[MD] What is the opposite of Quality?

[MarshaV]

On Jan 6, 2010, at 1:37 PM, Ham Priday wrote:

> Greetings Bruce and Magnus --
> 
> 
> Although I haven't had the pleasure of talking to either of you, this question doesn't make any sense, dialectically, epistemologically, or metaphysically.  The fault does not lie with you, Bruce, but with an author who has posited an externalized esthetic/intellectual property as the world's Creator.  This avoids having to deal with a "supra-natural" or transcendent source which is anathema to postmodern philosophers.
> 
> As Magnus, who I assume speaks for the MoQ, says:
> 
> 
>> * Quality is supposed to be all of reality. If Quality had an opposite,
>> the reality it was trying to encompass has to be larger than Quality.
>> That would mean it had failed to encompass all of reality. I.e. Quality doesn't have an opposite.
> 
> Pirsig has equated Quality with Value, stating that "a thing that has no value doesn't exist:."  His epistemology is correct, in that things (objective phenomena) are experiential constructs or representations of value-sensibility.  He is wrong, however, in assuming that Quality or Value exists apart from that sensibility.  If there is no sensibility, there is no experience, in which case neither things nor Value can be realized.  An unrealized world doesn't exist.  The "opposite" of Quality is Nothingness.
> 
> This isn't an issue of chaos vs. quality;


Hi Ham,

Exactly!!!  The minute you compare the two you are so far off the track you're swimming with an octopus.


Marsha






> it's the question of sensibility without a referent.  From a metaphysical perspective, the only entity that possesses unreferenced sensibility is the absolute Source.  In my ontogeny, sensibility is split off (negated) from the Source to actualize existence. This allows for Value to be experienced differentially by a free agent which is itself value-sensibility.  Yes, I am talking about human awareness in an otherness of appearance divided by nothingness.  The "otherness" of existence is the realization or experience of differentiated value; "nothingness" is what accounts for the differentiation.
> 
> Man's existential dilemma is that he exists only in "the present"; he cannot negate the nothingness from which he came and which will be his demise. Only the Absolute Source can do that.  In that sense, Pirsig has it right: without Value there is no existence.  But it is man's value-sensibility transformed into experience, NOT VALUE itself, that creates the world of appearances.  It's most unfortunate, in my opinion, that Mr. Pirsig failed to acknowledge that the realization of Value (existential reality) is contingent upon human sensibility.
> 
> Your Powerpoint presentation certainly puts disparate concepts together in a graphically intriguing manner, Bruce.  It's probably just the kind of presentation I need to explain Essentialism to this august group.
> 
> Thanks to you both for providing a logical analysis of the MoQ thesis as interpreted by the acolytes.
> 
> Best regards,
> Ham
> 
> Moq_Discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/

  
_______________________________________________________________________
   
Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars...