RE RF

Re: RF

[re-rf-blog]

Communication

Consider someone who lists the following as interests: “Nietzsche, Zen, existentialism, quantum mechanics.” Now all these are perfectly good topics, with the exception of Nietzsche. However, you’re likely to get a fair amount of incorrect judgment (which I allow is somewhat warranted). First you ask, what exactly is wrong with having Nietzsche, Zen, and existentialism as interests? There is nothing wrong with them. You communicate though, that these are the topics that most readily come to mind, or are the only things that you know about. By doing that you have grouped yourself in the mind of the reader with all the other people who list such interests, namely, people who have limited understandings of the topics. The personal history you have with each topic does not convey over to the reader. To you, Zen and quantum mechanics are Dogen’s Shōbōgenzō and an actual QM textbook. To them, Zen and QM bring to mind the popularization that has proliferated and somewhat stained the reputations of these topics.

This is not mere stereotyping or prejudice at work here. By saying something you communicate your willingness to say it, and what’s not there.

There’s nothing wrong with defecation: everyone does it. In elementary school, you have the person who announces “I need to poop” to the rest of the class, and asks what’s wrong with possibly the one activity shared by all human beings. Now it would be ridiculous to feel guilty of yourself for defecating after observing the class’s reaction to the announcement, because you understand the universality of the activity and the object of condemnation (the willingness to share). Likewise, we must be sure to watch everything we’re communicating.

[re-rf-blog]

Foreign Languages

Words in foreign languages create slightly different thought-feels. For example, “language-game” and “Sprachspiel.” “No-self” and “anātman.”

I’ll attempt to explain what anātman sounds like. Put together the thought-feel of the prefix “a-” and the anthropomorphism of the suffix “-man.”

[re-rf-blog]

Referents

I’ll admit, people write poorly (and I count myself in that group). When the prose is unclear or highly confusing, it is best to sit back and imagine yourself in the position of the writer. Imagine her as nervous and crammed for time: she’s got only a few minutes to write down her thoughts. The piece wouldn’t stand up to close scrutiny very well. It probably wouldn’t even stand up to a close read very well.

Now, being in her seat, think of the types of mistakes she’ll be likely to make. One thing that has come up (to me) is the poor wording. The word choice and order is inelegant. You can’t tell exactly what she means. You have a good idea though. If it’s a nonfiction essay there will be common elements of thought (lines of argument, life experiences, stuff we can relate to) that have a very good chance of being the concept that she wants to convey. When reading any writing, think of the possible referents: the concepts that the writers want to refer to. Some passages are long, but convey simple patterns of thought such as “it was x not y that…” or “rather than x, he z out of…”

[re-rf-blog]

Issues and Systems

An commentary to Nāgārjuna’s MMK (Mūlamadhyamakakārikā) describes the view of causality in ancient India: “It is important to note at the outset that in classical Indian philosophy causation is usually understood as a relation between entities (‘the seed, together with warm moist soil, is the cause of the sprout’) and not, as in modern science, between events (‘the collision caused the motion of the ball’)” (Siderits, “Nāgārjuna’s Middle Way”).

Unless you were well-versed in the philosophy from that era, you would probably, as a modern practitioner, have understood causation to be similar to the collision. I’m not even sure if I have it correct: is there a big difference between the concept of causation we refer to today and the one the commentary tells us was predominant in ancient India?

Here, there are many systems (of understanding, knowledge) to be made.

For example, let’s say that most people really do have it misinterpreted. Nevertheless, a pretty consistent and fulfilling system of understanding forms around it. In fact, a large community forms without ever knowing that they had a totally inaccurate interpretation of such a fundamental concept. For a skeptic, this would be good reason to be wary of set systems: your discovering the veracity of the statements is some kind of bias due to expectations. It’s like a placebo.

On a higher level, we can understand ideas as either building blocks or shopping cart items. In the building blocks analogy, thought systems are built on fundamentals, forming a structure in which each tenet is supported by everything beneath. In the shopping cart analogy, ideas don’t conflict with each other: if you toss one, you don’t necessarily toss the others. These are rather obvious analogies, which we have good reason to suspect as inaccurate models (analogies and similes are widely said to have many flaws). That’s not to say that the non-analogy concepts we hold are not as bad (there’s a purpose to the double negative): they share the same characteristics. Notice how in the word “share” itself we are using analogies and vague, abstract concepts.

And let’s throw in an additional round of conceptual abstraction, to illustrate: systems of ideas are actually a middle ground between the shopping cart and building block models.

You can shift concepts around all day. Imagine a person who has been playing with creating frameworks of understanding (theories). She’s gotten quite good at it. I can imagine the mind of such a person as distressed over the uncertainty of every theory we take as accurate.

This was a rather discursively organized post. The opening has nothing to do with the content of the post: it merely served to introduce an example of thought system. I can conceive of a reader who did think it was related, and somehow connected causation to the rest of the post. Such a reader would be left very confused, but would have experienced excessive conceptual systemization firsthand. I can also conceive of a reader who imagines that the purpose of the opening was to create exactly the situation aforementioned. Such a reader would be bright. I can conceive of a reader who thinks that the previous sentence means that it was intentional. Such a reader would be wrong. I can conceive of a reader who thinks that the overly contrived nature of the above examples helps to give a picture of the range of possibilities out there for creating systems to explain things. Such a reader would be right.

The beauty of Buddhist practice though, is that it’s not dependent on theories that can be toppled down. The seasoned framework maker two paragraphs above would be making a model of understanding herself. She must reject that too.