Hi Dan
sorry for the little delay
D:
> The image in our mind of reality is reality. There is no other reality. Does
> a dog have Buddha nature, or not?
RMP:
«But one day in the classroom the professor of philosophy was blithely
expounding on the illusory nature of the world for what seemed the fiftieth time
and Phædrus raised his hand and asked coldly if it was believed that the atomic
bombs that had dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were illusory. The professor
smiled and said yes. That was the end of the exchange.
Within the traditions of Indian philosophy that answer may have been correct,
but for Phædrus and for anyone else who reads newspapers regularly and is
concerned with such things as mass destruction of human beings that answer was
hopelessly inadequate. He left the classroom, left India and gave up. »
Dan:
> I think the problem here arises when we assume there is an independent
> relationship apart from the rest of reality (being) and then project that
> relationship onto other living beings. There is no self independent of the
> patterns. Nor is there a plant independent of the patterns.
RMP:
«But although the four systems are exhaustive they are not exclusive. They all
operate at the same time in ways that are almost independent of each other»
«The value that holds a glass of water together is an inorganic pattern of
value. The value that holds a nation together is a social pattern of value. They
are completely different from each other because they are at different
evolutionary levels. And they are completely different from the biological
pattern that can cause the most skeptical of intellectuals to leap from a hot
stove. These patterns have nothing in common except the historic evolutionary
process that created all of them».
Marco:
Sorry Dan, I'm sure you perfectly know these and other passages from ZAMM and
LILA, but sometimes I feel the need to reread something to be sure it was not a
dream.
Dan, I've come to the conclusion that this your (and other's) interpretation of
the MOQ is the most dangerous I've found for the MOQ itself. I read newspapers,
as Phaedrus says, and I find it "hopelessly inadequate". Inadequate to explain
the world I live in. The situations of my everyday life. And, last but not
least, the input I receive from my senses... and I thought we were also
empiricists....
«The tests of truth are logical consistency, agreement with experience, and
economy of explanation». That's right, even the idea that the Earth goes round
the Sun is not in agreement with experience, but at least they have offered an
economic explanation for that. But saying that the plant I'm looking at exists
only in my mind ("There is no other reality"... ) lacks of all these basilar
factors.
IMO it's an absurdity, but it's not the worst absurdity I've heard in my life,
and anyway who am I to state the absurdity of someone else? I've never denied
that in my mind there's an incomplete image of reality, full of mistakes and
prejudices. And I've never denied that this incomplete image of reality I have
in my mind is also real. My idea that your position is absurd is probably also
full of mistakes and incomplete.... of course, your idea about that the pine
tree is only in my mind should be also full of mistakes and incomplete.
Assumptions. The MOQ also is an idea, an assumption. The MOQ assumption tells
that the plant exists thanks to biological patterns of value, using the inferior
inorganic level as support. The MOQ assumption tells that those kinds of
patterns have existed in times before any social patterns and any intellectual
assumptions. So, IMHO assuming that plants are assumptions of my mind, and NOT
independent biological and inorganic patterns of value, it is also assuming that
the MOQ is wrong. It is well legal, BUT IT IS NOT MOQ.
Sorry for sharing my absurdities.
Ciao,
Marco.
«He left the thread, closed the mail program and gave up».
p.s.
Marco:
> >Tell me. Don't you agree that the there's no place for two different
> >undefinable
> >things?
Dan:
> There is no such thing as an undefinable thing. Things are defined. Dynamic
> Quality is not a thing.
Marco:
You perfectly know what I was meaning. You are just playing with words. Not very
constructive.
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