[MD] Platt's Individual Level

[Dan Glover]

Hello everyone

>From: "david buchanan" <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>
>Reply-To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
>To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
>Subject: Re: [MD] Platt's Individual Level
>Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 14:40:28 -0600
>
>
>Dan quoted:
>"Man is always the 'measure of all things...'"
>
>Dan commented:
>Man measures with intellect, with ideas. Always.
>
>Steve replied:
>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.
>
>dmb says:
>Hmmm. I think you guys are misreading the quote. It seems that you're 
>reading it as if it said, "Men are the measurers of all objects" but I 
>think the meaning is something more like, "Humanity is the standard by 
>which reality is judged" or even "Reality is the imaginative creation of 
>Man". You know what I mean? I think it says we're it and this is it. There 
>is no Other.

Hi David

Good to hear from you! Thank you for your comments. I should think that 
there are many levels of interpretation concerning the above quote but I 
took it for granted the author intended "man" to mean "humanity". I'm 
guessing we can get away with grandfathering in that notion despite living 
in the age of non-gender specific pronouns. Otherwise I see no problem here.

>
>Dan commented on the quote about dropping bombs on Japan:
>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.
>
>dmb says:
>The guidebook explains this scene.

Really! I had no idea. You know, I bought the guidebook some years ago and 
even browsed through it but... there it sits on the shelf. Boy, you just 
learn something new every day, don't you.

>The authors say that Phaedrus asked his question from a conventional point 
>of view but the Indian professor answered the queston from a Dynamic point 
>of view, which was confusing and inappropriate.

>From the point of view of Phaedrus. I'm guessing the answer seemed quite 
natural and appropriate to the Indian professor.

>From an ordinary point of view, that answer was not wise. It was shear, 
>heartless nihilism.

Only from our Western culture point of view. Perhaps a person has to 
understand the underlying causes and conditions in a culture where such a 
statement can arise and make sense.

>And as I read the scene, Pirsig is expressing a pretty important criticism. 
>I think he fled out of disgust and moral outrage at such a seemingly 
>nihilistic comment.

I think I can agree with this, but why did Phaedrus go to India in the first 
place? To hang onto his Western culture baggage? Huh. Now I don't presume to 
know why he went, but if I were to go India it would be in search of that 
which I failed to find here. And the only way to understand another culture 
is to totally immerse oneself in it. Rather than fleeing in disgust and 
moral outrage, it seems the greater challenge would have been to stay and 
discover just how such a statement could arise.

>And maybe the West can offer something to the East on this sort issue. I 
>mean, I think realizations about the illusory nature of reality are not 
>supposed to be construed so as to negate the prohibitions against the mass 
>murder of civilians or other war crimes.

Again I agree. One must understand the illusory nature of reality is 
dependent on the causes and conditions from which the illusion arises. 
Virtue and non-virtue still have consequences. An understanding of Quality 
makes all the difference, imo.

>The MOQ, I think, would help prevent the sort of confusion that comes from 
>asking on one level and answering on the other.  And I think that's a very 
>good thing because such confusion can lead to moral nightmares such as 
>shrugging off atomic horror.
>

No one shrugged off atomic horror, not even the Indian professor. He simply 
understood the event on a different more Dynamic level than Phaedrus.

>And the last time a Hydrogen bomb was tested, it was 3,800 times more 
>powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima.

Gack.

>
>I gotta get me one of them.

I bet there are other people thinking the same thing - people not quite as 
nice as me and dmb. Kinda scary, you think?

Thank you for your comments,

Dan