[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: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 22:52:20 -0400
>
> >[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.

Let's examine this carefully. When something happens, it is memory you count 
on. The intellectualization of the happening creates the happening, so to 
speak. The present is impermanent, always shifting, ever Dynamic. Memory 
solidifies the happening into fact. No probability involved there. Still, I 
do get your drift. To take the past and impose it on the unknown future does 
seem to involve probability. But isn't that just more intellectualization 
after the fact? I should think it is.

For instance, if my actions are this, then the results of my actions are 
that. Let me ask you: how do you see karmic relationships affecting 
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.

I don't believe that's what I am saying though it might be interpreted in 
that way, I suppose. I believe you mean Dynamic Quality is uncertainty but I 
think the MOQ would say that is incorrect. Dynamic Quality is 'betterness' 
and there is nothing uncertain about that, imo.

>
> >[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.

But how do you know? I don't understand how you could know where something 
lives that you have no access to in the first place.

>
> >[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.

I feel materialism is a high quality idea and the brain in the vat theory is 
a low quality idea. Even if we were to consider everything an idea it 
doesn't necessarily follow that all ideas are equal. Otherwise there would 
be no path towards getting better.

>
> >[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?

Maya has many different connotations. However, I think it a mistake to 
believe maya is all appearance and no substance.

>
>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?

The illusion is that there is something of permanence, anything of 
permanence.

>
> >[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?

I think desire is considered a non-virtuous action, yes.

>
> >[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.

Perhaps. I don't like the way you put things though.

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

I think the MOQ would say that chaos isn't the source of anything.

>
> > >[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.

And the perceiving? What of that?

>It is an internal representation of objects
>of sensation.

I think that's one way of looking at it.

>I am successful as a being to the extent that my illusion
>conforms well to whatever is actually out there.

That is of course assuming you believe you are apart and separate from 
"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.

External reality is what you make it. I read in another thread about how a 
person can have faith that the sun rises every morning. All one has to do to 
stop the sun from rising is to realize the sun doesn't rise at all. It is an 
illusion that we take for granted. I haven't seen a sunrise or sunset in 
years.

>Thankfully the correspondence
>between illusion and reality tolerates a lot of slack.

Please tell me how you know that.

>
>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.

I think Phaedrus of ZMM discovered just the opposite. The more insight a 
person gains into something the more questions arise. So the less certain 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.

I think one could say we are perceivers of reality. Our senses bring us the 
world. We may extend our senses to perceive more than we might otherwise but 
there is no reality beyond the illusion we hold, imo.

>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?

Depending upon the situation.

Thank you for your comments,

Dan

Learning is the gate, not the house. When you see the gate, don't think it 
is the house. You have to go through the gate to get to the house, which is 
behind it. Since learning is a gate, when you read books don't think this is 
the Way. This misconception has made many people remain ignorant of the Way, 
no matter how much they study and how many words they know. (Yagyü)