[MD] The Hero's journey

[Andre]

Dan to Everyone:

(1)What the dog dish scenario serves to illustrate is whether or not the
world exists before we personally exist, and whether the world will
continue to exist when we pass back. Call me unreasonably skeptic...
but how do we know?

Dan:
(2)It may not be a problem in the practical world, but it seems a huge
problem here since the MOQ states reality begins with experience. If
imaginary dog dishes exist as conceptual objects of permanence, then
reality does not begin with experience and ideas do not come before
matter. The MOQ is a fallacy... it falls apart.

Dan:
(3)We jump off hot stoves before forming intellectual patterns like
metaphysics, sure. And a mystic will (doubtlessly) say Don's dog dish
is imaginary... that it isn't empirical reality. The mystic will ask:
what dog dish?

Andre:
Are you genuinely taken by this stuff Dan or are you just playing along?

(1)The MOQ says that the idea that matter came first is a high quality idea...'since complementarity allows multiple contradictory view to coexist'(LC annotn 67). The proposition that the world exists before we personally exist says it in essence. We are brought up pre-supposing the world has existed, exists, and continues to exist regardless of whether we are personally a witness to that world or not. Which, of course is a wonderful contradiction. Thing is that we are a witness to that world (this is a part of the cultural glasses that we carry)and we do not have any way of legitimately challenging this view. It is not just a personal empirical observation...lots of people share this observation. Remember Pirsig's amendment to Descartes' statement.

(2) I fail to see this as a contradiction. Reality does begin with experience but, have you ever been able to 'hold' or 'slow down' the period of waking up? If that is not an experience I do not know what is. It is precisely during this period that you return from deep sleep...nothing...the moment about which Marcel Proust wondered...how do I know it is 'me' returning to 'where'? Soon static patterns will releave you of your hopelessly lost wanderings and force you body onto you, your surroundings, your memories, your bed, your work your ladidadida... and that it IS time to put some food in Fido's food bowl. This IS DQ/sq. The sq is the stability, the (seemingly) permanent, the latches we all need to make sense of this place (excepting Lucy of course).

(3) I am not convinced that a true mystic will question the empirical existence of the dog dish. Zen, in this case, is radically empirical. When you ask the mystic if the dog dish is really real, then you are pressing her to adopt a different perspective. But that is beside the point anyway. The dog dish is a static pattern of quality and keeps itself together regardless of whether or not you are in the room... and no, this will not be part of your own experience, in the same way that I do not have to worry about whether the trains exist or will run tomorrow to get me to my work. The existence of trains, work, dog dishes, the MOQ etc are all part of what dmb calls the 'objects of permanence'. They are static patterns of quality. All those things that have been handed down to us in the form of all static patterns...buildings, dictionaries, myths, logos...you name it...it is there.

Do I have to question the research thatv tells me that one in six Americas live below the poverty line? Do I have to interview every 'sixth' American? Do I have to question the stat that tells me that every eighty minutes one American war veteran commits suicide? Do I have to doubt the Horishima bombs? (I wasn't there?). Do I have to doubt the Vietnam War? (I wasn't there) Do I have to believe the majority of Germans saying (about the atrocities committed under the Nazi's) "wir haben es nicht gewust?. Do I have to believe a very popular Dutch catholic cardinal, commenting on child abuse within the catholic church: "wir haben es nicht gewust"? (after the interview journalists found a letter that says that he DID know but transferred some of the perpetrators to other 'flocks'.

It's turned out quite a post and I didn't mean to. Discussions about imaginary dog food bowls are undoubtedly important but I think that the MOQ also points to some issues that are more important and I got carried away with those a bit I am afraid. I really think we should rage at present.

Cheers.