Hi Ian,
Yes, clarity and consistency.  The dependent arising is no different
from the modern scientific exploration of what things are made up of.
As it is we go ever deeper into the "sub-atomic" and find more.
Science is trying to find an end to this dependent arising, a unifying
substance from which all else is created.  Of course this is nonsense,
and any simple understanding of Buddhist thought will tell one that.
It is a self defeating search that science is embarked on.  This I am
sure you can see this, even if you are not a scientist.

Perhaps you do not know the meaning of relationalism.  It is certainly
not what Wiki claims it to be.  A reading of posts which I have
presented in this forum may clear that up for you.  As far as I know,
I brought the term into MoQ, although I have never bothered to do a
word search of the archives for this Proper Noun.  What, in your
understanding, does Relationalism mean?  Perhaps we can get to the
heart of your misunderstanding.  There is nothing branding about the
term, unless you only exist in the sq world.  Open up your eyes, there
is more than simply meets the eyes.  It takes effort and is not simply
given to you by words on a page.

Of course you can always ignore the question I asked you.  There is
some bliss in ignorance.  Unfortunately, metaphysics is not for the
weak at heart.

Best of luck,
Mark

On 2/16/12, Ian Glendinning <ian.glendinning@gmai...> wrote:
> Weird - I see only clarity and consistency - in the relational nature
> of existence.
>
> Surely "dependent arising" is pretty standard buddhist take on
> causation - a view shared by many long since departed MD posters -
> nothing whatsoever to do with "relativism". I seem to remember
> Pirsig's mutual "valuing" language for causation being branded
> "relationalism" round these parts.
>
> I'll get me coat.
> Ian
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 6:17 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan@hotm...>
> wrote:
>>
>> Howdy MOQers:
>>
>> There is relativity in the Einsteinian sense and there is relativity is
>> the "anything goes" sense, but Watts is talking about relativity in
>> neither of those senses. He's making a point about the RELATIONAL nature
>> of existence. He's saying that "things" are what they are by virtue of
>> being tangled up in a total situation, in a context, in RELATION to all
>> other "things". "They exist in relation to each other," he says. As you
>> can see here, Watts goes on to explain this sense of relativism:
>>
>> "... Indeed, it would be best to drop the idea of causality and use
>> instead the idea of relativity. For it is still inexact to say that an
>> organism “responds” or “reacts” to a given situation by running or
>> standing, or whatever. This is still the language of Newtonian billiards.
>> It is easier to think of situations as moving patterns, like organisms
>> themselves. Thus, to go back to the cat (or catting), a situation with
>> pointed ears and whiskers at one end does not have a tail at the other as
>> a response or reaction to the whiskers, or the claws, or the fur. As the
>> Chinese say, the various features of a situation “arise mutually” or imply
>> one another as back implies front, and as chickens imply eggs—and vice
>> versa. They exist in relation to each other like the poles of the magnet,
>> only more complexly patterned."
>>
>> Because of this kind of kind murky confusion, which is fairly constant, I
>> think it would be very unwise for anyone to take MOQ lessons from Marsha.
>>
>>
>>> From: valkyr@att....
>>> Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2012 03:51:25 -0500
>>> To: moq_discuss@moqt...
>>> Subject: Re: [MD] Truth and Relativity 2.9.9
>>>
>>>
>>> For those Alan Watts fans, he writes "it would be best to drop the idea
>>> of causality and use instead the idea of relativity."
>>>
>>>
>>> From 'THE BOOK: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are' by Alan Watts
>>>
>>> "As soon as one sees that separate things are fictitious, it becomes
>>> obvious that nonexistent things cannot "perform" actions. The difficulty
>>> is that most languages are arranged so that actions (verbs) have to be
>>> set in motion by things (nouns), and we forget that rules of grammar are
>>> not necessarily rules, or patterns, of nature. This, which is nothing
>>> more than a convention of grammar, is also responsible for (or, better,
>>> "goeswith") absurd puzzles as to how spirit governs matter, or mind moves
>>> body. How can a noun, which is by definition not action, lead to action?
>>>
>>> "Scientists would be less embarrassed if they used a language, on the
>>> model of Amerindian Nootka, consisting of verbs and adverbs, and leaving
>>> off nouns and adjectives. If we can speak of a house as housing, a mat as
>>> matting, or of a couch as seating, why can't we think of people as
>>> "peopling," of brains as "braining," or of an ant as an "anting?" Thus in
>>> the Nootka language a church is "housing religiously," a shop is "housing
>>> tradingly," and a home is "housing homely." Yet we are habituated to ask,
>>> "Who or what is housing? Who peoples? What is it that ants?" Yet isn't it
>>> obvious that when we say, "The lightning flashed," the flashing is the
>>> same as the lightning, and that it would be enough to say, "There was
>>> lightning"? Everything labeled with a noun is demonstrably a process or
>>> action, but language is full of spooks, like the "it" in "It is raining,"
>>> which are the supposed causes, of action.
>>>
>>> "Does it really explain running to say that "A man is running"? On the
>>> contrary, the only explanation would be a description of the field or
>>> situation in which "a manning goeswith running" as distinct from one in
>>> which "a manning goeswith sitting." (I am not recommending this primitive
>>> and clumsy form of verb language for general and normal use. We should
>>> have to contrive something much more elegant.) Furthermore, running is
>>> not something other than myself, which I (the organism) do. For the
>>> organism is sometimes a running process, sometimes a standing process,
>>> sometimes a sleeping process, and so on, and in each instance the "cause"
>>> of the behavior is the situation as a whole, the organism environment.
>>> Indeed, it would be best to drop the idea of causality and use instead
>>> the idea of relativity."
>>>
>>>
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