[MD] MD Quality, DQ and SQ

[david buchanan]

Scott, Ian and all MOQers:

Scott said to Ian:
... I don't say that consciousness is "prior". That's Ham-talk. What I say 
is that evolution is the evolution of consciousness (/value/intellect). The 
forms that result are SPOV, including the form called spacetime.

Ian replied:
Good, so do I, if we're using the words Value / Quality. My physics inlcudes 
Pirsigian quality. If we're using consciousness /intellect in this 
fundamental sense - then as I pointed out weeks ago we need some clearer 
(working) definitions of these terms. I cannot (easily) buy that something 
like self-aware-reflective-awareness-and-simultaneous-thought-processing 
arose in one fell swoop prior to any other physics evolving. Which bits (I'm 
scared to say building blocks) components, features, aspects, of 
"consciousness" are we talking about here. You choose the words, don't argue 
with mine, and just to humour me avoid "material" :-)

dmb says:
Leaving the issue of spacetime aside, I'd like to suggest a way to clarify 
the terms around the issue of consciousness as Scott seems to be using them. 
I should put the emphasis on "seems" because Scott's usage is quite unclear 
to me (as usual) and I'm really just guessing. I recently took a little time 
to investigate Franklin Merrel-Wolff on the "integralscience" web site and 
found his brand of mysticism to be very much like Pirsig's. The first of his 
three fundamentals reflects, I think, what Scott is trying to say...

"Wolff's term "Consciousness" here does not mean consciousness as opposed to 
unconsciousness. Nor does Wolff use the word "Consciousness" here as a 
consciousness involving any particular structure or mode of experience, such 
as the structure of intentionality, or the mode of our typical experience 
based on the distinction between subject and object. Rather, the meaning of 
the term "Consciousness" here is THAT which is the primordial ground and 
essential nature of all modes and forms of experience, both subjective and 
objective. In Wolff's words,

The One, nonderivative Reality, is THAT which I have symbolized by 
'Consciousness-without-an-object.' This is Root Consciousness, per se, to be 
distinguished from consciousness as content or as state, on the one hand, 
and from consciousness as an attribute of a Self or Atman, in any sense 
whatsoever. It is Consciousness of which nothing can be predicated in the 
privative sense save abstract Being. Upon It all else depends, while It 
remains self-existent.

Thus, Consciousness is primary, i.e., it is first, prior to everything. Not 
before or first in the sense of time or temporal sequence, but prior in the 
sense of not being secondary to or derivative from anything else. Hence, 
Consciousness is self-existent, i.e., it does not depend upon anything else 
for its being and is entirely self-sufficient and complete. In particular, 
Consciousness does not depend upon, and is not derivative from, matter, 
energy, or any other substance. On the contrary, all experience and all 
objects are derivative from Consciousness. Thus Consciousness is 
constitutive of all things, i.e., all things are, in their ultimate nature, 
nothing but this Primordial Consciousness itself.

dmb resumes:
It seems pretty clear to me that everything said here about "Consciousness" 
can be said about DQ. Its primary and not to be confused with "the mode of 
our typical experience based on the distinction between subject and object". 
Its the ground from which subjects and object arise. Likewise, the second of 
his fundamentals makes a distinction between the "relative" subject and the 
"transcendant" Subject, which seems to refer to the little self/Big Self 
distinction and otherwise comports with the MOQ. And the third fundamental 
of Merrell-Wolff's philosophy is an expanded epistemology that goes beyond 
sensory data and intellect to include "introception", which is the "capacity 
for transcedental knowledge". Again, this seems wholly consistent with the 
MOQ in particular, with the perennial philosophy in general and I'd image 
the difference between then are relatively trival. In either case, we see a 
distinction between the ordinary subjective consciouness and the "Witness" 
as Ken Wilber calls it. In this way, Scott can say that "Consciousness" is 
primary while consciousness is relative, conditional, derivitive. In that 
sense "Consciousness" is prior to consciousnes and is the ground of 
consciousness. This is also what it means to say that DQ gives rise to 
subjects and objects, to say that DQ is the primary empirical reality. DQ is 
the "Consciousness" we know prior to any of our intellectual descriptions. 
And that's how "Consciousness" can be prior to any "thing" even as basic as 
spacetime and prior to the ordinary subjective self.

Ian said to Scott:
...So let me get this right. A philosopher would not have to explain 
consciousness if he he could sleep happy with the idea that it pre-existed 
anything else ? Sounds like the God sky-hook to me. (The whole problem with 
this is there is no "it" to use in the above sentences - as we've stumbled 
across many times elsewhere in this correspondence - there are many 
varieties / sub-types and components of consciousness - we're using a very 
broad loose word here covering a wide range of concepts. Anyone suggesting 
the whole of this pre-existed anything else seems to have a lot of 
explaining to do. A lot more than any humble physicist. I though we were 
having a serious debate ?

Scott replied:
It is only a sky-hook if one assumes that it is something that needs 
explaining, something one should have a theory about. Instead, I take it as 
that which explains, that which makes, maintains, and breaks theories. It's 
not a matter of consciousness pre-existing anything else. It is a matter of 
explaining existence in terms of consciousness. (More pedantry needed on 
'existence', however: what exists "stands out", and it is consciousness (aka 
quality) that makes things stand out. So of consciousness itself (or value), 
one cannot say it exists, one cannot say it doesn't exist, one cannot say it 
both exists and doesn't exist, and one cannot say it neither exists nor 
doesn't exist. My point in this pedantry is that in interpreting what I am 
saying as being a claim that consciousness "pre-exists", and so acts like a 
"sky-hook", you are still locked into a view of consciousness as a 
"something" distinct from "something else" -- physical building blocks, for 
example. Again, do you see Pirsig as employing Quality as a sky-hook? -- 
Well, actually, in some ways I think he does employ DQ as a sky-hook, but 
that's one of my complaints about the MOQ).

dmb says:
I can see why Ian is confused. I don't think this sort of psuedo-Zen 
equivocation is very helpful. I think what you should be saying to Ian here, 
Scott, is that Consciousness is like DQ. Its not something that can be 
easily described in intellectual terms. Its not something that can be known 
rationally or through the senses, but it can be apprehended through 
non-rational means. It can be known in experience. And telling Ian that your 
lack of clarity is due to his holding the wrong assumption that assertions 
need to be explained only adds insult to injury. And what does it mean to 
say that consciousness does NOT exist or to say that you can't say it does? 
If its known in experience, in what sense is its existence in question, 
disputable or paradoxical? I think you're trying a little too hard to swim 
in the deep end here, Scott, and Ian is paying the price.

Ian replied to Scott:
...So you are saying you don't feel any obligation to explain the existence 
of consciousness. That's very brave of you. We're back to blind faith or 
suspension of disbelief again.

dmb says:
Exactly. I mean, if Scott is TRYING to say what other philosophical mystics 
are saying its not really a matter of faith or of suspending disbelief. 
Mysticism rests on experience, not religious faith or intellectual 
speculation. But Scott's cryptic and dismissive responses do give one the 
impression that his views are based on wishful thinking and tend to come 
across as mere evasion. This is exactly the kind of thing that gives 
mysticism a bad name. Ian's attitude testifies to this danger...

Ian said to Scott:
...It's now clear that yours is a mystical world, a superanatural world 
beyond physics. That is where I find the rug pulled out from under me - it 
ceases to be a serious debate - if you are allowed to bring in elements that 
are immune from explanation. ...Surely only mystical schools would exempt 
themselves from any need to explain?

dmb says:
Scott might feel that he's exempt, but the mystical schools are careful to 
explain exactly why explanations can only take us so far. In the mystical 
element found in all the world's religions "we find the claim that 
eventually one must let go of the activites of thought and imagination in 
order to enter a region of consciousness that such symbolic activity cannot 
reach." And the philosophers who have been mystics all "share a common 
belief that the fundamental nature of reality is outside language; that 
language splits things up into parts while the true nature of reality is 
undivided."

This has been really fun for me because I'm no kind of physicalist and so I 
really get to disagree with both of you. Lucky me.

Thanks.
dmb

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