From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Mar 27 2005 - 22:45:36 BST
dmb had said:
The point here is to show that Nussbaum is talking about static reality, the
reality that is full of loves and hates, goods and evils, heros and
villians. The primary empirical reality is prior to all that static sorting
and sifting.
On march 12th, Sam Norton wrote back:
I'm not sure that this is a legitimate move in the argument. We're
necessarily talking about the understanding of various static patterns, the
levels, and how and where emotions fit or don't fit in those static
categories. To start bringing in talk of the primary empirical reality is
like removing the ball from the game. Yeah, let's agree that it's all
ultimately maya and illusion, but having agreed on that can we get back to a
bit of static sorting and latching?
But on March 23 Sam wrote:
If the sense of value is the primary sense, from which the static patterns
of the traditional five senses are derived (the biological level); and
If emotions don't fit neatly into the four static patterns, and therefore
cannot be simply equated with the biological level; and If emotions are
essential to decision making (ie the discernment of value) then Is there not
a large amount of overlap, if not equivalence, between the 'sense of value'
and our emotional reaction to something? ...In other words, are not
emotions, as we experience them, simply the major way in which we describe
Quality? And that the refinement of our emotional nature (which the western
tradition, stoicism to Christianity etc, has always insisted as the essence
of the good life) is in fact the Tao of Quality?
dmb replies:
Equivalence between emotions and the primary sense of value? The refinement
of our emotional nature is in fact the Tao of Qualtiy? See, I thought you
and Nussbaum were trying to make that move. Again, I really don't think so.
I will repeat an old complaint about this topic and question; its far too
vague. I mean, maybe the reason "emotion" doesn't fit neatly into the MOQ is
that it is a very un-neat word. Further, the notion that the Western
tradition has been concerned with emotional development is just one more
sign that the Western tradition has trouble seeing beyong the static forms
of conventional reality. Rather that dissolve the ego-self, the Western
tradition tends to reinforce this trap.
Sam also said on the 12th:
But talking about themes running through posts - isn't it a bit odd that
your(dmb's)understanding of religion presumes the reality of individual
choice, but denies it any philosophical status, whereas my understanding of
religion emphasises the group and communal nature, but gives individuality a
high degree of philosophical status? Just a thought....
dmb says:
Its not that mysticism or the MOQ gives no philosophical status to the
individual, but simply denies that the conventional self is the ultimate
self. As I keep saying, the little self is not an illusion or a mirage. Its
as real as rocks and trees and all other static forms. If we are a forest of
static patterns and static patterns are real, then the conventional self is
quite real too. How could we deny the experience we all know so well? Seems
impossible to me. But the MOQ follows the East and philsophical mysticism in
asserting that the conventional self is not the straight forward and primary
reality we tend to think it is. Instead of being the barest of facts, the
conventional self and its perceptions is actually a heap of concepts and
interpretations and so the ego-self is in a very real sense, an abstact
concept, a construction we so habitually use that we have forgotten that it
is so abstract. In this way, the West is thoroughly SOM, even for those who
have never so much as glanced at a philosophy book. What most would view as
common sense realism is actually quite abstract. This is the illusion.
Think of it in terms of the idea that "we are suspended in language" or the
assertion that all knowledge is a "linguistic affair". Here were are getting
at the idea that we were so busy sorting sand into piles that we forget to
sort the sorter or even notice him. The so called "linguistic turn" is, I
think, best viewed as a partial and imperfect understanding of this same
illusion. In the MOQ, we are "suspended" in language too, but not JUST in
language. We don't have quality, quality has us. We're suspended in all
static forms. And there is no pre-existing self beyond those patterns. We
are already getting a radically different idea of individuality and this is
only the static self. The Eastern or mystical part of the equation, the part
where we get to the big self, the dynamic self, is a factor that the West
hasn't incorporated - or even noticed. But I've tried to explain this same
idea a few times already and I've apparently failed to get the idea across.
How about if Alan Watts takes a crack at it. I'll think you'll see that
Pirsigisms on this issue echo throughout...
"Men feel themselves to be victims or puppets of their existence because
they separate 'themselves' from their minds, thinking that the nature of the
mind-body is something involuntarily thrust upon 'them'. (By objective
reality, I suppose.) They think they they did not ask to be born, did not
ask to be 'given' a sensitive organism to be frustrated by alternating
pleasure and pain. But Zen asks us to find out 'who' it is that'has' this
mind, and 'who' it was that did not ask to be born. Thence it appears that
the entire sense of subjective isolation, of being the one who was 'given' a
certain structure. It IS that structure, and before the structure arose
there was no mind-body.
Our problem is that the power of thought enables us to construct symbols of
things apart from the things themselves. This includes the ability to make a
symbol, an idea of our selves apart from ourselves. Because the idea is so
much more comprehensible than the reality, the symbol so much more stable
that the fact, we learn to identify ourselves with our idea of oursleves.
Hence the subjective feeling of a 'self' which 'has' a mind, of an inwardly
isolated subject to whom experiences involuntarily happen. With its emphsis
on the concrete, Zen points out that our precisou 'self' is just an idea,
useful and legitimate enough if seen for what it is, but disasterous if
identified with our real nature...
When we are no longer identified with the idea of ourselves, the entire
relationship between subject and object, knower and known, undergoes a
sudden and revolutiojnary change."
Thanks,
dmb
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