[Buddha-l] Natural lucidity for all, a Buddhist dream

[Fools Crow]

On Sep 2, 2006, at 3:45 PM, Richard Hayes wrote:


> Even if it is granted that there are distortions in any given
> interpretation, it does not follow that the distortions are serious  
> enough to
> warrant being called mistakes.

I don't think mistake must be as serious a word for me as it is for  
you. Although I hate being caught in a mistake about as much as I  
hate anything. I really really like to be right, even if right only  
means being considered correct in a trivial argument.
>
>> So, I reckon maybe
>> what I mean by "mistaken" in this context is that my view of
>> "reality" may or may not have much in common with the reality of
>> others or with any presumed "facts" if there are such things as
>> "facts".
>
> You hedge your bets pretty thoroughly when you say "may or may not".

Well, hedge it is then. And Emerson was inconsistent. I think I  
really mean to hedge because I am quite uncertain about my  
certitudes. I think quite a lot about the nature of whatever is  
reality, and I read a lot of science because I trust at least the  
method of inquiry. Science doesn't have many certitudes, but lots and  
lots of very well demonstrated and proven hypotheses. I usually adopt  
my notions of what is real from science, understanding full well that  
I often don't understand it. I have also made debaters angry when I  
change my ground in a discussion because I have had the ground I was  
standing on shift uncomfortably. So, not only to I hedge (a weak  
defensive position), but I apparently cheat.

> It seems
> to me that there is a remarkable amount of apparent agreement among  
> people on
> a wide range of topics. Occasionally people disagree, and sometimes  
> they
> disagree dramatically enough that they feel people need to die  
> rather than be
> mistaken.

Yes, there seem to be very large numbers of people who think it was  
just swell to attack Iraq, for example. They do not share my image of  
what is real. They don't necessarily share my idea of what is moral  
either. In a way we seem to live in different worlds. I am certain my  
world view is radically prettier than that of the poor folks of Chad  
and certainly not too similar to the views of the Nepalese or Inuits..


> But it seems just plain silly to me to suggest (by the use of
> quotation marks) that facts are anything less than facts. Would it  
> not serve
> your case just as well to say that people sometimes disagree about  
> the facts,
> instead of saying that people disagree about "facts".

Yes. I apologize for the quotation marks. I hate them in general, but  
don't know a better way (in a text file) to indicate that I am using  
a word in some particular way that I would like to draw attention to.  
Facts are facts. But adding all the facts in the cosmos up into one  
gigantic fact would not be (without quotes) reality, would they?  
Facts can be solid as a rock, or as weird and unwieldy as the chain  
of causes leading to some specific effect, or as tightly woven from  
thousands of instances as Darwin's explanation of evolution. By  
saying facts I was trying to suggest something that seems like hard  
evidence of some particular, but which can turn out to be something  
different if seen from another viewpoint or after some new facts show  
up. Facts, even though a million or so people might agree on what the  
facts are, can be very shadowy things. (Some very smart folks claim  
that they are (and here I almost am forced to use quotation marks)  
"empty".  I don't know about that.

>
>> Having had some dealings with law enforcement I know, for
>> example, that eye-witness evidence is just about the worst damned
>> evidence a person can find.
>
> That probably depends quite a bit on the witness. Some people are  
> much more
> observant than others, and some are considerably less inclined to  
> prejudice
> than others.

Absolutely. But let a person be in severe pain, or emotional duress,  
or grief, or drunk, or incredibly cheerful, and whatever the eye  
witness witnesses the event will take on that color. I know that very  
often people, who try as try they might to give a cool-headed,  
objective report, will disagree about the primary import of an event.  
And highly trained and objective witnesses often see what they are  
highly trained to see. An expert fly-fisherman will see fifteen  
lovely cutthroats feeding in a rill where I will see nothing but the  
reflections of the autumn leaves waving in the water. An expert  
fighter pilot can (in fact has to) see other aircraft that is miles  
and miles away, but closing at over 3,000 miles/hr. Eye witness  
reports, as you suggest, depend on the eye witness. Do all the eye- 
witness reports in the known universe add up, eventually, to reality?

>
>> So maybe the whole thing is just one great big terrible mistake?
>
> That conclusion seems unnecessarily melodramatic and sophomoric.

Yes, I am afraid I did that on purpose. I apologize. Sometimes I  
can't help being kind of silly.
>
>> Whom should we go to for an apology?
>
> Socrates, of course. His apology was the most eloquent in recorded  
> history.

I couldn't agree more. I once appealed an untenable tenure hearing  
with a document that was almost an exact paraphrase of Plato's  
Apology. With a similar, if milder, result.  It was considered by  
some to be unnecessarily melodramatic and sophomoric. Which it  
clearly was.





Fools Crow
foolscrow at marmotpress.org