[MD] Platt's Individual Level

[Gene M]

On 7/11/06, Dan Glover <daneglover at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hello everyone
>
> >From: Steve Peterson <vincentedisonluther at yahoo.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 13:01:24 -0700 (PDT)
> >
> >Hi Dan, all,
> >
> >Dan said to 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.
> >
> >[Steve]
> >I think pretty much everbody believes that.
>
> Hi Steve
>
> Pretty much everyone believes that because it's a high quality idea.
> However, the Buddha taught that it is the essence of ignorance to believe
> in
> an actual self. That's not to say that there's no subjective self in
> Buddhism, only that there is no actual person behind the concept of "I".
> The
> Buddha taught that if this erroneous view is corrected then there would be
> no ignorance.


The idea of a self is indeed false, but that doesn't mean that the idea of
others is false as well. Even if I have no self, and you have no self, I
have a you. You see?
I have a version of you in my mind, a set of intellectual patterns with
which I identify your behaviour and mannerisms, and I believe it to be
actturate. If you were to die, I would still have that idea of you. Although
you no long have your idea of you. So even if you no longer exist, my idea
of you lives as long as I do.

>Don't you believe that I exist for example?
>
> I believe that you believe you exist.


Not much of an answer. Although certainly correct! I believe that we All
believe that we ourselves exist. But do You believe that I exist?
If it helps, I believe you exist.
Or how about this:
If you were our driving and smashed your car into a tree at 60 mph, do you
believe that tree exists?

"Man is always the 'measure of all things...'"
>
> >
> >"Pneumonia is a biological pattern.  It is scientifically
> verifiable.  ...
> >Insanity on the other hand is an intellectual pattern. ... No scientific
> >instrument can be produced in court to show who is insane and who is
> sane.
> >There's nothing about insanity that conforms to any scientific law of the
> >universe.  The scientific laws of the universe are invented by sanity.
> >There's no way by which sanity, using the instruments of its own
> creation,
> >can measure that which is outside of itself and its creations.  Insanity
> >isn't an "object" of observation.  It's an alteration of observation
> >itself.  There's is no such thing as a "disease" of patterns of
> intellect.
> >There's only heresy.  And that's what insanity really is.
> >... It is a social and intellectual deviation, not a biological
> deviation."
> >[Dan]
> >Man measures with intellect, with ideas. Always.
> >[Steve}
> >I think 'measure' in this quote ammounts to 'experience' in the MOQ which
> >says that experience comes in several varieties of which intellect is
> only
> >one kind.
>
> Measure in this context amounts to an evaluation or a basis of comparison,
> intellectual level activities.


I learnt that quote for the first time in a university history course. It
was used to sum up the Rennaissance, in which the idea of comparing
ourselves and our works to God, and thus showing them as insignificant and
shitty, we compared them only to ourselves. We no longer measure ourselves
and our creations based on some mythical omnipotent Creator, but we measure
ourselves to ourselves, and see how things Really stack up.

Man is the measure of all things. All things are in relation to us, to us.

>[Dan]
> >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.
>
> How is the existence of a person scientifically verifiable? Where is that
> person at?


I think what Steve is saying is that the biological patterns that make up a
person are "verifiable", in that we have objective measurements that can
show they exist. A scale for example, will prove that the person standing on
it exists. However I think you're talking about the person in the social and
intellectual sense.

And I agree. All we have are our assumptions. So it's best to just go with
them I find. As long as they prove consistent with experience reality.

>
> >I disagree with "we are unable to experience reality directly." In the
> MOQ
> >reality is an abstraction from experience or is considered equivalent to
> >experience.
>
> All experience is a remembrance, an after-the-fact intellectualization.
> There may be a "dim apprehension of we know not what" but until we put
> sense
> to it, that's all it is.


I think True experience is DQ, that which occurs before anything. What you
experience without words, without thoughts, without any filters.
Intellectualization is not experience, it is after that fact, it is
classifying and organizing, but it's not the same as experiencing in my
opinion.

>
> >In the MOQ objects are not intellectual patterns as you say, they are
> >inorganic and biological patterns.
>
> The MOQ is a collection of intellectual patterns of value.


Yes. That does not invalidate the point Steve made here. The MOQ is indeed a
set of intellectual patterns, but these patterns tell us that physical
objects are made up of inorganic and biological patterns. I personally
believe social and intellectual patterns should be called objects as well,
but I don't mix the levels. A chair, and my idea of a chair are different
objects, but both objects, both true, and both real.

-Gene