[MD] Platt's Individual Level

[Case]

>[Case]
>I guess that would depend on how important "knowing" is. My own view is
that at this point we can only speak in probabilities ranging from "dead on"
to tossing a coin.

[Dan]
It appears to me that something happens or it doesn't. What's the
probability of it happening?

[Case]
Things either happen or they don't ONLY in the present. To speak of what
might happen or what did happen in the past you need probability.

>[Case] 
>But I am betting that there is something external to myself.

[Dan]
That seems a high quality idea. I on the other hand (were I a betting
person) would bet there isn't. And I think the MOQ says that we would both
be right.

>[Case]
>You are making much of the fact that the existence of anything outside this
illusion can not be known with "certainty". If that is the criteria then you
are left with nothing.

[Dan]
Quality. I am left with Quality.

[Case]
If you are saying that Quality is uncertainty then I agree.

>[Case]
>'Certainty' only exists in a present that we have no access to.

[Dan]
If we have no access how do you know certainty exists?

[Case]
I don't I just know where it lives.
 
>[Case] 
>This can not be disproven anymore than it can be disproven that the whole
business is not the work of clever demons. There is no way the KNOW that
this is not the Matrix. All that can be said is that those possibilities
seem very unlikely.

[Dan]
Low quality ideas.

[Case]
If you are saying the reality is entirely composed of ideas then I don't see
how that differs from the brain-in-a-vat.

>[Case] 
>As for what difference it makes: if you assume that there is actually
something that exists outside of and independent or yourself then you can
ask questions like: does my illusion conform to this other something? How
accurate are my perceptions and reconstructions of it?

[Dan]
I think it's pretty clear to a normal person growing up in our Western
culture that something exists outside of self. We're taught subject object
distinction from birth. So to feel apart and separate from everything else
is not part of our nature, rather it is a learned response within the
culture we find ourselves immersed.

Perhaps it might behoove us at this point to ask: what is our nature?

[Case]
I would really like to get into that but first I would like to get your
thoughts on the illusion. I have always thought of Maya as an illusion in
the sense of a mirage. That is all appearance but no substance. Is that your
understanding? 

Or would it be better to describe the Illusion as being more like the figure
of the old woman and the young woman or the lovers and the wine glass. That
is, the same set of "facts" take one completely different meanings and
appearance depending on which way the Gestalt shifts?

>[Case]
>If you assume there is "no thing" I guess you are more inclined to just
accept your illusions at face value.

[Dan]
I think that's why Quality is so important. Virtue. Arete. There's a
correspondence between cause and result, which (the Buddha taught) is why
non-virtuous action leads to suffering.

[Case]
Actually I though the Buddha said desire leads to suffering. perhaps via the
path of non-virtuous action?
 
>[Case]
>But in the MoQ Quality also produces the dualism of SQ and DQ.

[Dan]
Perhaps in a conventional sense. From a Quality point of view there is no
dualism.
 
[Case]
It strikes me as the dualism of Yin and Yang, motion and rest. The MoQ and
Taoism retain monism only by calling it the source of the central dualism.

However, if you take the position that Quality is Chaos the dualism does
indeed disappear since order is simply another state of Chaos.

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

>[Dan]
>And that is why they still apply. 

>[Case]
>But they apply only to a illusion.

[Dan]
Well, yes... but you've already admitted that all you ever deal with are
illusions. So I fail to see the problem.

[Case]
What I perceive is an illusion. It is an internal representation of objects
of sensation. I am successful as a being to the extent that my illusion
conforms well to whatever is actually out there. I deal only with my
illusion but if my illusion is not in sync with some external reality my
genes are like to be removed from the pool. Thankfully the correspondence
between illusion and reality tolerates a lot of slack.

Also we seem to possess the ability to make Gestalt shifts, to adopt
different points of view, to apply different metaphors. The more ways you
can gain insight into something the more fully it is unknown. The less
Uncertain it is.

[Dan]
Radio waves (as an example) do not necessarily impinge on us or our
illusions unless we have access to specialized equipment - radio waves are
circumstances that are not boat until we take specialized equipment and tune
into the correct frequency, so to speak. And according to certain theories
there may be other universes impinging on our own but being in the boat we
see only shorelines and horizons.

[Case]
If you are saying that there is some reality outside of our illusion it is
just irrelevant until it become part of the illusion I might be with you. If
on the other hand you are espousing some form of pure idealism, I think not
so much. We are at that point where paths must diverge but there is no
rational basis for choosing a path. Is it possible, do you think to take
both?