[MD] Let Sleeping Dogs Speak Truth

[John Carl]

On Sat, Jun 13, 2009 at 12:45 PM, ARLO J BENSINGER JR <ajb102 at psu.edu>wrote:

> [John]
> Love as we usually mean it doesn't really exist biologically.... Love is an
> emotion that comes from a social reality most apparent in mammals.
>
> [Arlo]
> So far you are only supporting what I've been saying. All I add is that the
> depth of that "social reality" imparts a richer experience. Would you say
> that
> there is no difference between the "love" a dog feels and the "love" you
> feel?


[John]

Of course there are vast differences, Arlo.  My poor human head gets so
distracted by culture and science and books and movies and spin-offs and
reruns that I can't keep a pure emotional state for five minutes, whereas my
dog simply IS and has no problems with his feelings.


>
> Your social reality is far richer, far deeper, far broader than anything
> experienced by your dog. Why would this not inform your experience of
> "love"?


[John]

What dogs and people and killer whales have uniquely in common is we are all
social carnivores.  To a dog, this social reality is pretty much everything
whereas we humans have gone off into intellectually distracting modes and
don't have as much time for the experience of love.

I don't spend much time with killer whales, so I can't speak to their
experience.


>
>
> For the record, Pirsig's MOQ excluded all non-human beings from the social
> level. This is a point of disagreement I have with the author which I've
> brought up many times. So within an ortho-moq-xy, if "love" is a social
> pattern, then animals do not experience it.
>

[John]

Well I'm with you on this one Arlo.  The great author can't be great 100% of
the time, after all.  That's why he needs us to discuss and flesh out these
ideas.  :)


> [Arlo]
> Let me know the next time you see a dog write a blues song, or paint a
> picture
> depicting love lost (or love found) or pen a poem, or the countless and
> myriad
> ways which demonstrate that "love" for a human is a far richer experience
> than
> for a dog.



[John]

 Let me know next time a  blues musician dives into a fight he knows he's
going to lose, to save your butt, or a painter licks your face.    Your
examples show humans doing less with a richer palette to choose from, to
express love.




>
> [John]
> It can get men so fond of abstraction that they forget basic reality...
>
> [Arlo]
> You just said "love" was not biological, but social. There is no "basic
> reality" then, there is only the depth and expanse of the social patterns
> the
> "individual" (dog or human) assimilates or matures within.


[John]

Huh?  I don't get this point. Perhaps "basic" is the problem.  I meant the
basic reality of the social level, not the basis of all reality across the
levels.  I think.



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Self is simply Choice, so choose good
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