[MD] The Quality/MOQ meta-metaphysics

[Ham Priday]

 On Friday, June 25, 2010, at 3:39 AM, Marsha V. wrote:

> Hi Ham,
>
> Does this work?
>
> Subject-object metaphysics reflects the view that reality is made
> of inherently existing self and objects, and an individuals thoughts,
> being ephemeral (ever-changing, relational, unbounded, impermanent),
> are not real.  This view, though, is a learned set of conceptual
> attributes overlaid onto experience.  The MoQ is not opposed to
> experience, but the SOM definition.

Well, Marsha, I'm opposed to "the SOM definition" too -- not because an 
individual's thoughts are emphemeral or impermanent, but because our concept 
of physical reality is acquired from common experience, not a metaphysics. 
What makes a metaphysics is a theory of ontology and epistemology that 
relates experiential 'being-aware' to the transcendent ("supra-natural") 
reality.  To insist that we can turn this universal worldview into a 
"metaphysics" by arbitrarily dividing it into categories of knowedge is 
sheer sophistry without logic or substance.

Now I'm not sure whether "inherently existing" is intended to mean 
"independently arising," "self-sufficient", or "having the power to be," but 
I agree that none of these potentialities apply to selfness or its perceived 
objects.  This, of course, means that all of existence is dependent on a 
creative source that is NOT INHERENT in nature.

Right away this contradicts others here who argue that probability, 
genetics, spontaneous evolution, or some 'singular state' of energy is the 
cause of existential reality.  Except for Pirsig, of course, who suggests 
that Quality is not only self-subsistent but the creator of levels and 
patterns that represent all experience, including self-awareness, 
sensibility, intellect and thoughts, yet stops short of positing it as 
Creator or Primary Source.  Had he developed his thesis based on a primary 
source, with a plausible epistemology to explain its differentiation, the 
MoQ might have ended up as a genuine metaphysics instead of a euphemistic 
paradigm of existence.  As it is, we are left with some nice prose about 
moral and intellectual virtues to which we (if we're lucky or smart enough) 
may attach our patterned selves and rise above the mundane universe.

At least that's the way I size it up.  (You may of course regard this as 
just another of Ham's op-ed pieces thrown from left field.)

Thanks for your clarification, though, Marsha.

Kindest regards,
Ham