[MD] Platt's Individual Level

[Dan Glover]

Hello everyone

>From: "Case" <Case at iSpots.com>
>Reply-To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
>To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
>Subject: Re: [MD] Platt's Individual Level
>Date: Sat, 8 Jul 2006 13:24:17 -0400
>
>[Case]
> >"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."
> >
> >I agree that from the subject's point of view there is no difference
> >between objects and the subject's impressions of them. But to say that
>there are no objects strikes me as a very different thing. Phaedrus might
>have done well to stay and try to make some sense of what his teacher was
>saying but this interpretation is rubbish. Just because we are in principle
>separated from the objects of the world does not mean that they do not
>exist.
>
>[Dan]
>This seems to be a subtle misinterpretation of the point I was making. In
>the context you've set up (one of subject-object distinction) we are indeed
>"separated from the objects of the world" but that is not at all what I am
>saying, which is that there is no "object in itself" lurking behind what we
>perceive as an object of the world. There is only the idea of the object
>(intellectual patterns of value) and that idea is how we measure reality.
>Always! Whether the object exists (or not) is beyond what we can know since
>we cannot experience the world directly.
>
>[Case]
>Perhaps we are out subtling each other here.

Could be...

>Do you actually mean to say:
>"there is no 'object in itself' lurking behind what we perceive" or that,
>"Whether the object exists (or not) is beyond what we can know since we
>cannot experience the world directly."

Could you please spell out what difference it makes if we cannot know.

>
>These seem very different to me. I am with you on the later point but the
>first seems to lead down a rabbit hole of solipsism.

I am pleased that we are in at least partial agreement! I (first) should 
state that I'm using 'object in itself' to mean the same as Kant's 'thing in 
itself' (the intellectual conception of a thing as it is in itself, not as 
it is known through perception) and I'm sorry if you interpreted it 
differently (if indeed you did). With that in mind, allow me to offer a 
quote from LILA'S CHILD to better illustrate what I'm getting at here:

Annotation 103. Quality in the MOQ is monistic and thus is not the same as 
Kant’s “thing in itself” which is the object of a dualism. (Robert Pirsig)

So, are you saying Quality leads us down "a rabbit hole of solipsism"? If 
so, could you please expand on your thinking?

>
>[Case]
> >In what sense does saying the world is illusory not negate cause and
> >condition?
>
>[Dan]
>This is a little more difficult to answer but I'll do my best. Let's say
>life is like riding in a boat. In this boat, you work the rudder, the sail,
>and plot a course - still, the boat carries you and you're nothing without
>the boat. Riding in the boat, you cause the boat to be a boat.
>
>[Case]
>Riding in the boat gives a certain context to the boat. True enough but it
>would be illusory to conclude there are not other contexts for 
>understanding
>boatness.

Ha. You got me there.
>
>[Dan]
>You need to really consider this point carefully: at this moment, the boat
>is the world - the sky, the water, the shore, they have all become
>circumstances of the boat, unlike the circumstances that are not the boat.
>In this fashion, reality is our causing reality - it is reality causing us
>to be ourselves.
>
>[Case]
>At any given moment "riding in the boat" is all that. But the boat is still
>a boat, the sky is sky, the water is water and the shore is shore.

Only if we tell ourselves (over and over) that this is so.

>I would
>not assume that "I" am the only context they can have.

Of course not. Yet it is the only context you have. Would it help if I 
pointed out the boat is you, the boat is me?

>One of the gifts
>humans are blessed with is the ability to contextualize and to see patterns
>of relationships.

As humans do. Still...?

>My understanding of oriental philosophy is that it is an
>error to assume that the patterns we have are the only patterns there are;
>in other words to confuse the patterns with what is.

I think this is what Robert Pirsig warns against in his quote above.

>It is not the making of
>patterns that is bad it is the clinging to the pattern we have made.

I think this could be the center of much debate.

>
>[Dan]
>So when riding in the boat, mind and body, subject and object, are all
>workings of the boat. The whole of earth and space are workings of the 
>boat.
>
>Cause and condition are all part too. So though the world be illusory this
>in no way negates cause and condition.
>
>[Case]
>I would emphasize the point made above: your metaphor is not about the noun
>boat, but about the verb, riding in the boat.

One could not stand without the other.

>Nevertheless, I believe in the
>context you set forth cause and condition are merely properties of the
>illusion.

And that is why they still apply.

>In your metaphor you allude to "circumstances that are not boat"
>but what could that possibly mean?

Human beings exist in a very narrow spectrum outside of which we no 
knowledge. For instance, we only see radiation of certain wave lengths, we 
only hear certain sounds, etc.

>Or if we are only talking about an
>illusion, what vessel contains the illusion?

The boat.

>
>[Dan]
>I hope this helps answer your question.
>
>[Case]
>Sorry about that.

No apology necessary. This is fun.

Thank you for your comments,

Dan