[MD] Ham on Esthesia

[Squonkonguitar at aol.com]

Hi Mark --

Mark, this by-the-numbers exercise to make everything  synonomous does not
make for a productive dialogue.  Pirsig has already  equated Quality with
everything, so you will take that position and I will  not.
 
Mark: Hello Ham.
May i take this as you stating, 'Pirsig holds a monist philosophy and i do  
not'?
 
Ham: My interest is
not in the particular terms used in an author's  thesis, but in the concept
he is postulating.
 
Mark: But Ham, Quality is not postulated. Quality is experienced and as  such 
is fundamental to Human life.
If you restrict yourself to the analitical then you are not going to  address 
the major concerns you express in your essay.

Ham: Quality is  quality, Mark, whether it is labeled "static" or "dynamic".  
To
call DQ  "the One" and SQ "the many" is simply inventing labels to make them
seem  different.
 
Mark: But Ham, all labels are inventions. There isn't a label which has not  
been invented.
DQ and sq are experienced differently.
sq is the known and dead in a creative sense while DQ is always new.
 
Ham: Quality has no potentiality to actuate except for evoking
the  subject's response to it.  This is why I say Quality cannot logically  be
theorized as the source of creation.
 
Mark: But you have just stated, 'x has no potential except y  potential'.
Anyway, as i have already indicated, all monisms from Plotinus, (who goes  to 
great lengths in the enniads to stress this) to Pirsig make it clear that  
nothing can be said about them if they are to be considered Mystical. Anything  
less than that is metaphysical, and even then logic can't cope with them. If 
you  insist you are saying something then you are pushing back to a further 
stage  which would have to be 'potentialsim' or something like that.

Ham: I  don't follow your argument.  What you seem to be saying is that an  
Essence
of pure sensation is an invalid proposition because it cannot be  conceived.
Does this mean that nothing inconceivable or unimaginable can be  real?   Do
the faithful abandon their belief in a God they can't  fathom?
 
Mark: No, i'm saying the conceptual is defined, pure sensation, or  awareness 
is experienced as undefined.
God is fathomed very well in most religions by the way Ham. Faith is  largely 
a matter of clinging to a set of sq patterns, not DQ.

Ham: Cusa  postulated his 'first principle' as the "not-other" because it
expressed the  nature of a God he could not otherwise describe.  He reasoned
that an  infinite source would be present in everything without being an
other to  itself.  There is nothing wrong with this logic, provided that it
refers  to absolute potentiality.
 
Mark: Fine. Then what you have is absolute potentiality as a monism. And  
like your essence/nothing position, the absolute potential is the same as saying  
absolute non-actualised. They are logicaly the same. But if all is potential  
there can be no actual.
 
Ham: If, as Pirsig says, experience is the
source of physical reality,  it doesn't have absolute potentiality because it
can't create itself.   Only an essence that transcends all difference can
create a differentiated  universe.
 
Mark: But essence is a postulation and is therefore finite. How can the  
finite define the infinite? It can't.

>The MoQ does not suggest DQ is  the Prime mover.
> However, the MoQ suggests that sq is migrating toward  DQ.

What, then, is the prime mover or source?  "SQ migrating toward  DQ" is an
unwarranted supposition which avoids the question as to the primary  cause.
 
Mark: A primary cause presumably pushes creation whereas migration may be  
seen as a dragging up or pulling.
This is Asymetrical.
A cause generates that which follows as the potential is actualised.
But migration does not imply a first cuasal potentiality does it?
Migration, and this is very Plotinian, is a coalescing of  differentiations 
reaching toward an undefined end.
Perhaps the begining was pure chaos in the MoQ?
And, rather like DQ, nothing can be said about chaos - it's nonsense to  
systematic contruction.

Ham: Only biological evolution has demonstrated the capacity to move  toward a
higher state of organic complexity.  This tells us nothing  about the
inorganic universe, the comos as a whole, or man's role in  it.
 
Mark: Really Ham? Well, if you begin with Man that may very well be one  such 
conclusion.
But, 'man' is a concept and concepts are part of the MoQ evolutionary  
history.

Ham: Empirical means relying on experience without regard to  system theory.
 
Mark: If you see a train heading straight for you you are not going to rely  
on system theory to get you out of the way are you?

Ham: Sure, we can say "I feel cold" or "I have a pain" without  resorting to
theory. We can even call it a "low quality" experience.   But it doesn't
attempt to explain the cause or meaning of the  experience.  You say my
philosophy is "heavy on  theory/hypothesis".  Well, that's exactly what it
is: a metaphysical  hypothesis.  Pirsig called his "Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance" a  metaphysics and his LILA an "Inquiry into Morals".  He has
alluded to  these topics, providing a loose framework for them, without
really giving us  a codified thesis.  And we have to read between the lines
to glean even  that.  I don't know whether Essentialism qualifies as a
"rationalist"  philosophy, but it does set forth in well-defined terms a
plausible theory as  to how existence arises and why man is central to it.
 
Mark: And i applaude your efforts.
The MoQ codification is Value. The good replaces truth.
Rationalist philosohies are nothing without truth; anything said has to be  
true and able to be demonstrated as so.
The only way they can do this is to begin with axioms, and axioms are  simply 
unchallenged conventions.
The MoQ says truth is a species of a higher source: The good.
The good isn't a convention because everyone knows what is good.

I  said, previously:

> The Primary Source [Essence] is the absolute,  sensible
> One from which difference and all otherness are  derived.

You say:

> The MoQ puts this the other way around and  begins with
> experience which generates logic. ...
> The Moq again  would place this in a mirror relationship to
> your own: Experience -  generates logic - generates scientific theory.

Ham: Again, you seem to be  more interest in cause and effect than ontology.  
I
have no problem with  experience generating logic and scientific theory.  But
what comes out  of this causal chain is a theory of the objective universe.
Do you know any  scientists who refute this theory?
 
Mark: You challenge this in your own essay don't you?
You provide examples which state that the objective universe depends on how  
we decide we like it to be.
It is us who generate our universe.
Our universe is us.
Your runaway technology warning stresses that we should be in control not  
the notion that out-there is going to tell us how things are.
 
Ham: Yet, you say that
Pirsig does away with subject/object  relations.  Is he, in your opinion, a
subjectivist then?  If so,  his philosophy does not deal with what the author
insists is empirical  reality.
 
Mark: Pirsig does not insist that pure empiricism is anything which can be  
defined.
Why should experience be defined?
This implies that definitions are prior to experience, which is rather  
Platonic.
The MoQ position suggests that pure empirical experience is filtered by our  
own sq patterning. It can't be helped because our stable finite selves are  
shaped by evolution. Part of that evolutionary process is a passing phase which  
has it that there are subjects and objects. But intellect cannot maintain 
this  position in a fluid process ontology. You say i am not interested in 
ontology  Ham? Quite the reverse, my interest is concerned with what a process -  
non-essence - value based ontology would be like.

Ham: Essentially we all  begin with experience, whether as scientists,
philosophers, or ordinary  observers.
 
Mark: This is a bit rich Ham, because now you have placed experience at the  
centre of your essence.
I do not recall you stating this before.
You have just stated that experience is prior to essence.
 
Ham: From my perspective, existentialism is
diametrically opposed to  essentialism, despite your regarding them both as
"rationalistic".
 
Mark: Gav mentioned existentialism but i merely asked if you where  
sympathetic?
After reading your essay i see you are not. Fair enough.
By the way, existentialsist also begin with some preconceptions about pure  
experience when they sit down and try to write about it.
The MoQ does say a few things about DQ which perhaps it should not, like,  DQ 
is always new.
But the always new can be a disaster as well as a move forward, so this may  
not be saying all that much?
 
Ham: Mark, you are throwing around labels here, not ideas  and
concepts.  As a consequence, there is little I can add that would  change
your mind or provide new insight.
 
Mark: I detect a move toward the, 'Right, that's the end of this thread'  
position.
I tried my best to avoid this by emphasising an apparent difficulty for the  
rationalist and empirical traditions to communicate.
I stated my sincere wish that we may be up to the task, but you are  
confirming my fears ham.

Ham: As I see it, we're either going to have to start from scratch, after  you
review
my thesis, or discuss one particular topic at a  time.

Thanks for the response.
--Ham