mathematics which cannot define evolution. Evolution is DQ, defined reality is SQ. Joe 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
On 6/3/11 8:20 AM, david buchanan dmbucha...@hotmail.com wrote: Thanks, Jan-Anders. The truth is I lost patience with Marsha a long time ago and now I fully expect her to miss, evade or confuse every point, every time. In fact, my responses to Marsha aren't even written for her because that would only be a futile effort. But I hope other MOQers get something out of it and I'm glad it looks like patience. Hi DMB When you go through the experience of knowing that you can deliver a living baby out of your own body, I will begin to respect your opinion about MarshaV. Joe - Jan-Anders said to Marsha: I don't think you're funny. Your dispute with dmb is very interesting as I can find examples of this in many places and situations. The ability to master the tools which can bridge over this valley of misunderstanding is very useful and I'd really would like to know what buttons to press to solve it. I can sense a shimmer of seductive scent in Wallaces way of describing what he call the reality. It is opening a world of unresponsibility which I don't buy. The fact that QUALITY is yet undefined doesn't mean that it has no value. I buy things that I like. I care for values. I like David's patience with you. Please take care Jan-Anders 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 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
On the distortion of reification, Alan Wallace writes: In Buddhist mental training, great emphasis is placed from the outset on distinguishing between the fantasizing mind and verifying cognition. Indeed the tendency of the human mind to assume the existence of things that are in fact nonentities is considered to lie at the root of a broad range of unnecessary conflicts and miseries. The most basic expression of this mental distortion is the reification of oneself as an intrinsically existent personal identity. Having reified oneself, it is inevitable that one reifies others in the same way, and this sets up absolute demarcations between self and other. One naturally also reifies one's natural environment as intrinsically existent, and therefore as absolutely other. The centrists view acknowledges the obvious truth that one person is different from another and that they are different from their inanimate environment. But such distinctions are of a conventional, not an absolute, nature. This does not mean that such demarcations are arbitrary. Rather, the centrists view asserts that they exist in dependence upon conceptual designation. Every sentient being and every inanimate object thus exists as a dependently related event... (Wallace, B. Alan, 'Choosing Reality, : A Buddhist View of Physics and the Mind', 2003, p.142) On Jun 1, 2011, at 2:37 PM, david buchanan wrote: Please note the statement James seems to have fallen into the trap of reifying his own concept of a field of consciousness dmb says: I'm pretty sure Wallace is wrong on that point. When James first came out against the atomistic theories (In his Psychology book) he said that rivers and streams are the best METAPHORS for consciousness. He also likened it to the flights and perches of birds, to a line of flame burning across an open field, just to name a few. I don't even think it's fair to say that a field was his favorite, let alone an exclusive, reified conception. He was quite explicit about these terms being only analogies. James held that continuities and disjunctions are both felt and known in experience and never denied one to the exclusion of the other, so I'd disagree on that point too. But I seriously doubt that you have any idea what James, Wallace or I am even talking about here. The asymmetry in James's view of mind and matter may be due in part to his advocacy of a field theory of consciousness, in contrast to an atomistic theory, which he vigorously rejects. I would argue, however, that the nature of consciousness does not intrinsically conform either to a field theory or an atomistic theory. Rather, different kinds of conscious events become apparent when inspected from the perspective of each of these different conceptual frameworks. Using James's field theory, one may ascertain an individual, discrete continuum of awareness; and using the atomic theory one may discern within the stream of consciousness discrete moments of awareness and individual, constituent mental factors of those moments. Thus, while certain features of consciousness may be perceived only within the conceptual framework of a field theory, others may be observed only in terms of an atomistic theory. This complementarity is reminiscent of the relation between pa rticle and field theories of mass/energy in modern physics. The crucial point here is that neither conceptual framework is inherent in the nature of pure experience. James seems to have fallen into the trap of reifying his own concept of a field of consciousness, and this may have prevented him from determining, even to his own satisfaction, the way in which consciousness does and does not exist. (Wallace, B. Alan, 'The Taboo of Subjectivity: Towards a New Science of Consciousness') ___ 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
On Jun 1, 2011, at 2:37 PM, david buchanan wrote: But I seriously doubt that you have any idea what James, Wallace or I am even talking about here. dmb, James, Wallace and yourself? Hahahahahaha! I am scorned for not being a Buddhist, and here you are grouping yourself with James and Wallace. On what basis do you speak as a representative of these men? 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Andre said: Enjoy your posts dmb. They are excellent, as usual. dmb says: Thanks and right back at you. 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
dmb said to Marsha: ...But I seriously doubt that you have any idea what James, Wallace or I am even talking about here. Marsha replied: James, Wallace and yourself? Hahahahahaha! ... here you are grouping yourself with James and Wallace. On what basis do you speak as a representative of these men? dmb says: Jeez, you're such a bad, bad reader. I'm not talking FOR Wallace or James but we are talking about the same thing. I'm saying you don't understand the quote you posted, which was from Wallace and about James. I'm saying that you don't know what he's talking about, what James is talking about or what I am talking about. If you understood this claim you would not be laughing. 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
On Jun 2, 2011, at 11:08 AM, david buchanan wrote: dmb said to Marsha: ...But I seriously doubt that you have any idea what James, Wallace or I am even talking about here. Marsha replied: James, Wallace and yourself? Hahahahahaha! ... here you are grouping yourself with James and Wallace. On what basis do you speak as a representative of these men? dmb says: Jeez, you're such a bad, bad reader. I'm not talking FOR Wallace or James but we are talking about the same thing. I'm saying you don't understand the quote you posted, which was from Wallace and about James. I'm saying that you don't know what he's talking about, what James is talking about or what I am talking about. If you understood this claim you would not be laughing. Marsha; That would be I don't understand what you are talking about. Hahahahahahaha! You and James and Wallace? Hahahahahahahaha! You're joking. On what basis do you believe you and James and Wallace are all in sync? Your opinion based on every intellectual standard???You and James and Wallace... OMG! ___ 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
On Jun 2, 2011, at 11:08 AM, david buchanan wrote: dmb says: I'm saying you don't understand the quote you posted, which was from Wallace and about James. Marsha: Yet concerning the quote I posted YOU wrote: I'm pretty sure Wallace is wrong on that point. You're pretty sure Wallace is wrong? Is that pretty sure by every intellectual standard??? Hahahaha! ___ 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
dmb, I bet I can locate the post from last July where you explained for me how patterns and objects differ. Maybe we can evaluate that post against every intellectual standard? That might be fun... How do you imagine it will hold up? marsha On Jun 2, 2011, at 11:42 AM, MarshaV wrote: On Jun 2, 2011, at 11:08 AM, david buchanan wrote: dmb says: I'm saying you don't understand the quote you posted, which was from Wallace and about James. Marsha: Yet concerning the quote I posted YOU wrote: I'm pretty sure Wallace is wrong on that point. You're pretty sure Wallace is wrong? Is that pretty sure by every intellectual standard??? Hahahaha! ___ ___ 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
dmb said: ... Ham's Essentialism seems to be a matter of moving a few pieces around on some metaphysical chessboard and none of those pieces makes contact with actual experience at any point. The game is confined to those 64 squares and none of the moves makes a difference to anyone or anything. That's vicious abstractionism. That's why reification is a real problem. This is an abuse of concepts... Ham replied: That's an unfair criticism, David. Actual experience is the basis of empirical knowledge, not metaphysical conceptualization, as you should know. Metaphysics is always abstraction. ... dmb says: Let me stop you right there because I can already see that you do not understand this criticism. The idea here is not to oppose abstractions. The idea is to stop abusing abstractions and instead use them properly. And what is the proper use of abstract concepts according to the MOQ? They come from past experience and their point and purpose is to guide future experience. When they become detached and float free of this experiential reality, abstractions become vicious. When they are used to denigrate the empirical reality from which they are derived, abstractions become vicious. When they are taken to be more real than the empirical reality to which they refer, this is an abuse of abstractions. In the MOQ, metaphysics and truth and ideas are static intellectual quality and these verbal and conceptual static patterns are always secondary. They always exist in relation to experience or when they don't it is like a broken circuit or a wrench in the gears. This is a form of pra gmatism, which says true ideas are the ones that function in experience, the concepts that lead you into harmonious relations, that you can smoothly ride upon in experience. Bad ideas will lead you into confusion, isolation or even danger. And then there are ideas that make no difference at all because they're purely verbal, so abstract as to be unconnected to anything known in experience. This is what I'm saying about your key terms, especially Essence. For James and Pirsig, there is no such thing. As James famously said, the essence of a thing is just whatever we find most important about it. It's not an actual entity or an eternal principle. It's just an abstraction, something we carve out of experience. Ham said: Pirsig had disdain for metaphysics, so he ridiculed it as names about reality, a menu without food, etc. What he really wanted to do was reduce metaphysics to the experiential level. ..Oh well, we'll just equate Quality to Experience and avoid the need for definitions altogether. It's a nice euphemism, but hardly a metaphysical thesis. For one thing, we don't directly experience Quality independent of intellectual abstractions. Quality is an assessment of the aesthetic or moral value of a phenomenon relative to other phenomena experienced or observed. That involves memory recall, intellectual judgment, and sufficient experience with the type of phenomenon in question to make such an assessment. dmb says: Disdain and ridicule? No. Again, the idea here is to stop the ABUSE of concepts. In those quotes Pirsig is saying that metaphysical ideas ought not be confused with reality. The idea is NOT to say that menus are bad, just that it is a mistake to eat the menu. As in the explanation above, the menu is supposed to guide you to the actual food. Eating the menu or thinking it more real than the food is the mistake known as reification. The MOQ is not metaphysical in that sense, in the sense of positing entities or principles that are outside of experience, whether it's supposed to be the conditions behind experience, under experience as a foundation or above experience as some divine principle. The pragmatist will not rule out any idea in advance as long as we take such notions as a working hypothesis and put it to work in experience. If your idea can not be put to the test because, by definition, it represents something that can't be known or tried out in experience, then the pra gmatist will say it is an empty, useless idea. The intellectual judgements and assessments we make make use of all kinds of static quality but Dynamic Quality refers to something else. Pirsig uses many, many examples of when and where it's likely to be noticeable in your own experience so that you can realize for yourself what the term refers to. It's not a crypto-religious metaphysical abstraction, he says, but an immediately felt empirical event. There is book called How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer that popularizes the scientific findings that support this view. The overall cognitive process totally breaks down without this ability to immediately feel the situation. One man lost this capacity for medical reasons and literally could not even choose a breakfast cereal. He'd stand in the grocery store for hours because he could not make a choice, even though his ability to reason
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Marsha said to dmb: You obviously have no idea of my understanding of reification. - The quotes I present match my view perfectly. Here is the quote that presents Marsha's view perfectly: One of the chief causes of bondage is, not so much the faculty of conceptualization, but rather the propensity to grasp onto the products of that faculty. The rational nature, like the dispositions Nagarjuna discussed in section seven of the karika, has a value. Concepts are an important and necessary tool to be used in ordering one’s world and acting within it. dmb says: Your pants must be on fire because Wallace's statement is pretty much the opposite of what you say. To cite a recent example, you said, I might have defended Bo because of his loyalty to the MD, but that was not the reason I came to believe Bo is correct. I was backed into a corner, he backed me into a corner, and I was struck wordless. I realized that conceptualization reifies. I didn't know the word then, but I clearly understood the process. Only later did I stumble across the word 'reify' and after reading it a number of times I recognized it as the process from which I couldn´t escape... See, Wallace describes the problem as the propensity to grasp the products of conceptualization and NOT the faculty of conceptualization itself. Wallace says concepts are necessary for acting in the world. You say, simply, conceptualization reifies, period. And you say you cannot escape this process. This goes along with your assertion that language is some kind of prison, with the assertion that intellectual patterns are to be killed rather than cured, with the assertion that the intellectual level is forever doomed to conform to SOM. It all adds up to a profoundly anti-intellectual view and it's a gross distortion of what Wallace, James and Pirsig are all saying about this problem. These guys are not philosophical enemies with each other and it makes no sense to pit them against each other. I don't even think you're being honest in the normal sense, let alone intellectually honest. It's just plain foolish to lie about what you did and did not say because your posts are in the archives and anyone can see that you're not telling the truth. Jeez, don't you have any shame? 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
dmb, I asked you the other day to post what you thought was my understanding of 'reification.' Of course you didn't. So I'll ask you again, please explain my understanding of 'reification.'' Explain my understanding in its entirety. --- Recently I wrote: Reification represents how the common man and many scientists, academics and even philosophers think. It evolved as tool to facilitate some kind of betterness. But it is flawed and of course the MoQ and help rectify the flaw. A flaw is an imperfection, not a major error. I wrote to you: For me, reification (Buddhist's expanded version) takes place within or interdependent with the conceptualization process. --- You wrote: Your incoherent attack on reification is just a foolish. I asked you to explain this incoherent attack but of course you didn't. Let me again present the Wallace quote that states reification is more than just the vicious abstractionism that James presents: Indeed the tendency of the human mind to assume the existence of things that are in fact nonentities is considered to lie at the root of a broad range of unnecessary conflicts and miseries. The most basic expression of this mental distortion is the reification of oneself as an intrinsically existent personal identity. Having reified oneself, it is inevitable that one reifies others in the same way, and this sets up absolute demarcations between self and other. One naturally also reifies one's natural environment as intrinsically existent, and therefore as absolutely other. (Wallace, B. Alan, 'Choosing Reality, : A Buddhist View of Physics and the Mind', 2003, p.142) I never stated, as Ron suggested, that reification IS the basis of all conception. At least he didn't provide evidence that I made such a strong statement. Here is another quote from Wallace: One's inborn sense of a reified self as the observer and the reified sense of the duality between subject and object are still present, even though they may be dormant while in meditation; and when one emerges from this nonconceptual state, the mind may still grasp onto all phenomena, including consciousness itself, as being real, inherently existing entities. The word 'inborn' is stronger than than 'tendency.' Marsha On Jun 2, 2011, at 1:20 PM, david buchanan wrote: Marsha said to dmb: You obviously have no idea of my understanding of reification. - The quotes I present match my view perfectly. Here is the quote that presents Marsha's view perfectly: One of the chief causes of bondage is, not so much the faculty of conceptualization, but rather the propensity to grasp onto the products of that faculty. The rational nature, like the dispositions Nagarjuna discussed in section seven of the karika, has a value. Concepts are an important and necessary tool to be used in ordering one’s world and acting within it. dmb says: Your pants must be on fire because Wallace's statement is pretty much the opposite of what you say. To cite a recent example, you said, I might have defended Bo because of his loyalty to the MD, but that was not the reason I came to believe Bo is correct. I was backed into a corner, he backed me into a corner, and I was struck wordless. I realized that conceptualization reifies. I didn't know the word then, but I clearly understood the process. Only later did I stumble across the word 'reify' and after reading it a number of times I recognized it as the process from which I couldn´t escape... See, Wallace describes the problem as the propensity to grasp the products of conceptualization and NOT the faculty of conceptualization itself. Wallace says concepts are necessary for acting in the world. You say, simply, conceptualization reifies, period. And you say you cannot escape this process. This goes along with your assertion that language is some kind of prison, with the assertion that intellectual patterns are to be killed rather than cured, with the assertion that the intellectual level is forever doomed to conform to SOM. It all adds up to a profoundly anti-intellectual view and it's a gross distortion of what Wallace, James and Pirsig are all saying about this problem. These guys are not philosophical enemies with each other and it makes no sense to pit them against each other. I don't even think you're being honest in the normal sense, let alone intellectually honest. It's just plain foolish to lie about what you did and did not say because your posts are in the archives and anyone can see that you're not telling the truth. Jeez, don't you have any shame? 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 ___ Moq_Discuss mailing list
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Marsha asked dmb: ...I don't understand what you are talking about. ...On what basis do you believe you and James and Wallace are all in sync? Your opinion based on every intellectual standard???You and James and Wallace... OMG! dmb says: Why is so hard to believe that I understand what Wallace is saying about James? My opinion is based on the research I did for my Master's thesis. The thesis committee members all signed off on it, which means that it meets the usual intellectual standards. This sort of thing happens routinely and nobody thinks it takes god-like powers. Wallace doesn't have to agree with James on every little point in order for them to be in fundamental agreement. But if you want to know if there is anything like a genuine sympatico between them, just ask Wallace. You've already admitted that he's a huge fan of James. Anyone could dig up a quote saying so in about one minute. So, what's the point of denying now except to make yourself look like a bullshitter? What kind of ridiculous straw man would say any two thinkers were alike in every respect? Everybody knows that nobody but straw men ever talk like that. And besides all that, there is nothing extraordinary about being on the same topic as Wallace and James. Knowing how James characterizes experience is not a magic trick. One just reads the primary and secondary sources, namely the works of William James and the work of James scholars - including people like Wallace. That's how one joins the conversation, the one you're not following. If you haven't read James, (and nobody is stopping you) then you simply have no basis on which to understand, let alone evaluate the Wallace quote you posted. You just haven't done the work that would allow you to agree or disagree with Wallace's criticism of James. If I've done the homework and been tested and you haven't then how likely is it that you understand it and I don't? You've launched an attack on James with a quote about James against a guy who just finished a 100 page paper on James - even though you don't know anything about James. Then you question the basis of my opinion on the to pic?! What kind of upside down fruit cake are you selling here sister? This is not what a conversationalist does. That's what a bullshitter does. 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Marsha said: I asked you the other day to post what you thought was my understanding of 'reification.' Of course you didn't. So I'll ask you again, please explain my understanding of 'reification.'' Explain my understanding in its entirety. dmb says: I just dished up your thoughts on reification and explained the objections. You understanding in its entirety is incoherent. It is a series of contradictions, of mutually exclusive claims. You can't say that reification is interdependent with the conceptualization process or simply conceptualization reifies AND also say that concepts are necessary to act in the world. You can't say reification is inescapable AND also say it is a tendency that may occur. Those are contradictory claims. Reification is a conceptual error, one we want to correct because of the vital importance and value of concepts or concepts themselves are inescapably doomed to reify experience and we ought to kill the intellect because its a prison. These are wildly opposed claims and you want to say them both at the same time. That's what I mean by calling saying your view is incoherent. For the millionth time. Marsha posted this quote: Indeed the tendency of the human mind to assume the existence of things that are in fact nonentities is considered to lie at the root of a broad range of unnecessary conflicts and miseries. The most basic expression of this mental distortion is the reification of oneself as an intrinsically existent personal identity. Having reified oneself, it is inevitable that one reifies others in the same way, and this sets up absolute demarcations between self and other. One naturally also reifies one's natural environment as intrinsically existent, and therefore as absolutely other. (Wallace, B. Alan, 'Choosing Reality, : A Buddhist View of Physics and the Mind', 2003, p.142) dmb says: He's talking about SOM. This is just another way of saying what Pirisg and James say about subjects and objects. He's talking about the metaphysics of substance, scientific materialism and common sense realism. Do you think this is at odds with the MOQ? I don't. When James said there is no such thing as consciousness in 1904, it shook the world, Bertrand Russell said. It was the biggest thing since Descartes, Whitehead said. Pirsig quotes James saying subjects and objects are the products of experience, secondary concepts, and not the starting points of reality. SOM then leads to amoral science, ugly technology and a terrible secret loneliness. I think it'd be fair to call that suffering. It would make sense if you were using this quote to support and illuminate the ideas of Pirsig and James or explain why SOM is such problem - instead of using it to attack the human mind. Marsha said: ... The word 'inborn' is stronger than than 'tendency.' dmb said: And inborn would not be accurate if taken literally. Wallace is just talking about natural realism, the unphilosophical, practical kind of realism. But you're taking inborn to mean something like hard-wired, like there is just no way to avoid it or, to combine your terms, an inescapable prison. Again, the result is an attack on thought itself, on all words and ideas as such. On Jun 2, 2011, at 1:20 PM, david buchanan wrote: Marsha said to dmb: You obviously have no idea of my understanding of reification. - The quotes I present match my view perfectly. Here is the quote that presents Marsha's view perfectly: One of the chief causes of bondage is, not so much the faculty of conceptualization, but rather the propensity to grasp onto the products of that faculty. The rational nature, like the dispositions Nagarjuna discussed in section seven of the karika, has a value. Concepts are an important and necessary tool to be used in ordering one’s world and acting within it. dmb says: Your pants must be on fire because Wallace's statement is pretty much the opposite of what you say. To cite a recent example, you said, I might have defended Bo because of his loyalty to the MD, but that was not the reason I came to believe Bo is correct. I was backed into a corner, he backed me into a corner, and I was struck wordless. I realized that conceptualization reifies. I didn't know the word then, but I clearly understood the process. Only later did I stumble across the word 'reify' and after reading it a number of times I recognized it as the process from which I couldn´t escape... See, Wallace describes the problem as the propensity to grasp the products of conceptualization and NOT the faculty of conceptualization itself. Wallace says concepts are necessary for acting in the world. You say, simply, conceptualization reifies, period. And you say you cannot escape this process. This goes along with your assertion that language is some kind of
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
dmb, For my definition, ou'll have to supply my exact quotes and their context. You too often exaggerate and misrepresent what I say. On Jun 2, 2011, at 3:24 PM, david buchanan wrote: Marsha said: I asked you the other day to post what you thought was my understanding of 'reification.' Of course you didn't. So I'll ask you again, please explain my understanding of 'reification.'' Explain my understanding in its entirety. dmb says: I just dished up your thoughts on reification and explained the objections. You understanding in its entirety is incoherent. It is a series of contradictions, of mutually exclusive claims. You can't say that reification is interdependent with the conceptualization process or simply conceptualization reifies AND also say that concepts are necessary to act in the world. You can't say reification is inescapable AND also say it is a tendency that may occur. Those are contradictory claims. Reification is a conceptual error, one we want to correct because of the vital importance and value of concepts or concepts themselves are inescapably doomed to reify experience and we ought to kill the intellect because its a prison. These are wildly opposed claims and you want to say them both at the same time. That's what I mean by calling saying your view is incoherent. For the millionth time. Marsha: As I stated, you exaggerate and misrepresent. Marsha posted this quote: Indeed the tendency of the human mind to assume the existence of things that are in fact nonentities is considered to lie at the root of a broad range of unnecessary conflicts and miseries. The most basic expression of this mental distortion is the reification of oneself as an intrinsically existent personal identity. Having reified oneself, it is inevitable that one reifies others in the same way, and this sets up absolute demarcations between self and other. One naturally also reifies one's natural environment as intrinsically existent, and therefore as absolutely other. (Wallace, B. Alan, 'Choosing Reality, : A Buddhist View of Physics and the Mind', 2003, p.142) dmb says: He's talking about SOM. This is just another way of saying what Pirisg and James say about subjects and objects. He's talking about the metaphysics of substance, scientific materialism and common sense realism. Do you think this is at odds with the MOQ? I don't. When James said there is no such thing as consciousness in 1904, it shook the world, Bertrand Russell said. It was the biggest thing since Descartes, Whitehead said. Pirsig quotes James saying subjects and objects are the products of experience, secondary concepts, and not the starting points of reality. SOM then leads to amoral science, ugly technology and a terrible secret loneliness. I think it'd be fair to call that suffering. It would make sense if you were using this quote to support and illuminate the ideas of Pirsig and James or explain why SOM is such problem - instead of using it to attack the human mind. Marsha: James shook the world??? He read the books; he knew Buddhism had been denying things (including an inherently existing consciousness) for many, many centuries. Who are you trying to kid? And you seem to conflate the world with the West. Intellectual competency? NOT! Marsha said: ... The word 'inborn' is stronger than than 'tendency.' dmb said: And inborn would not be accurate if taken literally. Wallace is just talking about natural realism, the unphilosophical, practical kind of realism. But you're taking inborn to mean something like hard-wired, like there is just no way to avoid it or, to combine your terms, an inescapable prison. Again, the result is an attack on thought itself, on all words and ideas as such. Marsha: Do I think you are capable of correcting Wallace's choice of words? No. No. No. I don't think you are. And what happen to sticking to the dictionary definition. Oh, is that only when it fits your rhetoric. What baloney! On Jun 2, 2011, at 1:20 PM, david buchanan wrote: Marsha said to dmb: You obviously have no idea of my understanding of reification. - The quotes I present match my view perfectly. Here is the quote that presents Marsha's view perfectly: One of the chief causes of bondage is, not so much the faculty of conceptualization, but rather the propensity to grasp onto the products of that faculty. The rational nature, like the dispositions Nagarjuna discussed in section seven of the karika, has a value. Concepts are an important and necessary tool to be used in ordering one’s world and acting within it. dmb says: Your pants must be on fire because Wallace's statement is pretty much the opposite of what you say. To cite a recent example, you said, I might have defended Bo because of his
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
On 6/1/11 9:33 PM, Ham Priday hampd...@verizon.net wrote: snip For one thing, we don't directly experience Quality independent of intellectual abstractions. Quality is an assessment of the aesthetic or moral value of a phenomenon relative to other phenomena experienced or observed. That involves memory recall, intellectual judgment, and sufficient experience with the type of phenomenon in question to make such an assessment. (And please don't quote me the hot stove analogy again. Getting one's ass burned is not experiencing Quality--high or low, positive or negative--it's feeling pain.) snip Hi Ham and all, Instinctive, moving, existing seem to be coupled to a direct experience of Quality so much so that we can express a Yes! or No! To the experience. Joe 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
2 jun 2011 kl. 18.22 Marsha wrote: On Jun 2, 2011, at 11:08 AM, david buchanan wrote: dmb says: I'm saying you don't understand the quote you posted, which was from Wallace and about James. Marsha: Yet concerning the quote I posted YOU wrote: I'm pretty sure Wallace is wrong on that point. You're pretty sure Wallace is wrong? Is that pretty sure by every intellectual standard??? Hahahaha! Marsha I don't think you're funny. Your dispute with dmb is very interesting as I can find examples of this in many places and situations. The ability to master the tools which can bridge over this valley of misunderstanding is very useful and I'd really would like to know what buttons to press to solve it. I can sense a shimmer of seductive scent in Wallaces way of describing what he call the reality. It is opening a world of unresponsibility which I don't buy. The fact that QUALITY is yet undefined doesn't mean that it has no value. I buy things that I like. I care for values. I like David's patience with you. Please take care Jan-Anders 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Hi Ham, I would agree with you. Radical empiricism is anything but metaphysics. In fact it is the antithesis of metaphysics. This is why it is termed radical, not because it is a new kind of empiricism, but because it is empiricism taken to its maximum definition. So, when Ron or dmb speak of your metaphysics being abstract, I would say, well, of course, that's why it is called metaphysics and not science. But any metaphysics has to be born from actual data. We cannot conceive of anything but what we experience. In the same way that the number series is based on experience, and then becomes abstract symbols which are totally unconnected with their origins. We can conceive of the concept of negative two when we take two things away. However, negative two has no empirical grounds to it at all. It is less than zero, and where does that put it? Certainly not in the empirical realm. In my opinion, Pirsig has no idea what is meant by mysticism. James has a much better idea since he spoke with many mystics while researching The Varieties. But even then, James must speak of such a thing as a third person. For even if he was a mystic (which I believe he was), it is not something one can write about in a book, except indirectly. Pirsig, in his naivete on the whole subject, compares it to being on peyote, which could not be farther from the truth. While peyote is a tool, it does not create the mystical experience. So, any time I read the word mystic being used in some fantastic capacity, I can only smile. Much of our daily life is mystical. It only becomes not-so, when we communicate about it. Cheers, Mark On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 9:33 PM, Ham Priday hampd...@verizon.net wrote: David and Ron -- On June 1, 2011 at 11:53AM, dmb dmbucha...@hotmail.com wrote: I agree with Ron. Ham's key terms are so highly abstract that they don't even refer to anyone's actual experience. The whole system of relations is purely verbal, untestable in experience and unusable in life. This is exactly what James hated most about the rationalistic philosophers, especially the Absolutists. Ham's Essentialism seems to be a matter of moving a few pieces around on some metaphysical chessboard and none of those pieces makes contact with actual experience at any point. The game is confined to those 64 squares and none of the moves makes a difference to anyone or anything. That's vicious abstractionism. That's why reification is a real problem. This is an abuse of concepts and such misuse is to be avoided because it will lead you down a dead-end road, lead you into confusion and isolation and endless arguments about nothing at all. That's an unfair criticism, David. Actual experience is the basis of empirical knowledge, not metaphysical conceptualization, as you should know. Metaphysics is always abstraction. Can you cite a philosopher, other than Pirsig, who provided testable data for a metaphysical theory? Pirsig defined four levels of DQ. I suppose you don't consider this hierarchy an abstraction, but is it experientially testable? If the author couldn't even define Quality, how could he posit his fundamental principle as a reality? And if Quality is not an abstraction, how is it that we are still arguing about its nature? [DMB quoting Pirsig]: Historically mystics have claimed that for a true understanding of reality metaphysics is too 'scientific.' Metaphysics is not reality. Metaphysics is names about reality. Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a thirty-thousand page menu and no food. The central reality of mysticism, the reality that Phaedrus had called 'Quality' in his first book, is not a metaphysical chess piece. Quality doesn't have to be defined. You understand it without definition, ahead of definition. Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions. Pirsig had disdain for metaphysics, so he ridiculed it as names about reality, a menu without food, etc. What he really wanted to do was reduce metaphysics to the experiential level. (Oops! ...that's one he didn't name.) Oh well, we'll just equate Quality to Experience and avoid the need for definitions altogether. It's a nice euphemism, but hardly a metaphysical thesis. For one thing, we don't directly experience Quality independent of intellectual abstractions. Quality is an assessment of the aesthetic or moral value of a phenomenon relative to other phenomena experienced or observed. That involves memory recall, intellectual judgment, and sufficient experience with the type of phenomenon in question to make such an assessment. (And please don't quote me the hot stove analogy again. Getting one's ass burned is not experiencing Quality--high or low, positive or negative--it's feeling pain.) If I'm guilty of vicious abstractionism, your esteemed author is at least guilty of extreme reifiication. IMHO. --Ham Moq_Discuss mailing list
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Ham said: Zero or nothingness may be an abstraction in relational logic, but not in metaphysical reality. Ron replied: ESPECIALLY in a Metaphysical construction of reality! it's not experienced! Essentialism all rests on a abstraction. You really can't deny this. ...Do realize that dualism and opposites result from the act of explanation and the use of language; to take them as actual constituants of reality is a reification of those relational concepts of meaning. dmb says: I agree with Ron. Ham's key terms are so highly abstract that they don't even refer to anyone's actual experience. The whole system of relations is purely verbal, untestable in experience and unusable in life. This is exactly what James hated most about the rationalistic philosophers, especially the Absolutists. Ham's Essentialism seems to be a matter of moving a few pieces around on some metaphysical chessboard and none of those pieces makes contact with actual experience at any point. The game is confined to those 64 squares and none of the moves makes a difference to anyone or anything. That's vicious abstractionism. That's why reification is a real problem. This is an abuse of concepts and such misuse is to be avoided because it will lead you down a dead-end road, lead you into confusion and isolation and endless arguments about nothing at all. Historically mystics have claimed that for a true understanding of reality metaphysics is too 'scientific.' Metaphysics is not reality. Metaphysics is names about reality. Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a thirty-thousand page menu and no food. The central reality of mysticism, the reality that Phaedrus had called 'Quality' in his first book, is not a metaphysical chess piece. Quality doesn't have to be defined. You understand it without definition, ahead of definition. Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions. 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Buddhist’s expanded meaning of reification: To reify is usually defined as mistakenly regarding an abstraction as a thing. It is derived from the Latin word res meaning 'thing'. Reification in Western philosophy means treating an abstract belief or hypothetical construct as if it were a concrete, physical entity. In other words, it is the error of treating as a real thing something which is not a real thing, but merely an idea. In Buddhist philosophy the concept of reification goes further. Reification means treating any functioning phenomenon as if it were a real, permanent 'thing', rather than an impermanent process. http://seanrobsville.blogspot.com/2009/12/reification-in-buddhism-ultimate-and.html --- ___ 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
dmb Please note the statement James seems to have fallen into the trap of reifying his own concept of a field of consciousness : The asymmetry in James's view of mind and matter may be due in part to his advocacy of a field theory of consciousness, in contrast to an atomistic theory, which he vigorously rejects. I would argue, however, that the nature of consciousness does not intrinsically conform either to a field theory or an atomistic theory. Rather, different kinds of conscious events become apparent when inspected from the perspective of each of these different conceptual frameworks. Using James's field theory, one may ascertain an individual, discrete continuum of awareness; and using the atomic theory one may discern within the stream of consciousness discrete moments of awareness and individual, constituent mental factors of those moments. Thus, while certain features of consciousness may be perceived only within the conceptual framework of a field theory, others may be observed only in terms of an atomistic theory. This complementarity is reminiscent of the relation between part icle and field theories of mass/energy in modern physics. The crucial point here is that neither conceptual framework is inherent in the nature of pure experience. James seems to have fallen into the trap of reifying his own concept of a field of consciousness, and this may have prevented him from determining, even to his own satisfaction, the way in which consciousness does and does not exist. (Wallace, B. Alan, 'The Taboo of Subjectivity: Towards a New Science of Consciousness') On Jun 1, 2011, at 11:53 AM, david buchanan wrote: Ham said: Zero or nothingness may be an abstraction in relational logic, but not in metaphysical reality. Ron replied: ESPECIALLY in a Metaphysical construction of reality! it's not experienced! Essentialism all rests on a abstraction. You really can't deny this. ...Do realize that dualism and opposites result from the act of explanation and the use of language; to take them as actual constituants of reality is a reification of those relational concepts of meaning. dmb says: I agree with Ron. Ham's key terms are so highly abstract that they don't even refer to anyone's actual experience. The whole system of relations is purely verbal, untestable in experience and unusable in life. This is exactly what James hated most about the rationalistic philosophers, especially the Absolutists. Ham's Essentialism seems to be a matter of moving a few pieces around on some metaphysical chessboard and none of those pieces makes contact with actual experience at any point. The game is confined to those 64 squares and none of the moves makes a difference to anyone or anything. That's vicious abstractionism. That's why reification is a real problem. This is an abuse of concepts and such misuse is to be avoided because it will lead you down a dead-end road, lead you into confusion and isolation and endless arguments about nothing at all. Historically mystics have claimed that for a true understanding of reality metaphysics is too 'scientific.' Metaphysics is not reality. Metaphysics is names about reality. Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a thirty-thousand page menu and no food. The central reality of mysticism, the reality that Phaedrus had called 'Quality' in his first book, is not a metaphysical chess piece. Quality doesn't have to be defined. You understand it without definition, ahead of definition. Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions. 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 ___ 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
One of the chief causes of bondage is, not so much the faculty of conceptualization, but rather the propensity to grasp onto the products of that faculty. The rational nature, like the dispositions Nagarjuna discussed in section seven of the karika, has a value. Concepts are an important and necessary tool to be used in ordering one’s world and acting within it. The problem is that rational creatures, be they humans or Gods, tend to ascribe excessive validity to these concepts. This is done for two reasons. One is ignorance: the rational creature does not know or ignores the fact that his or her mental nature is only a tool and has limited applicability. The other, and perhaps foundational, reason that sentient creatures cling to the mental processes is desire. Desiring pleasure, the mind reifies the apparently pleasurable things in the hope of thereby possessing them and preventing them from ceasing. Fearing death, the individual reifies the apparent existence of life itself and thereby acts with excessive and unjustified selfishness. The Buddha taught that these two tendencies, desire and the faith in the results of mentation, are, indirectly, the cause of bondage. “Desire, know I thy root,” he is reported to have said. “From conception thou springest; No more shall I indulge in conception; I will have no desire any more.” (Winters, Jonah, 'Thinking in Buddhism: Nagarjuna’s Middle Way') ___ 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Marsha said: Buddhist’s expanded meaning of reification: In Buddhist philosophy the concept of reification goes further. Reification means treating any functioning phenomenon as if it were a real, permanent 'thing', rather than an impermanent process. dmb says: The MOQ goes just as far, specifically at the point where Pirsig is explaining James's radical empiricism and its positions with respect to subject and objects. As a matter of fact, James and Pirsig are both rightly called process philosophers. But you go even further. You go too far so that reification is part of the conceptualization process. This is just a ham-handed condemnation of all concepts. This is not only unsupported by the quotes you post, it is also a logical impossibility and the consequences of such of view is a moral nightmare. It fails every intellectual standard I can think of. AND you aim this nonsense at all the wrong targets. If you were genuinely concerned about reification, you'd be barking up Ham's tree and you'd be wildly at odds with Krimel's scientific reductionism and with Bo, who thinks the MOQ is reality. They all reify the hell out of everything and they're hardly compatible with each other. But you think they're just swell and instead you're using a Buddhist critique of reification to push back against Pirsig and James, who are firmly opposed to reification and are firmly on the side of Buddhism. What an idiot! You're always barking up the wrong tree because you miss the point of everything, even your own evidence! Making sense just isn't on your list of priorities. Apparently, for you, this forum is just some kind of social club and you pick sides based on what's going to help or hurt your chances of becoming the prom queen - or whatever. (You're one of the most popular girls in this sentence!) It's hard to imagine what kind of person would even find that respectable, let alone be persuaded by it. Haven't you ever noticed that nobody is buying your anti-intellectual nihilism? Why do you suppose that is? I guess you think that's my fault, thus your obsession with my authority, (whatever that means). Or maybe you just want my attention so desperately that you're willing to the play the fool. 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
You do realize that this quote explicitly contradicts your idea of reification, don't you? Or is this your way of finally, quitely, admitting that you concede the point? One of the chief causes of bondage is, not so much the faculty of conceptualization, but rather the propensity to grasp onto the products of that faculty. The rational nature, like the dispositions Nagarjuna discussed in section seven of the karika, has a value. Concepts are an important and necessary tool to be used in ordering one’s world and acting within it. One of the chief causes of bondage is, not so much the faculty of conceptualization, but rather the propensity to grasp onto the products of that faculty. The rational nature, like the dispositions Nagarjuna discussed in section seven of the karika, has a value. Concepts are an important and necessary tool to be used in ordering one’s world and acting within it. One of the chief causes of bondage is, not so much the faculty of conceptualization, but rather the propensity to grasp onto the products of that faculty. The rational nature, like the dispositions Nagarjuna discussed in section seven of the karika, has a value. Concepts are an important and necessary tool to be used in ordering one’s world and acting within it. From: val...@att.net Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2011 12:52:39 -0400 To: moq_disc...@moqtalk.org Subject: Re: [MD] The other side of reified One of the chief causes of bondage is, not so much the faculty of conceptualization, but rather the propensity to grasp onto the products of that faculty. The rational nature, like the dispositions Nagarjuna discussed in section seven of the karika, has a value. Concepts are an important and necessary tool to be used in ordering one’s world and acting within it. The problem is that rational creatures, be they humans or Gods, tend to ascribe excessive validity to these concepts. This is done for two reasons. One is ignorance: the rational creature does not know or ignores the fact that his or her mental nature is only a tool and has limited applicability. The other, and perhaps foundational, reason that sentient creatures cling to the mental processes is desire. Desiring pleasure, the mind reifies the apparently pleasurable things in the hope of thereby possessing them and preventing them from ceasing. Fearing death, the individual reifies the apparent existence of life itself and thereby acts with excessive and unjustified selfishness. The Buddha taught that these two tendencies, desire and the faith in the results of mentation, are, indirectly, the cause of bondage. “Desire, know I thy root,” he is reported to have said. “From conception thou springest; No more shall I indulge in conception; I will have no desire any more.” (Winters, Jonah, 'Thinking in Buddhism: Nagarjuna’s Middle Way') ___ 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 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
Please note the statement James seems to have fallen into the trap of reifying his own concept of a field of consciousness dmb says: I'm pretty sure Wallace is wrong on that point. When James first came out against the atomistic theories (In his Psychology book) he said that rivers and streams are the best METAPHORS for consciousness. He also likened it to the flights and perches of birds, to a line of flame burning across an open field, just to name a few. I don't even think it's fair to say that a field was his favorite, let alone an exclusive, reified conception. He was quite explicit about these terms being only analogies. James held that continuities and disjunctions are both felt and known in experience and never denied one to the exclusion of the other, so I'd disagree on that point too. But I seriously doubt that you have any idea what James, Wallace or I am even talking about here. The asymmetry in James's view of mind and matter may be due in part to his advocacy of a field theory of consciousness, in contrast to an atomistic theory, which he vigorously rejects. I would argue, however, that the nature of consciousness does not intrinsically conform either to a field theory or an atomistic theory. Rather, different kinds of conscious events become apparent when inspected from the perspective of each of these different conceptual frameworks. Using James's field theory, one may ascertain an individual, discrete continuum of awareness; and using the atomic theory one may discern within the stream of consciousness discrete moments of awareness and individual, constituent mental factors of those moments. Thus, while certain features of consciousness may be perceived only within the conceptual framework of a field theory, others may be observed only in terms of an atomistic theory. This complementarity is reminiscent of the relation between pa rt icle and field theories of mass/energy in modern physics. The crucial point here is that neither conceptual framework is inherent in the nature of pure experience. James seems to have fallen into the trap of reifying his own concept of a field of consciousness, and this may have prevented him from determining, even to his own satisfaction, the way in which consciousness does and does not exist. (Wallace, B. Alan, 'The Taboo of Subjectivity: Towards a New Science of Consciousness') On Jun 1, 2011, at 11:53 AM, david buchanan wrote: Ham said: Zero or nothingness may be an abstraction in relational logic, but not in metaphysical reality. Ron replied: ESPECIALLY in a Metaphysical construction of reality! it's not experienced! Essentialism all rests on a abstraction. You really can't deny this. ...Do realize that dualism and opposites result from the act of explanation and the use of language; to take them as actual constituants of reality is a reification of those relational concepts of meaning. dmb says: I agree with Ron. Ham's key terms are so highly abstract that they don't even refer to anyone's actual experience. The whole system of relations is purely verbal, untestable in experience and unusable in life. This is exactly what James hated most about the rationalistic philosophers, especially the Absolutists. Ham's Essentialism seems to be a matter of moving a few pieces around on some metaphysical chessboard and none of those pieces makes contact with actual experience at any point. The game is confined to those 64 squares and none of the moves makes a difference to anyone or anything. That's vicious abstractionism. That's why reification is a real problem. This is an abuse of concepts and such misuse is to be avoided because it will lead you down a dead-end road, lead you into confusion and isolation and endless arguments about nothing at all. Historically mystics have claimed that for a true understanding of reality metaphysics is too 'scientific.' Metaphysics is not reality. Metaphysics is names about reality. Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a thirty-thousand page menu and no food. The central reality of mysticism, the reality that Phaedrus had called 'Quality' in his first book, is not a metaphysical chess piece. Quality doesn't have to be defined. You understand it without definition, ahead of definition. Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions. 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 ___ Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives:
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
dmb, You obviously have no idea of my understanding of reification. - The quotes I present match my view perfectly. Marsha On Jun 1, 2011, at 2:22 PM, david buchanan wrote: You do realize that this quote explicitly contradicts your idea of reification, don't you? Or is this your way of finally, quitely, admitting that you concede the point? One of the chief causes of bondage is, not so much the faculty of conceptualization, but rather the propensity to grasp onto the products of that faculty. The rational nature, like the dispositions Nagarjuna discussed in section seven of the karika, has a value. Concepts are an important and necessary tool to be used in ordering one’s world and acting within it. One of the chief causes of bondage is, not so much the faculty of conceptualization, but rather the propensity to grasp onto the products of that faculty. The rational nature, like the dispositions Nagarjuna discussed in section seven of the karika, has a value. Concepts are an important and necessary tool to be used in ordering one’s world and acting within it. One of the chief causes of bondage is, not so much the faculty of conceptualization, but rather the propensity to grasp onto the products of that faculty. The rational nature, like the dispositions Nagarjuna discussed in section seven of the karika, has a value. Concepts are an important and necessary tool to be used in ordering one’s world and acting within it. From: val...@att.net Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2011 12:52:39 -0400 To: moq_disc...@moqtalk.org Subject: Re: [MD] The other side of reified One of the chief causes of bondage is, not so much the faculty of conceptualization, but rather the propensity to grasp onto the products of that faculty. The rational nature, like the dispositions Nagarjuna discussed in section seven of the karika, has a value. Concepts are an important and necessary tool to be used in ordering one’s world and acting within it. The problem is that rational creatures, be they humans or Gods, tend to ascribe excessive validity to these concepts. This is done for two reasons. One is ignorance: the rational creature does not know or ignores the fact that his or her mental nature is only a tool and has limited applicability. The other, and perhaps foundational, reason that sentient creatures cling to the mental processes is desire. Desiring pleasure, the mind reifies the apparently pleasurable things in the hope of thereby possessing them and preventing them from ceasing. Fearing death, the individual reifies the apparent existence of life itself and thereby acts with excessive and unjustified selfishness. The Buddha taught that these two tendencies, desire and the faith in the results of mentation, are, indirectly, the cause of bondage. “Desire, know I thy root,” he is reported to have said. “From conception thou springest; No more shall I indulge in conception; I will have no desire any more.” (Winters, Jonah, 'Thinking in Buddhism: Nagarjuna’s Middle Way') ___ 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 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 ___ 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
On Jun 1, 2011, at 1:54 PM, david buchanan wrote: Marsha said: Buddhist’s expanded meaning of reification: In Buddhist philosophy the concept of reification goes further. Reification means treating any functioning phenomenon as if it were a real, permanent 'thing', rather than an impermanent process. dmb says: The MOQ goes just as far, specifically at the point where Pirsig is explaining James's radical empiricism and its positions with respect to subject and objects. As a matter of fact, James and Pirsig are both rightly called process philosophers. But you go even further. You go too far so that reification is part of the conceptualization process. This is just a ham-handed condemnation of all concepts. This is not only unsupported by the quotes you post, it is also a logical impossibility and the consequences of such of view is a moral nightmare. It fails every intellectual standard I can think of. AND you aim this nonsense at all the wrong targets. Marsha: I do not think you are the one who determines how far the MoQ may go. While James is an interesting historical event, his point-of-view should not confine or put limits on the the MoQ. If the correlation between RMP and James works for you, that's fine. But you are not the authority to make absolute decisions for everyone else, especially since RMP has written that The Metaphysics of Quality is not intended to be within any philosophic tradition In spite of what's in your little mind concerning my view, I assure you the quotes on reification that I have presented certainly do represent my point-of-view. And what you tout as every intellectual standard is nothing to me. It makes me laugh that you think it would be in any way significant. dmb: If you were genuinely concerned about reification, you'd be barking up Ham's tree and you'd be wildly at odds with Krimel's scientific reductionism and with Bo, who thinks the MOQ is reality. They all reify the hell out of everything and they're hardly compatible with each other. But you think they're just swell and instead you're using a Buddhist critique of reification to push back against Pirsig and James, who are firmly opposed to reification and are firmly on the side of Buddhism. What an idiot! You're always barking up the wrong tree because you miss the point of everything, even your own evidence! Marsha: I may be missing YOUR point, but I find that to be a very dull point, very dull indeed... It is hardly worthy of consideration. dmb: Making sense just isn't on your list of priorities. Apparently, for you, this forum is just some kind of social club and you pick sides based on what's going to help or hurt your chances of becoming the prom queen - or whatever. (You're one of the most popular girls in this sentence!) It's hard to imagine what kind of person would even find that respectable, let alone be persuaded by it. Haven't you ever noticed that nobody is buying your anti-intellectual nihilism? Why do you suppose that is? I guess you think that's my fault, thus your obsession with my authority, (whatever that means). Or maybe you just want my attention so desperately that you're willing to the play the fool. Marsha: Oh my, my,,, could your hyperbole be more fascinating??? ___ 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
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
On Jun 1, 2011, at 2:37 PM, david buchanan wrote: Please note the statement James seems to have fallen into the trap of reifying his own concept of a field of consciousness dmb says: I'm pretty sure Wallace is wrong on that point. When James first came out against the atomistic theories (In his Psychology book) he said that rivers and streams are the best METAPHORS for consciousness. He also likened it to the flights and perches of birds, to a line of flame burning across an open field, just to name a few. I don't even think it's fair to say that a field was his favorite, let alone an exclusive, reified conception. He was quite explicit about these terms being only analogies. James held that continuities and disjunctions are both felt and known in experience and never denied one to the exclusion of the other, so I'd disagree on that point too. But I seriously doubt that you have any idea what James, Wallace or I am even talking about here. dmb, I have no idea of yours and James' understanding. But I do know and agree with Alan Wallace is talking about. If you disagree, then you disagree; your opinion is not my problem. Marsha The asymmetry in James's view of mind and matter may be due in part to his advocacy of a field theory of consciousness, in contrast to an atomistic theory, which he vigorously rejects. I would argue, however, that the nature of consciousness does not intrinsically conform either to a field theory or an atomistic theory. Rather, different kinds of conscious events become apparent when inspected from the perspective of each of these different conceptual frameworks. Using James's field theory, one may ascertain an individual, discrete continuum of awareness; and using the atomic theory one may discern within the stream of consciousness discrete moments of awareness and individual, constituent mental factors of those moments. Thus, while certain features of consciousness may be perceived only within the conceptual framework of a field theory, others may be observed only in terms of an atomistic theory. This complementarity is reminiscent of the relation between pa rticle and field theories of mass/energy in modern physics. The crucial point here is that neither conceptual framework is inherent in the nature of pure experience. James seems to have fallen into the trap of reifying his own concept of a field of consciousness, and this may have prevented him from determining, even to his own satisfaction, the way in which consciousness does and does not exist. (Wallace, B. Alan, 'The Taboo of Subjectivity: Towards a New Science of Consciousness') On Jun 1, 2011, at 11:53 AM, david buchanan wrote: Ham said: Zero or nothingness may be an abstraction in relational logic, but not in metaphysical reality. Ron replied: ESPECIALLY in a Metaphysical construction of reality! it's not experienced! Essentialism all rests on a abstraction. You really can't deny this. ...Do realize that dualism and opposites result from the act of explanation and the use of language; to take them as actual constituants of reality is a reification of those relational concepts of meaning. dmb says: I agree with Ron. Ham's key terms are so highly abstract that they don't even refer to anyone's actual experience. The whole system of relations is purely verbal, untestable in experience and unusable in life. This is exactly what James hated most about the rationalistic philosophers, especially the Absolutists. Ham's Essentialism seems to be a matter of moving a few pieces around on some metaphysical chessboard and none of those pieces makes contact with actual experience at any point. The game is confined to those 64 squares and none of the moves makes a difference to anyone or anything. That's vicious abstractionism. That's why reification is a real problem. This is an abuse of concepts and such misuse is to be avoided because it will lead you down a dead-end road, lead you into confusion and isolation and endless arguments about nothing at all. Historically mystics have claimed that for a true understanding of reality metaphysics is too 'scientific.' Metaphysics is not reality. Metaphysics is names about reality. Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a thirty-thousand page menu and no food. The central reality of mysticism, the reality that Phaedrus had called 'Quality' in his first book, is not a metaphysical chess piece. Quality doesn't have to be defined. You understand it without definition, ahead of definition. Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions. ___ 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/
Re: [MD] The other side of reified
David and Ron -- On June 1, 2011 at 11:53AM, dmb dmbucha...@hotmail.com wrote: I agree with Ron. Ham's key terms are so highly abstract that they don't even refer to anyone's actual experience. The whole system of relations is purely verbal, untestable in experience and unusable in life. This is exactly what James hated most about the rationalistic philosophers, especially the Absolutists. Ham's Essentialism seems to be a matter of moving a few pieces around on some metaphysical chessboard and none of those pieces makes contact with actual experience at any point. The game is confined to those 64 squares and none of the moves makes a difference to anyone or anything. That's vicious abstractionism. That's why reification is a real problem. This is an abuse of concepts and such misuse is to be avoided because it will lead you down a dead-end road, lead you into confusion and isolation and endless arguments about nothing at all. That's an unfair criticism, David. Actual experience is the basis of empirical knowledge, not metaphysical conceptualization, as you should know. Metaphysics is always abstraction. Can you cite a philosopher, other than Pirsig, who provided testable data for a metaphysical theory? Pirsig defined four levels of DQ. I suppose you don't consider this hierarchy an abstraction, but is it experientially testable? If the author couldn't even define Quality, how could he posit his fundamental principle as a reality? And if Quality is not an abstraction, how is it that we are still arguing about its nature? [DMB quoting Pirsig]: Historically mystics have claimed that for a true understanding of reality metaphysics is too 'scientific.' Metaphysics is not reality. Metaphysics is names about reality. Metaphysics is a restaurant where they give you a thirty-thousand page menu and no food. The central reality of mysticism, the reality that Phaedrus had called 'Quality' in his first book, is not a metaphysical chess piece. Quality doesn't have to be defined. You understand it without definition, ahead of definition. Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions. Pirsig had disdain for metaphysics, so he ridiculed it as names about reality, a menu without food, etc. What he really wanted to do was reduce metaphysics to the experiential level. (Oops! ...that's one he didn't name.) Oh well, we'll just equate Quality to Experience and avoid the need for definitions altogether. It's a nice euphemism, but hardly a metaphysical thesis. For one thing, we don't directly experience Quality independent of intellectual abstractions. Quality is an assessment of the aesthetic or moral value of a phenomenon relative to other phenomena experienced or observed. That involves memory recall, intellectual judgment, and sufficient experience with the type of phenomenon in question to make such an assessment. (And please don't quote me the hot stove analogy again. Getting one's ass burned is not experiencing Quality--high or low, positive or negative--it's feeling pain.) If I'm guilty of vicious abstractionism, your esteemed author is at least guilty of extreme reifiication. IMHO. --Ham 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
