[MD] Zen and theArt of Religion

[Jan Anders Andersson]

Oh my

> JA to Andre:
> My point was that we can beat something material with a stick but we can?t hit a concept at the intellectual level with a stick. Each level has its tools. To maintain a social motorcycle we have to use social ?sticks? and vice versa.
> 
> Andre:
> What is a social motorcycle?

Andre, I think you should admit that what you’re doing just now is looking at a screen scattered with light and darker spots. You are encoding these as patterns. Intellectual patterns. These patterns are in your head, they will not bite you so relax, you’re not going to be hurt.
Have you ever thought that these strange patterns poping up in your head might tell something? Do you find something to add to it in a friendly conversation? Why otherwise are you interested in these mysterious dots on your screen?

A social motorcycle is a social pattern that can be maintained, not by using a monkey-grip but by social tools. That’s what the MOQ is good for, kind-ness, social quality and friendlyness. The art of how to enter a public house for a beer and some small talk.

> 
> JA:
> I know there are people trying to talk with vegetables and even think that rocks too can listen to small talk but these people are wrong because they don?t understand the 4 levels of the MOQ fully. 
> 
> Andre:
> This reminds me of a passage (p 165) in ZMM:
> A rush of wind comes furiously now, down from the mountaintop.” The ancient Greeks,” I say, ¨who were the inventors of classical reason, knew better than to use it exclusively to foretell the future. They listened to the wind and predicted the future from that. That sounds insane now. But why should the inventors of reason sound insane?” 
> 
> Talking with veggies and rocks may provide us with insights which classical reason, certainly in the West, has ridiculed for too long. I think the MOQ is open to those perspectives. Whether these persons understand the 4 levels of the MOQ or not is beside the point. Live and realize the four levels but be open to DQ I’d suggest. And it seems to me that they are.
> 
> Or would you, JA rather talk to your local politician/banker/businessperson/marketing manager/ image engineer to find out what is going on?
> 
> JA:
> Descarte?s test works only at the same level. 
> 
> Andre:
> Wow!!! I think therefore I AM??? At the same level??? Please explain JA because this is very confusing. Or are you conversing with the woods?
> 
> JA:
> We can prove that a thought is, by comparing it to another thought.
> 
> Andre:
> Interesting. How do you do that? How do you prove that a thought………is????? by comparing it to another one?

My point is, the existence of something seem to be differently confirmed at the different levels. One of my favourite examples is from Kant, he was talking about ”Das Ding an Sich”, while using sensory information it is impossible to tell something about a thing, (a table) itself only from the sensual input. My solution to that is of the same kind that Descartes did with the thinking by questioning the thinking i e thinking is mandatory to be able to question it, therefore ”I think, therfore I am”. 
 So, I put another table upon the first table and then we get ”Das Ding am Tisch”, where the existence of the first table is mandatory for the other table be standing on. Positivism is about comparing material things to a ruler of some kind. Each level has its discrete method for confirmation. Therefore the word is mightier than the sword.

> Have you eaten mushrooms JA?

No, come down from your high horse, please.

> 
> JA:
> Social patterns are fooling around with lawyers and people in love and so on. 
> 
> Andre:
> Oh dear. You have been at them mushrooms or perhaps had some smokey dope? We ARE the patterns JA. Who is fooling around with whom?

Social patterns are detected by social behaviour. Civilized manner is measured and compared to another. Celebrity is therefore not an absolute like social patterns.
> 
> JA:
> It?s like talking moral or ethics to a SOMer, quite fruitless.We must begin with to convince the person that there IS art and moral, at first.
> 
> Andre:
> I do not agree JA. SOM has its own values and morals…plenty of them. Just follow Phaedrus’  conversation with Rigel, Chapter 6 in LILA. Plenty of moralizing at the social level…underpinned which plenty of assumptions, worship, faith  and liturgy (ritual) and of course the pursuit of fame fortune and glory. All great morals to have and pursue and pursue and pursue, as Pirsig suggests: to find Paradise…Paradise…Paradise.
> 
> You want to intellectually convince someone that art and morals exist? Good luck.

Well, try to not laugh at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHFXG3r_0B8

Jan-Anders

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