[MD] The Quality/MOQ meta-metaphysics

[MarshaV]

Hello Ham,


On Jun 25, 2010, at 3:28 PM, Ham Priday wrote:

> 
> 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.
 
I'm using a very simple definition of metaphysics, but it is still a definition.

met·a·phys·ics  (mět'ə-fĭz'ĭks) 
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n. • (used with a sing. verb) Philosophy  The branch of philosophy that 
examines the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind 
and matter, substance and attribute, fact and value. 
 
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/metaphysics 
 
 

> 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.

Inherent would be independent or thing-in-itself.  Or the dependency can be on multiple causes and conditions.  



> 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.  

Yes, I know, but evolution is an intellectual static pattern of value like time, justice, truth, etc., etc., etc.    


> 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.  

Yes, those levels are a pattern of like patterns: inorganic, biological, social and intellectual.    



> 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.

I believe the MoQ to be epistemologically (sq) relativistic, and ontologically (DQ) indeterminate.  



> 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.

Thank you for the opportunity to take a shot at a definition.  



Marsha   


 
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