From: Dan Glover (daneglover@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed Jul 21 2004 - 17:24:42 BST
Hello everyone
>From: Valuemetaphysics@aol.com
>Reply-To: moq_discuss@moq.org
>To: moq_discuss@moq.org
>Subject: Re: MD the metaphysics of freedom
>Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 09:05:13 EDT
>
>Hi Mark
>
>From the Copleston annotations on Anthony McWatt's website:
>
>The MOQ takes takes the Oriental line, that it [completely harmonious and
>all-inclusive experience] is a falling away of static patterns achievable
>by
>meditation or other disciplines. The Buddha also does not tell us
>precisely
>in what this transformation consists. He simply says “See for
>yourself.”
>(Robert Pirsig)
>That's what I mean when I say experience comes first. Imagining, standing,
>holding, applying, pointing, all that, considered in the MOQ as static
>patterns of value, comes later. That's what the Buddha meant. That is what
>the master is attempting to impart to his student, as I see it now.
>
>Mark 19-7-04: I agree. This very thread is called, 'the metaphysics of
>freedom' and not, 'see for yourself.' So don't start moving the goal posts
>half way
>through the game Dan. Either we are discussing freedom in a conceptualised
>sense or we are seeing for ourselves.
>Ironically, coherence is situational so you do in fact experientially
>verify
>it empirically by 'seeing for yourself.'
Hi Mark
The thread could very well be called see for yourself; it would suit the
purpose either way. I told you that the name of the thread is an
organizational device, nothing more. There are no goal posts so they're
right where they've always been. I can't move what doesn't exist. If you go
back and read over what I've written you'll see all along that I've been
saying just this you agree with now. It's good we agree.
>
> >There may be many of them, and in varying degrees. But the best ones, as
> >far
> >as the MOQ understands, involve the most recently evolved patterns:
>Humans.
> >How more free can a Human be?
>
>Where did this come from? The only human I know who's free is the homeless
>fellow who sleeps under the stairs at the nieghborhood laundrymat. Freedom
>carries a heavy price.
>
>Mark 19-7-04: The enlightened understand it's all conceptualised and can
>deal
>with it.
I mean your idea that humans are most recently evolved and so how much more
free can they be, where did it come from? I don't remember reading it in any
of Robert Pirsig's writings.
>
> >EH insulted the master by relying on habit. In, 'A river runs through it'
> >the
> >narrator says a fly fisher must be worthy to catch a fish. If a fly
>fisher
> >fishes by habit, he/she is not paying respect to the art. It does not
> >matter
> >what the art is - all art is about DQ.
>
>So we could say student Herrigal was cheating and insulted the master.
>
>Mark 19-7-04: We are saying it.
That doesn't make it so. See below.
>
>But
>he certainly meant no insult and he didn't intend to cheat.
>
>Mark 19-7-04: He was learning and did not understand. The master accepted
>this and renewed his engagement.
The relationship changed; it wasn't the same again.
>
>
>Mark 19-7-04: Robert Fripp, in his introduction to 'the guitar handbook' by
>Ralph Denyer suggests that a student teaches himself with the aid of the
>master. That makes sense to me because the student is a unique set of sq
>reaching
>for coherence under the motivation of DQ. Perhaps EH's master was aided to
>a
>great extent by his culture? Japanese culture not only uses art to explore
>DQ but
>it explores new art forms to explore DQ! If you think about it, all masters
>are teaching the same thing in different ways. We in the west may call
>this,
>'Transferable skills' but that is a bit of a damp squib by comparison?
I would say this is how we learn here in the West but it is not necessarily
the only way or the best way. What I mean to say is that we in the West tend
to take action to learn. A zen master tends to learn through inaction. So
perhaps it's not that student Herrigal cheated as we understand cheating to
be but rather he took action in learning a new skill instead of inaction.
Once the master saw this, he realized any further teaching was useless.
>Bobby Fischer? Since Aristotle's ethics it has been commented that some
>kids
>are skilled mathematicians. It's pure intellectual Quality without social
>mediation; this may be why it seems so cold and inhuman? Chess is like that
>i
>feel. But the quality kick a chess player gets from seeing the best move is
>where
>it's all at. In a way, that kind of makes it Human, because although you
>and i
>may not be great chess players, you and i may have experience coherence
>elsewhere in our lives - at different levels - so all we have to say to the
>chess
>player is, 'Hey, you hit a real sweet spot with that last move' and
>everyone
>immediately understands, together, as Humans.
I suspect William James Sidis, Bobby Fischer, and others of their stripes
suffer fools poorly which sets them apart socially. But that wasn't my point
in bringing it up.
Thank you for your comments,
Dan
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