Hello all,
this is a late message related to a discussion that went on between the
end of august and the beginning of september. This is mainly to Marco,
who objects to Dan's:
> The image in our mind of reality is reality. There is no other
reality.
To which Marco replies quoting the well-known passage from ZAMM:
>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 Phfdrus 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...;
I disagree with Dan sentence (taken literally), but felt the need to
write the message because most of the counters that have been brought to
that sentence have exactly the same problem. First off, I think the
concept of "the illusory nature of the world", as found in indian
philosophy, requires a careful interpretation. It's useful to quote
Billy Dean, from a subsequent message in the same thread:
Billy Dean:
>My assumption has always been that a sunset, for example, is
>really there--not an illusion. But I have always "known" that I do
>not see the sunset itself. I "see" the result of my brain processing
>the light that enters my eye after being reflected by
>the clouds and the atmosphere. [...]
This "result of the brain processing the light" etc. *is* what we call
"seeing". "See the sunset" means "experiencing the result of the brain
processing the light etc. etc...." They aren't two different things.
Dan: there is no *your mind* independent of reality.
Marco: there is no *reality* independent of reality.
I think that Dan was right here:
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.
If you split the whole in me+reality, then you *immediately* have lost
reality, because you cannot imagine reality independent of yourself
(like, from no point of view). Phaedrus' professor seems to have fallen
in this trap, too, and he seems to be saying:
a) the split me+reality is illusory; in the sense that
b) there's only me (without reality)
To this Phaedrus obviously reacts. But in ZAMM (although I don't
remember if the atom bombs are later mentioned again) he shows a way to
solve the problem that rejects the split, but replacing b) with
b) there's only Quality
where Quality is the point (or the event) where SOM subject and object
meet.
I cannot visualize this truth, just like I cannot visualize the "truths"
of QED. This does not mean that I don't understand this to be an
improvement over SOM and the false problems it generates.
-- Andrea SosioMOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/ MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:01:30 BST