[MD] Platt's Individual Level

[Dan Glover]

Hello everyone

>From: "David" <davidbeck at houston.rr.com>
>Reply-To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
>To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
>Subject: Re: [MD] Platt's Individual Level
>Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 10:54:36 -0600
>
>
>
> >I'm not at all sure I agree with this! This seems like essentially 
>nonsense
> > >to me. So if I were to shoot a man, I would inf act be doing nothing 
>more
> > >than killing my idea of that man?
> >
> > I think it is easy to forget how it is that we experience the world. 
>Yes.
> > You would be doing nothing more than killing your idea of that man. Your
> > idea of the man is all there is.
>
>
>
>I think you really have to consider what you mean by killing your idea of a
>person.  If your murder someone you still have your idea of them, right?  
>Do
>you suddenly forget all memory of them?  You have definitely ended their
>existence as a stable biological pattern of value but they would still seem
>to exist as an intellectual pattern of value for those who knew them
>including yourself.

Hi David

I think there's some confusion here that I will try and clear up. Gene M 
believes a person exists separately from the idea we might hold of that 
person. That belief is contrary to what the MOQ states, imo. Looking to LILA 
we read:

"Man is always the 'measure of all things...'"

Man measures with intellect, with ideas. Always. We presume there's a person 
behind our idea of the person. And that is a high quality presumption, I 
should think. At the same time however, since we are unable to experience 
reality directly, we cannot know with certainty that there really is a 
person there behind our idea of the person. All we have are our assumptions. 
Always.

Take a look at this excerpt from ZMM:

Logic presumes a separation of subject from object; therefore logic is not 
final wisdom. The illusion of separation of subject from object is best 
removed by the elimination of physical activity, mental activity and 
emotional activity. There are many disciplines for this. One of the most 
important is the Sanskrit dhyana, mispronounced in Chinese as "Chan" and 
again mispronounced in Japanese as "Zen." Phædrus never got involved in 
meditation because it made no sense to him. In his entire time in India 
"sense" was always logical consistency and he couldn’t find any honest way 
to abandon this belief. That, I think, was creditable on his part.

But one day in the classroom the professor of philosophy was blithely 
expounding on the illusory nature of the world for what seemed the fiftieth 
time and Phædrus raised his hand and asked coldly if it was believed that 
the atomic bombs that had dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were illusory. 
The professor smiled and said yes. That was the end of the exchange.

Within the traditions of Indian philosophy that answer may have been 
correct, but for Phædrus and for anyone else who reads newspapers regularly 
and is concerned with such things as mass destruction of human beings that 
answer was hopelessly inadequate. He left the classroom, left India and gave 
up.
---------------------------

I think what Phaedrus possibly failed to grasp during his time in India is 
that though the nature of the world is illusory, that nature doesn't negate 
cause and condition. I think Phaedrus gave up on account of the fact he 
failed at the time to grasp that there is no separation between subject and 
object...he believed objects were things in themselves rather than 
intellectual patterns of value, a very difficult point to grasp. So perhaps 
it was just easier to give up and go home than it was to expand his 
consciousness to the point of that of his Indian professor.

Your thoughts?

Thank you for your comments,

Dan