Dear Stephen Hodge

Stephen Hodge wrote:

"I think you need to improve your reading skills. The quote of which
you approve is actually: 1880 SIDGWICK in 19th Cent. VII. 355."

Thank you for your kind correction of my mistake in cut-and-paste
quoting. I will certainly follow your advice on improving my reading
skills as it is a good advice.

You also wrote:

"I assume you agree with the quote because it reinforces your own
preconceptions in contrast to the majority of those listed which you
presumably do not like..

I neither approve nor disapprove the quote. I merely agree with it
on the ground of its widespread scientific use as I come from the
scientific background.

Dictionaries need to be comprehensive and need to include non-
scientific uses of the same term even if they are in the majority.

The realist position of the scientific discipline is not a
preconception, but the result of rigorous systematic training, often
with mathematical precision.

Stephen Hodge also wrote:

"If that is your opinion, you are welcome to it -- though I have
generally oberved that people who indulge in such pathetic ad
hominen attacks merely display the poverty of their own thought and
their inability to engage in informed debate, often subconsciously
projecting their own defects upon others."

Please kindly remember the above statement you wrote.

Do you really and seriously mean that you are interested in and
capable of engaging in informed debate?

I merely called a spade a spade when calling you a speculative
ideologist as you write only speculative stuff without adequate
textual analysis from the Pali texts. In addition, you keep writing
contradicting or incoherent statements, the nimittas of speculative
thinkers.

The very fact that you regarded as pathetic ad hominen attacks my
merely calling you of a speculative ideologist shows that you could
not cope with the harsh reality of exteral sense objects, in this
case, the letters on your computer screen and their compositions,
all coming from outside your mind. If this hurt you, I did not
intended it at all.

Sorry for the hurt inflicted, though, while at the same time I am
pleased to witness that mentalism you seem to have been peddling on
this list could not withstand the hits of the external sense
objects. They are only light waves in the shapes of letters, man. :-)

You wrote to Jim as follows.

"I know that the Sarvaastivadins (Vaibhasika version) were realists,
so perhaps the Theravadin position is the same. However, the realist
position is easy to demolish as was done many times by various
Indian Buddhist masters. Part of the reason why the Vabhasika faded
away so quickly was because its theories concerning perception and
related matters did not survive the onslaught of such critiques."

Now we witness that your mentalism is so fragile to demolish by a
few key srokes of mine. Your mentalist theory of perception and
nimitta did not survive the onslaught of my calling a spade a spade.

You may need to have a far thicker skin to withstand a looming
Theravada analysis, I warn you now. You can back out now while there
is time.

With kind regards,

Suan Lu Zaw

http://www.bodhiology.org

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, "Stephen Hodge" <s.hodge@...> wrote:

Suan Lu Zaw wrote:

>I agree with the following quote:

>"In any act of perception the matter that is percept or object is
commonly outside the organism of the percipient." 1964 M. CRITCHLEY"
****
I think you need to improve your reading skills. The quote of which
you
approve is actually: 1880 SIDGWICK in 19th Cent. VII. 355. You are
also
being rather selective in your choice of quote -- I assume you agree
with
the quote because it reinforces your own preconceptions in contrast
to the
majority of those listed which you presumably do not like..

> It is my opinion that how the term 'percept' is used by the
speculative ideologists like Stephen Hodge is very limited and
personal and outside the common understanding. Even idiosyncratic!
****
If that is your opinion, you are welcome to it -- though I have
generally
oberved that people who indulge in such pathetic ad hominen attacks
merely
display the poverty of their own thought and their inability to
engage in
informed debate, often subconsciously projecting their own defects
upon
others. I use the term in *exactly* the same way as it is defined by
eg.
Oxford English Reference Dic (one of their most recent works): "a
mental
concept resulting from perceiving". I hope you will be contacting the
editors of that dictionary as a matter of urgency and reprimand them
for
their limited, personal and idiosyncratic definition which you in
your great
wisdom say is outside the common understanding.

Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge