A correspondent emailed me with some thoughts on the Buddhist Middle Way after reading my critique of the book Choosing Reality. I found his comments very interesting and would like to post them here:
With regards to B. Alan Wallace's Choosing Reality, I haven't read this particular exposition of Middle Way philosophy, but I would like to address a few points with regards to what you have quoted in your related blog entry.
Yes, the philosophy in question does posit that phenomena are brought into existence through conceptual designation: what this means is that for something to manifest as a functional object, it requires a designation to be applied to a valid basis. For instance, a flower's valid basis includes qualities such as shape, colour, scent and so forth -- attributes which are not intrinsic, because they rely on other factors of causation. It follows that everything which relies upon something else for its existence must necessarily be interdependently related, and this even includes the mind itself.
I think an issue here is with the understanding of what "designation" entails. Another commonly used synonym for this process is "imputation". To reiterate, our mind (the subject) is "imputing" our perceptions simply through the cognition of valid bases (the objects), but mistakenly so, as though they are independent externalized objects. This separate mode of being is what Middle Way philosophy refutes. Imputation itself isn't necessarily a problem, it's the way in which we do so that is of concern.
Even if we may have some intellectual idea about this process, it doesn't stop us from actually apprehending and experiencing things otherwise, due to our habitual mode of perception, and we further entrench ourselves in a world of fractured conceptuality, rather than seamless actuality.
In this way, animals and insects also conceptualize and designate quite profusely: they apprehend in a certain way, which is nonetheless mistaken due to very heavy perceptual filters and biases -- and this can be seen as the main reason as to why their minds are functioning in a more limited manner than ours. As the saying goes, "fifty-million blowflies can't be wrong!"
What "designation" doesn't mean is that we can somehow choose what we like and call that reality; on the contrary, this philosophy refutes such an affair, outright. I honestly don't have an answer for what Wallace is trying to get at here. Perhaps I am misunderstanding, too. All I can think of is that there are other Middle Way exegeses which are valid even though they might postulate in different manners, or that there are more nuanced approaches still. If followed, the latter would certainly affect how our reality is perceived, simply due to its refinement of appearances. But again, to suggest that we may choose how reality functions on a whim and fancy is utterly absurd!
Middle Way is not just about mincing words and playing mind games; there's no point in squeezing one's mind to believe that this philosophy has some kind of value as a cosmic joke, or perhaps as a convoluted koan. If this philosophy is accurate, what it is suggesting is that the way in which we usually perceive things only serves to hamper and undermine our mental faculties, which, if corrected, allows for unprecedented power and scope!
In any case, you'll have to excuse me for the long email; I hope that I have not confused you even further. :)
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